Culture Society, Identity and Belonging
Two numbers to conjure with: 200,000 and 16. The first is the estimated number of cricketers in the United States, up from 30,000 two decades ago. The second is the number of games being played in America as joint host (with the West Indies) of this year’s T20 World Cup. “Cricket has arrived,” proclaimed a T20 advert in the NYT showing the Statue of Liberty holding a cricket bat. Will it stick? The US beat Canada in the opening match on Saturday night – 180 years after the two sides played the first international fixture in Manhattan. Yesterday Sri Lanka played South Africa in a specially-built 34,000 capacity stadium in New York, with the most anticipated match between India and Pakistan on 9 June. After the event, the New York stadium will be dismantled. The hope is that cricket’s future in America will prove more enduring.
Further reading: Howzat! Will America be bowled over by cricket?