Aaron Jones Powers The T20 World Cup With Home Runs As U.S. Start Fast

It’s generally a healthy sign when the unfancied hosts of a major global tournament put their stamp on home territory before they exit stage left. When England was the venue for the full version of the Cricket World Cup in 1999, they were knocked out before the official song was released and had an ambassador who described cricket as “more boring than fishing”. It was memorable for all the wrong reasons as the sport suffered in the nation that gave the world the game.

Thankfully, the start of the 2024 T20 World Cup was an enthralling match between co-hosts the U.S. and their North American rivals Canada. The largest sports market in the world is looking to spread the cricket gospel to the unconverted. There’s another MLC season that starts 24 hours after Independence Day. Cricket is also inked in for the LA 2028 Olympics. It’s a good time to remind everyone that the international game was born in the USA and reel in as many viewers to the fast thrust of the T20 spectacle.

The American team certainly did what they could on the opening night at the Grand Prairie Stadium in Texas, a former baseball stadium. Cricket might still be under a small c in the bat and ball games across the field of dreams, but this was as captivating as anything that the marketing men could have served up.

America’s win in the most high-scoring and entertaining game of the T20 World Cup so far was the perfect entry point for those who have been casual observers outside the 5,000 souls in the crowd. There were even t-shirts with the image of American President Abraham Lincoln padded up. The history books do report a sighting of Lincoln at a match between Chicago and Milwaukee in 1849.

In 1987, the Blue Jays set a Major League Baseball record of ten home runs against the Baltimore Orioles in front of a crowd of over 27,000 in Toronto. This match deserved that audience as Aaron Jones hit ten sixes into the crowd with a high degree of skill and panache. One of the U.S. vice captain’s maximums went sailing out of the ground. It wasn’t quite as long as Mickey Mantles’s famous rocket launch for the New York Yankees, but a 99-meter hit was thrilling stuff.

Jones was born in Queens although a lot of his youth cricket was played in Barbados. His pure hitting was reminiscent of Carlos Brathwaite’s four sixes in the final over to beat England in the 2016 edition. Just a few days ago, America’s newest sporting hero was already thinking big for the nation. “We want to win games. We want to bring as much competition as any other team in the tournament, I wouldn’t call it an upset if we beat Pakistan or India. I will just say that we played better cricket on the day. It is a game of cricket. The bigger teams can lose as well.”

The irony is that the match-up between India and Pakistan on June 9 is the star of this show so far, a match that could have easily sold multiple times over the 34,000 capacity of the Nassau County International Cricket Stadium. The Americans will get the chance to play in that purpose-built venue a few days later against the superpower of cricket. Cricket is the second most popular sport in the world and with an estimated 90 per cent of the fanbase watching Rohit Sharma’s team, there will be a chance to test themselves against the very best with a massive audience.

Jones might recall those innocent tweets he sent a decade ago about the brilliance of Virat Kohli. The 29-year old will be within yards of the Indian legend in a matter of days. Jones also tweeted that his own time would come some day. He was right.

If USA Cricket does nothing else of note in this tournament, at least they have opened eyes to how far a cricket ball can travel with a pure golf-like swing of a bat. The first night optics were so good.