United States to Host Cricket World Cup
In June, the United States national cricket team will co-host the Cricket World Cup for the first time. Above, Nosthush Kenjige, the bowler for the men’s team of the United States, during a training session in April 2022 near Houston. (© Peter Della Penna/MLC Cricket)
An unusual scene unfolds in this park in Garland, a suburb of Dallas. Children playing soccer? No. Families walking their dogs? Not quite. What surprises is a friendly match of an almost unknown sport in a good part of the country: cricket. And not far away, in Grand Prairie, the Major League Cricket (MLC) Super Kings host rival teams from other major American cities, including Los Angeles, New York, and Seattle, as part of a professional American league founded in 2023.
While this sport has taken root in major cities like Dallas – where former professional cricket player Thirunavukkarasu Kumaran (“Kenny”) established the Texas Cricket Academy in 2013 – the popularity of cricket in the United States is about to reach a new level.
For the first time, the United States, along with several Caribbean countries, will host the International Cricket Council’s Men’s T20 World Cup. Teams from 20 countries will compete between June 1 and 29.
“This is truly a once-in-a-lifetime event,” enthuses Hemant Buch, the founder of the California Cricket Academy, who is of Indian descent. “People are very excited, we are fired up, and the United States is very motivated.”
The fact that the United States is playing may be a victory in itself. The American team generally does not have a strong enough foundation to qualify, but the host country of the tournament participates in the World Cup regardless of its ranking. The American team, fresh from beating Bangladesh in a T20 series in Houston, will face Canada in the opening match of the World Cup in Grand Prairie.
Cricket has found its place in the Dallas area, where fans cheer on the Texas Super Kings of the Major League Cricket during a match in July 2023. (© LM Otero/AP)
Other matches will be played in Florida and New York, where organizers have built stadiums for the World Cup matches. Hemant Buch’s entire family will be traveling to New York to attend the match between India, the favorite to win the tournament this year, and Pakistan.
Historians believe that cricket originated in England over 400 years ago and spread to the former Crown colonies, particularly in South Asia and the Caribbean. But for many Americans, cricket remains as mysterious as American football is for many foreigners. The United States can, however, boast of a illustrious history as they participated in the first international cricket match in history in 1844. (The American team had to bow down to the Canadian team.) Cricket began to lose ground to baseball in the United States in the 1860s, and it more or less fell into obscurity until a new wave of immigrants breathed new life into the sport in their adopted country.
Enjoyed by hundreds of millions of people worldwide, cricket is also popular in the United States. The Major League Cricket, launched in 2023, consists of six teams: Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Seattle, Dallas, and Washington. While foreign players currently dominate the MLC, over time, more and more Americans could rise to the occasion. The United States will host the return of cricket to the Olympics in Los Angeles in 2028, after a 128-year absence.
Cricket is particularly popular in cities with a significant population of immigrants from South Asia or the Caribbean. In 2003, Hemant Buch helped establish the California Cricket Academy in the San Francisco Bay Area, home to nearly half a million people of South Asian descent. The academy organizes programs with local parks and recreation services, including in Cupertino, where Apple Incorporated, the consumer technology company that manufactures the iPhone, is headquartered.
“We benefit from a lot of diversity,” praises Hemant Buch. “I saw a woman at a match reading a book titled Cricket for Dummies, which I didn’t even know existed.”
Local clubs also take on the task of introducing cricket to younger generations. In the United States, the sport is played by both boys and girls. In July 2022, the American under-19 girls’ team won the first Rising Stars under-19 T20 cricket championship for girls from the Caribbean.
It’s a common story in America. Far from the stadiums and the spotlight, immigrant communities bring their love of a sport to the United States and popularize it among their fellow citizens. Hemant Buch now sees young people playing in the streets and vacant lots of San Francisco, just as he did himself in the past.
And Thirunavukkarasu Kumaran points out that in Texas, older players from his cricket academy have found a place to practice their favorite sport. “They are living their dream,” he proudly states.
