How Competitive Will The U.S. Be In The T20 Cricket World Cup?

On June 1, The United States and Canada will continue their 180-year cricket rivalry to open the T20 World Cup at the Grand Prairie Stadium in Texas. Just days after the IPL has left the building with its sixes, scores of 200 plus and soaring revenues, the internationalists rejoin their own countries to do it all again under their national flag. T20 is the short form of the game but has the brand value of a globetrotting cash cow.

Where better to bring this carnival than to the largest sporting market in the world. The U.S. is co-hosting the event alongside the West Indies and therefore did not have to go through any formal qualification process. That’s quite handy as the country is currently 19th in the T20 rankings, sitting between Papua New Guinea and Oman both of whom are in the 20 nations taking part. The U.S is only an associate member of the International Cricket Council and is aiming to change that by 2030. Winning matches against top-tier opposition is the only way to full member status and a more competitive team.

It’s a historic moment for a country that had cricket as its national pastime before the Civil War. In the early 20th century, the game was on the wane in most states as baseball became “our game” as Walt Whitman described it. However, the Gentlemen of Philadelphia continued to tour England where Sir Plum Warner, a respected English Test cricketer, described America’s John Barton King as, ‘one of the finest bowlers of all time’. Even Sir Donald Bradman described ‘Bart’ as, “America’s greatest cricketing son.” Where art thou, next generation hero?

With Major League Cricket in its infancy, the T20 World Cup is another stepping stone to bring the sport back into the mainstream. The 15-man squad was announced at the end of last week. It is a fairly senior thirtysomething composite of players who have either emigrated to the field of dreams or moved on from the highly competitive world of South Asian domestic cricket. India and Pakistan are the world-class opponents in Group A, so there will be plenty of memories and conversations to catch up on after stumps are drawn. Or shattered. Despite the recent 4-0 whitewash over Canada, the step up in quality will be huge.

There is one eye-catching name from the 2015 ODI World Cup when New Zealand lost to Australia in front of 100,000 spectators at Melbourne. Corey Anderson, who scored a duck in that match, played 49 ODIs and 31 T20Is under the Kiwi flag and was a regular for San Francisco Unicorns in the first edition of the MLC last summer. The 33-year-old made his debut for his new nation in the T20 series against the Canadians in April and scored 28 and 55. His experience will be invaluable.

Skipper Monank Patel is one of those rare breed of players who leads the side and keeps wicket. The 31-year-old was born in Gujarat and was a former teammate of Axar Patel and Jasprit Bumrah, the leading wicket-taker in the current IPL. There is a strong Gujarati populace in the United States, especially in New Jersey where the skipper emigrated permanently in 2016. “I never thought I don’t belong here,” Patel remarked in an interview with Crizbuzz. He’s a man ready to stand his ground.

In 2018, Patel was very much on the fringes of the fringes but caught the eye with an 80-ball century century at a selection camp held in Texas in 2018 to kickstart his international career. The selection criteria from USA Cricket has certainly been controversial and a little inward-looking. It has prevented players like fast bowler Cameron Gannon, who was second only to Trent Boult in the 2023 MLC wicket column, from being considered.

The squad is packed with players who have history in the Caribbean Premier League, IPL or other franchises. Left-arm paceman Saurabh Netravalkar once captained India U-19s in a team that included KL Rahul while Milind Kumar played for Delhi Daredevils and Royal Challengers Bangalore.

The New York boy of the team is vice-captain Aaron Jones who was born in Queens, but grew up and played much of his early cricket in Barbados at youth and senior levels. Perhaps the most talented of the group, Steven Taylor, was born in Florida but made his Stars and Stripes debut as a 16-year-old against the home of his parents, Jamaica. Taylor scored the first ever T20 century by an American in 2013 and averages in the 40s with a strike rate of 147.

Newly appointed coach Stuart Law is the kind of former hard-nosed Australian the team will need when the going gets rough. He has also led a nomadic existence, leaving his native country and becoming a British citizen just under two decades ago. It should suit this team of multiple and mixed generations, especially as Law has coached Sri Lanka, the West Indies and Bangladesh. The Americans will play the latter in final warm-up matches before the real business begins.

In a recent poll, over half of American cricket fans thought their team can lift the prize in Barbados on June 29. That is highly unlikely, but the path to being a force in the game has begun.