Cricket and the Yankee

By CAM

Will cricket ever takeoff in the US of A? Certainly Don Lockerbie, President of USCA is very positive of its prospects. One can’t simply deny the fact that there are millions of followers of the game in the US. Alarming as it may seem, there are more followers of cricket in this region than the combined population of Australia and New Zealand, two of the leading cricket playing nations in the world. However, we must accept the fact that it is a long time coming for Cricket to make its way into the ranks of a mainstream sport in America. One might say that Cricket taking off in America is analogous to baseball taking off in India!!

Can it happen? Sure, anything is possible!! Will it happen? Certainly not in the next twenty or thirty or forty years!!

There are numerous forms of team sports that are played in America. Apart from the widely followed sports such as American Football, Baseball, Basketball, and Ice Hockey, you have Lacrosse, Football (soccer), Volleyball, Rugby, Kickball, and oh yes, Cricket. And a few others I am probably missing. While Football (soccer) has been around, it has always remained a second fiddle to the main team sports followed in America. Hosting the World Cup in 1994 only succeeded in creating some temporary excitement.

Let us face it; the core of America rarely buys into a foreign idea. Often times, during the wait for something like this to happen, we find ourselves buying into the American Idea. Today, cricket commentators have adopted baseball words such as dug-out and pinch-hitter without really understanding their true meaning. Employing a baseball coach to teach a cricketer how to field seems to be a common practice these days (How a one-handed glove-catching expert can teach a cricketer how to field behooves the ordinary mind!). Cheerleaders at an IPL game are another example of adaptation of the American ideology. Regardless, it all points to the subconscious level of submission to everything that is American.

The President of the USCA believes that someone who that did not make it in baseball can become a professional cricketer. Here is what he said…

“For sports like baseball, in the United States people get scholarships and try to become pro, and there are plenty who are not going to make it to professional and collegiate level. We believe that there are tens and thousands of very qualified athletes who can learn the game and would love to be professional cricketers one day”

Sounds like left overs to me! A cocky attitude to a sport incorrectly perceived as second class. What do you think? A hope for what may be in store commercially than a true attempt at harnessing the love of the sport it seems. Certainly not cricket at the grass roots level – as in the streets of Mumbai or Lahore.

A friend of mine was in a restaurant in China once…

The waiter approached, “Good evening sir, what would you like to order for dinner”?

My friend asked the waiter, “What is your special tonight”?

“Frogs legs, sir”, replied the waiter.

“Hmm, Interesting”, said my friend, “What does it taste like”?

To this, the waiter answered, “Very good sir, tastes just like chicken”.

My friend pondered this for a moment and said, “In that case, just bring me the chicken”!!

On a similar note, here are two American kids...

One says to the other, “Want to go out and play”?

The second kid replies, “Sure, what shall we play”?

To this the first kid says, “how about some cricket”?

The second kid is surprised, “Cricket”? “How is that played”?

The first kid responds, “You will love the game, it is just like baseball”!!

“Well, in that case”, the second kid says, “Why don’t we just play baseball”?

So, cricket in a land where baseball is the national pastime? I say, why even bother…