Cricket starts spreading the World Cup news in the Big Apple

On a local CBS TV news bulletin in New York recently, a story about ticket sales for the T20 World Cup ended with the hosts wondering “why the game lasts so long”.

“I know they are aiming for those three pieces of wood planted in the ground at the back,” said one, who admitted, not surprisingly, knowing next to nothing about the sport.

“The pitcher/the bowler, he has to hit those things and then another guy ‘blocks’ the ball ...” replied her co-host, who explained that his father, who was from the Caribbean, played the game when he was younger — but obviously wasn’t paying attention.

“Yeah and then they run up and down ... I’ve got to go read up on that ... there’s a lot going on,” came the reply.

To help out the Americans, the International Cricket Council (ICC) has roped in award-winning reggae artist Sean Paul to produce and perform the tournament’s official song, Out of this World.

Usain Bolt is a brand ambassador. 

The ICC is taking a big risk hosting one of its flagship events in the US, but it already knows it has a big audience, specifically in New York, which is home to a global diaspora. 

While the ICC would like to win over those Americans perplexed by “those three pieces of wood in the ground at the back”, that’s not their real target audience for the T20 World Cup. Instead it is that large expat community — from the Asian subcontinent, the Caribbean, even South Africa — that is dotted all over the US, but especially in New York, that the ICC hopes will be the bulk of the audience.

The Nassau County International Cricket Stadium, the temporary facility in Eisenhower Park, Long Island (a two-hour train ride from Manhattan), will host 12 matches, including the marquee matchup between India and Pakistan on June 9.   

Aiden Markram’s Proteas will play three of their four group games there, including the venue’s first on June 3 against Sri Lanka. 

This is a tournament that might be competing with the NBA Finals and heaven forbid the local New York Knicks team reach that stage, because then whatever attention cricket is attempting to garner will be lost.

Already the T20 World Cup is up against baseball and specifically the legendary New York Yankees, but cricket for all the partisan support it has in the subcontinent and the fact that it is among the top three most-followed sports in the world as a result, still needs to break free of the shackles of being a colonial game. 

To most Americans it is played by men dressed in white and takes days to finish. 

The T20 format is the ideal means to introduce cricket to a new audience and in the case of the World Cup, give expats something to engage with. The Major League Cricket competition, which started last year and, like the SA20, has six franchises all owned by Indian conglomerates, is another stepping stone on that journey of taking cricket to the US. 

The big one of course is the Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles in 2028, which will include a cricket competition for the first time since 1900. How cricket is able to compete for attention against other sports will be a significant display of its growth. 

Cricket has been very isolated globally, happy to exist in its established territories. But for all the money floating around it, especially because of the IPL, its opportunities for growth are limited and thus its earning potential hamstrung.

Even the big American sports, which revelled in their isolationism for decades, are trying to establish themselves on “the other side of the pond”. Baseball has hosted games in Korea and Australia, American Football plays regular matches in Europe and basketball is rapidly making strides across Africa, Europe and the Far East. 

Cricket needs this moment, the razzmatazz that the US is a master at producing, to at least give itself a foothold in a powerful commercial market.

Cricket won’t replace the “American pastime” of baseball, but it doesn’t have to. As long as enough people know about the pitcher guy trying to hit those three pieces of wood, then taking the T20 World Cup to the States would have been a success.