Just curious about North America and Britain

[wisernow]

My knowledge of the history of North America is limited and so I might be wrong at places. But as I understand the continent was initially colonized and governed by the British. Elsewhere in the world, the game of cricket was popularized in the British colonies and the legacy continues to this day. Cricket is immensly popular in the countries of the Commonwealth(Canada being the exception). I am curious why and how was cricket not promoted by the British as a sport in North America.

[dalej42]

Perhaps because cricket did not become a popular sport until after the end of the American Revolutionary War? Also, sports were not as widespread and popular until after the Industrial Revolution, leaving more time for leisure.

[Ethilrist]

Actually, according to this site, cricket was widely played in the U.S. until the late 1800's...

Cricket declined in the USA in the 20th century because in the late 1800s it had remained a strictly amateur elite sport at the same time that England, then Australia, were developing a professional system that allowed full-time players to participate. In the halcyon days of amateur cricket, talented North Americans could sometimes hold their own on the field with the best the world had to offer. But as cricket standards improved elsewhere in the world by becoming semi-professional and then fully professional, many North American cricket clubs stayed stubbornly elitist…abandoning cricket, they converted their facilities to recreations like golf and tennis.

[fiddlesticks]

Looking at cricket history sites, cricket dates back to the 12th & 13th centuries, though it was banned at various points in English history. The kind of people who colonized North America may have played a part in the cricket's non-popularity. Puritans no doubt frowned upon the playing of ball games (Oliver Cromwell was one of the cricket banners). Also, watching "Colonial House", its a wonder people back then had time to do much of anything other than things that directly helped them survive. After a few generations, when life became a little more comfortable, the idea of hitting a ball with a stick was still around but exact rules of cricket where forgotten or half-remembered, so they developed a new game which eventually developed into baseball and spread from New England to the rest of the country.

[Ponster]

Baseball, which seems IMHO, to come from the English game of rounders and not cricket.

[Gary T]

Originally Posted by Ponster

Baseball, which seems IMHO, to come from the English game of rounders and not cricket.

From both, actually.

[nonpolar]

Well, British did not colonized American continent first.
From Europe, Spanish entered America first(oldest city in N.America is in Florida settled by Spanish),after them French started major exploration of continent
,huge areas were under French rule from arctic north down to the Gulf of Mexico.
Other European nations(Dutch) settled some coastal areas ,but British were kind of late to this.Thanks to Napoleonic wars Brits won from French most of East coast.
About crickets well ,they look like grasshopers and sing rather nice in the evening.
Just kidding-I have no idea about cricket.

[Duke]

Originally Posted by Ethilrist

Actually, according to this site, cricket was widely played in the U.S. until the late 1800's...

Cricket was "widely played" until the late 1800's? Well, depending on your definition of "widely played," it's that way right now. I know this might be hard to believe, but there are cricket leagues in over twenty cities in the US, and the United States Cricket Association claims that there are over 10,000 active players. When I played for Victoria Cricket Club in Los Angeles, there were about 40 teams in our league; I'd say in total there are about 800-1,000 serious players alone, with about another 500 guys on the margins. In fact, just about anywhere you live in the US, there's probably a league near you.

All this is not to say cricket is a big-time American sport, with professional leagues or anything. But wait! There is, incredibly, a professional cricket league in the US, though it's not exactly faring well in its first season.

But, in all honesty, cricket had its chance to become a big-time sport in America not in the late 1800's but between 1900 and 1939. In the first decade of the century, a team from Philadelphia beat the West Indian national side. Bart King, a Philadelphia fast bowler, was the top bowler in England during one barnstorming season, and invented "swing" bowling (somewhat akin to the curveball)--still one of the three major disciplines of bowling. Australian, English, West Indian, and Commonwealth sides regularly toured the East Coast. As late as 1932, the Australian national side, led by Don Bradman, toured the US, playing in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Los Angeles, and a number of other cities.

Then, after WWII...nothing. For whatever reason, America completely forgot about cricket. Native-born Americans stopped playing altogether, and cricket became an immigrant sport. To give you an example of what the makeup of American cricket is like now--when I played in Los Angeles, I met only one other person who was born and raised in the US. Everyone else learned to play cricket elsewhere.

My old friend and teammate David Sentance was writing a book on the history of cricket in America. When and if it comes out, I'd happily recommend it.

[vl_mungo]

Originally Posted by nonpolar

Well, British did not colonized American continent first.
From Europe, Spanish entered America first(oldest city in N.America is in Florida settled by Spanish),after them French started major exploration of continent
,huge areas were under French rule from arctic north down to the Gulf of Mexico.
Other European nations(Dutch) settled some coastal areas ,but British were kind of late to this.Thanks to Napoleonic wars Brits won from French most of East coast.
About crickets well ,they look like grasshopers and sing rather nice in the evening.
Just kidding-I have no idea about cricket.

And Russians in Alaska from about 1741 on.

[seosamh]

The oldest international cricket fixture in the world is USA -v- Canada, first played in 1844.

Canada won this year's Intercontinental Cup by 104 runs.

http://cricketclub.org/can_usa.html