Can the land of baseball be bowled over by cricket?

Are you here for cricket,” asks Luis, a Colombian banker who doubles up as an Uber driver for his “beer money”, as he picks us up from Eisenhower Park — a sprawling splash of green in Long Island, New York, which has been partly converted into a unique pop-up stadium to host the T20 World Cup. Such is the buzz around the tournament that even locals are curious about this “new sport which has the look and feel of baseball”.The big draw, of course, is the India-Pakistan game today. Fans have already streamed in from different corners of the US. Instead of baseball staples like hamburgers and hot dogs, food stands will have samosas, chai and shikanji. There will be watch-parties at nearby parks, and organisers expect about 6,000 people to attend, apart from the 35,000 at the stadium. “Crowds are going into shops, bakeries, restaurants, hotels are full...It has helped local businesses,” Gary Slavin, treasurer of the Nassau County Chamber of Commerce, told TOI.For a sport that’s just spreading its wings in the US, that’s a promising start. The International Cricket Council (ICC) is keen to globalise the game and for that to happen, it is crucial that it finds a bigger foothold in the US. According to ICC estimates, there are already 2,00,000 cricket players in the US. The sport has been included in the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, and the T20 World Cup is a bit of a dress rehearsal for that. medium110820119Hoping for fans beyond diasporaSanjay Parthasarathy, owner of the Seattle Orcas team which was part of Major League Cricket (MLC) that started in the US last year, feels these events are a catalyst. “MLC, T20 World Cup, cricket’s inclusion in Olympics — these things can help the sport to grow in the US. But if it has to pique the curiosity of non-South Asians in America, it has to have a strong domestic structure. For starters, the national team has to do well. And for that to happen, we need more turf wickets, more grounds and more awareness about the sport,” says Parthasarathy, a former Microsoft executive who went on to found his own AI and machine learning startup which was later acquired. Now, he’s nurturing the game of cricket like a startup, and hoping it gets a fan following beyond the diaspora, which has kept its love of the game alive through communal meetups to watch matches and weekend games in parks and empty parking lots. mediumhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSTMKBLDoLgThere was a huge boost for the US team on Thursday when they pulled off a magnificent Super Over victory against Pakistan in Dallas. This is the biggest win in the history of US cricket, and it came on the back of a victory against Canada when they chased down 196. With two more games to go, the hosts now have a chance to make the Super-8s, which could well be a game-changer for US cricket.“This is an amazing performance by a group of hungry players who have been given a second chance in sport and life,” says Parthasarathy.While Indian expat Saurabh Netravalkar, who is an engineer at Oracle and an excellent ukulele player, was the hero of Thursday’s triumph, their biggest star Corey Anderson is a prime example of what one can do with second chances. The allrounder is a former New Zealand player, who had his successes in the IPL as well. mediumhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GdcXDfH_Q8 After injuries took a toll on his body, Anderson and his family started living in Dallas, Texas, where his wife Mary Margaret is from. In 2023, he became eligible to represent the US, and it was the lure of playing a World Cup that made him return to competitive cricket after his first retirement in 2020.After the win, he was flooded with congratulatory text messages. “I think USA Cricket is just not that well known within America, and I think we put ourselves a little bit more on the map,” the 33-year-old Anderson told CNN in an interview.While the likes of Anderson, Harmeet Singh (Indian origin) and Ali Khan (Pakistani origin) have played a big role in the US doing well in recent times, it is the need for a home-grown superstar that is crucially lacking to the US structure. medium nocaption110820149Will the next big cricket star come from the US?Sunil Subramaniam, a former Tamil Nadu spinner who spends six months in Seattle as coach of the MSK Prasad International Cricket Academy, feels it won’t be too long before the US will throw up its first big star, and more likely “it will be a batter”.“These days, cricketers from across the world are taking the help of baseball coaches to work on their range hitting, which is basically an offshoot of baseball batting. T20 cricket is slowly becoming a game of hand-eye coordination and power, and American lads playing baseball are already good at that,” says Subramaniam, who was one of Ravichandran Ashwin’s early mentors. medium110802469He adds that some young Americans (both blacks and whites), are slowly showing interest. “We often share practice facilities with baseball teams in Seattle. Sometimes, when their practice is over, they come over and watch us train. A few of them even do some knocking and I can tell you, they are very good.”US cricket bosses are optimistic that the T20 World Cup can do what FIFA World Cup in 1994 did for football (soccer for Americans) in the country.Venu Pisike, chairman of US Cricket, told TOI that interest in the India-Pakistan game has been massive, and has gone beyond South Asians. “There are really important people in the country who are taking an interest in the game. If it’s a success, it can truly be a game-changer for US cricket,” Pisike says. medium110820179MLC, for instance, boasts of tech investors like Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen. It already has official List A status from ICC, which means tournament playing records now count as official format statistics, and more teams will be added in the new season.But, according to Subramaniam, the change will happen when there is a pathway for the sport through schools and colleges. “For games like baseball, basketball, soccer, there is scholarship in schools and colleges and parents want their kids to take these disciplines up. After the 1994 World Cup, there was a major push for soccer among young girls and that led to a world-beating team in the 2000s and a player like Megan Rapinoe,” Subramaniam says.Cricket, too, needs its own Rapinoe in its ‘newfoundland’, and the seeds might be sown by Virat Kohli and Shaheen Afridi as they fight it out in the ‘Superbowl of 22 yards’ at the Nassau County ground on Sunday.