Cricket is not trying to conquer America anew; it is trying to revive a game that already died there once.
In New York in 1844, the USA hosted Canada in what is considered the first international team fixture in any sport. About 10,000 watched over the two days. Now, 180 years on, this fixture opened the 2024 Twenty20 World Cup in Grand Prairie Stadium, Texas, with the hosts winning by seven wickets.
Until the American Civil War broke out in 1861, cricket was America’s most popular game. Around 1900, the US boasted one of the best bowlers in the world: Bart King, a swing bowler who imported techniques from baseball pitchers. “One who, at the top of his power and speed, was at least the equal of the greatest of them all,” judged Plum Warner, the former England captain who played frequently against King. In both 1893 and 1912, the Gentleman of Philadelphia defeated near full-strength Australian sides, who were returning from Test tours of England. The USA might well have been the fourth best side in the world at this point.
Yet like Ratchett in Murder on the Orient Express, American cricket was not killed by one hand alone. It was gravely damaged by the American Civil War. Baseball was a simpler game for soldiers to play, and then invented a mythology as being a wholly American game, no matter that it was also an English import. While cricket continued to thrive in Philadelphia – there were around 100 cricket clubs in the city in 1900 – American cricket was further hampered by the sport’s global administration.
The first global governing body for the game was established in 1907: the Imperial Cricket Conference. By its very name, the Imperial Cricket Conference locked out nations outside the British Empire, barring them from Test status. For much of its history since, American cricket has been tantamount to a secret society.
Perhaps no longer. Taking 16 matches in the T20 World Cup to the USA, the first ever global event staged in the country – the other 39 games will be played in the West Indies – represents the greatest attempt yet to grow the sport here.
“There’s a great vibe around,” said the US pace bowler Ali Khan, whose yorkers previously earned him an Indian Premier League contract and who took a wicket in his team’s opening win over Canada. “We’re gonna get a whole new exposure for the game of cricket in this country. The game has never been covered in media like this before. So it can only get better from here.”