Saurabh Netravalkar was due back at his day job on Monday, coding for enterprise software giant Oracle. Instead, the 32-year-old is in Antigua, preparing to lead the US cricket team’s attack against heavy-hitting South Africa in the latter stages of the T20 World Cup.
The India-born fast bowler is one of the surprise breakout stars of the biennial tournament, having helped his ragtag team script one of the most unlikely tales in the history of the sport.
The US, which automatically qualified for the World Cup as co-hosts of the tournament along with the West Indies, surprised the most seasoned cricket watchers in the group stage, beating 2022 finalists Pakistan and losing only narrowly to titans India in New York.
That, along with victory against Canada and a washout against Ireland in Florida on Friday, was enough to propel the team into the final eight, in their first World Cup appearance.
“A lot of people don’t really pay much attention to US cricket,” Queens-born Aaron Jones, who played for Barbados before switching to the US team, said of the historic run. “So probably the whole world doesn’t already know how much talent we have here, how good the players are that we have here. I think that could be a little advantage to us.”
Netravalkar, who came to the US for college and is on a work visa, played a central role, holding his nerve in a deciding “super over” against Pakistan after the two sides posted identical totals, and dismissing India’s Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma — two of the world’s best batsmen — in a close clash. After some matches, he logs on to his work laptop in his hotel room.
His teammates, who hail largely from India, Pakistan and the Caribbean, have similar stories. Many abandoned fledgling cricketing careers in their home countries in order to seek economic opportunities in the US, where they discovered the game’s slow revival. The Indian press has labelled them the “H1-B” team, referring to the US visa for foreign workers.
Captain Monank Patel, who hails from Anand in Gujarat, where he was a professional cricketer, came to the US in 2015 to run a Chinese restaurant franchise called “Teriyaki Madness”. He initially played club cricket on artificial turf pitches before joining the national team, which awarded its first professional contracts just five years ago.
The team’s World Cup success had begun to attract a wider fan base, Patel said. “Mostly we see the Asian community and Caribbean community coming in and supporting us and watching the game, but we have seen a lot of [other] people . . . it is really surprising and good to see.”
News of Team USA’s triumphs even made it on to mainstream sports outlets, with American digital sports site Barstool Sports breathlessly describing the win over Pakistan to its viewers as “like the Red Sox losing to [minor league] Durham Bulls”.
The White House on Tuesday called the US team’s results “tremendous”, adding “we’re cheering them on”.
The unexpected coverage has been welcomed by those who have bet millions of dollars on the game’s growth in America, where it was once more popular than baseball before fading into obscurity.
Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella and Texan billionaire Ross Perot Jr are among the backers of Major League Cricket, a T20 franchise that will enter its second season soon after the World Cup. Global stars including Australian bowler Pat Cummins and Afghanistan’s Rashid Khan have been lured to the tournament by outsized, six-figure pay packets.
The US team’s run “has brought a lot more awareness, people are hearing a lot more about cricket”, said Sanjay Govil, owner of MLC team Washington Freedom, whose current squad includes Netravalkar, and US teammate Andries Gous. “It is one of those watershed moments, like the US beating Russia [at ice hockey] in the 1980 Olympics,” Govil added.
MLC chief executive Vijay Srinivasan said he hoped the US’s performance “inspires boys and girls around the country to pick up a bat and ball this summer”, joining the 200,000 who already play the sport recreationally, according to figures by the governing US body.
While there are just three dedicated cricket stadiums in the country — in Dallas, Texas; Morrisville, North Carolina; and Fort Lauderdale, Florida — several more are expected to be built in time for 2028, when cricket will return to the Olympic Games, hosted in Los Angeles.
The US team’s advancement also means the country will automatically qualify for the 2026 T20 World Cup in Sri Lanka and India, home to the sport’s largest fan base, and the commercial heart of the modern game.
In Antigua, the US squad’s focus is on the more immediate task of getting to the semi-finals. To do so would require even greater heroics, with the team facing unbeaten South Africa, a dominant West Indies team on home turf, and current World Cup holders England, who are finally getting into their stride after a shaky start.
“When we started the World Cup . . . we never had any kind of pressure, we were focusing on one game at a time,” Patel said. “That’s what we want to continue to do, without thinking too much.”