Cricket awaits a new dawn in the United States, home to the world's most successful sports league. The International Cricket Council (ICC) is finally making progress towards cricket being reintroduced to the Olympics at the 2028 Los Angeles Games. Next month in the United States, the T20 World Cup, which will be co-hosted with West Indies, is just around the corner.
For now, cricket is just a curiosity for the average American, a cousin to baseball trying to find its feet. This is despite the fact that the largest audience in the US is made up of foreigners from the Indian subcontinent.
But USA Cricket president Venu Pithike hopes for wider acceptance. “The next four years of World Cups and the Olympics are a great opportunity to grow this sport and remove the foreign label from the cricket community,” he says.
An article on the U.S. Cricket website calls the game a “fast-growing sport.” However, a recent online survey conducted domestically by YouGov found that only 6% of respondents knew about the T20 World Cup, and 52% of respondents believed the US team would lift the trophy.
Now, the American team also includes New Zealand World Cup participant Corey Anderson. But at 33 years old, his best years may be behind him. Half of the team is made up of players who have honed their skills in India's domestic cricket. Monank Patel's U.S. team's best chance may be to beat Canada, and they could pull off another upset in league play. Few teams qualified for the Super 8 stage in the 20-team tournament.
“There are challenges,” Pischke said. “One is developing stars. That will happen as our teams perform. Another challenge is that in every sport there are pathways and opportunities to get into college and get scholarships. That's what's needed, so we need to develop programs to help people embrace cricket as a sport.
“Even though we are an associate member, the advantage we have is that we already have a large fan base. We have close to 500,000 active players domestically.”
Development is hampered by years of poor administrative management. USA Cricket has a limited role in running the tournament due to limited funding provided by the ICC due to governance issues. “The majority of the burden of setting up and operating stadiums for the World Cup is being borne by the ICC,” Pischke said.
A temporary 34,000-seat stadium with a drop-in pitch will be built in New York to host the huge showdown between India and Pakistan. Games will also be played in Dallas, Texas and Lauderhill, Florida.
“That's not a long-term approach,” Pischke said. “The policies and processes needed in this country would not have met the schedule to build the stadium. Moreover, with the opening of the pop-up stadium within a few months, the visibility of the sport was further increased. In the long term, we will work with our commercial partners to build multiple stadiums over the next few years, which will help us host major events in the future.”
While brand ambassadors Usain Bolt and Yuvraj Singh will spread the word about next month's T20 World Cup, much of the marketing will focus on the showpiece clash between India and Pakistan.
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