A BRAVE NEW WORLD (CUP)

Move into USA and Canada could be huge for the game

- MIKE WALTERS

IN that famous cradle of bat and ball, the Grand Prairie Stadium in Dallas, cricket's Twenty20 World Cup opens tonight with a sporting rivalry for the ages.

When the United States and Canada christen a brave new world for the game, woe betide the established order if our friends in stars, stripes and maple leaves decide it's better than the Yankees and Red Sox - except every pitch isn't a full toss.

And when another temple of cricket, the Nassau County International Stadium - a 34,000-seater pop-up venue 25 miles east of New York City, knocked up in barely five months since January - hosts India against Pakistan on June 9, they will discover the true definition of needle.

Too long confined to Commonwealth outposts, cricket's excursion into virgin territory for a major tournament is potentially its most exciting advance in 150 years.

But as Winston Churchill once said: "Do not let spacious plans for a new world divert your energies from saving what is left of the old."