Yorkers for New Yorkers!

As the US steps up to the crease as co-host of the T20 World Cup, it is important to note that cricket's globalisation cake is made up of more than what is cooking inside this tournament

- SHARDA UGRA

Are you not entertained, America?” Nasser Hussain hollers as Aaron Jones’s 10th six sails into the night sky over suburban Dallas, giving the US a turnaround victory against Canada in the opening match of the ICC T20 World Cup at the Grand Prairie Cricket Stadium. Right there—in Nasser channelling his inner Russell Crowe, Texas sixes, floodlights, fireworks and commentators calling, “that’s a home run anywhere in America”—is the mashup that cricket, the world’s second most widely followed team sport, has sought for long.

The majority of this World Cup’s 55 matches will take place across the Caribbean. But it is the 16 games in this first fortnight on the US mainland—in suburbs and towns outside Dallas, New York and Fort Lauderdale—that are meant to be the headliners. To make a bit of noise and stir the edge of the very vast pond that is US sport.

Never mind the final in Barbados on June 29, India vs Pakistan on June 9 was the Big Show for the Big Apple. Well not exactly New York City, but certainly in New York state. On a drop-in pitch in a pop-up stadium, the Nassau County International Cricket Stadium (NCICS), in a Long Island town called East Meadow. Its temporary stands were flown in from the Las Vegas F1 Grand Prix, its tickets set at high-roller prices. What was noted in The New York Times other than the game’s “festive and vibrant atmosphere” were the possible numbers watching outside the stadium’s 34,028. NYT told its readers that viewership at the last India vs Pakistan match was 398 million “in India alone…” and then added, “this year’s Super Bowl had 123 million viewers”. Gotcha, fingers crossed. That is the ripple at the edge of the pond. Which, the ICC hopes, will spread a little wider with the invigorating performance of the US team.