Yup pardners it’s dang tootin’ true. The USA has entered an honest-to goodness cricket competition, and last week actually won a match against a proper cricket-playing nation – Zimbabwe. (This isn’t that impressive actually, as the Zimbabwe team is a political football at the moment and none of the players in the team at present are there on sporting ability). But anyway – a win is a win.
The competetion is the International trophy featuring all the Worlds top teams, and Kenya and the Usa who qualified from a tournament of “minnows”.
Just think – You don’t have to watch baseball anymore. And this even lasts longer!
Who actually plays cricket in America? Expats?
I also only found out today that the first ever cricket international was USA v Canada, 20 years before the start of the Ashes.
Well, whaddaya know? I would have never expected to see the terms *USA * and cricket tournament together.
I actually played cricket once with a group of Pakistani friends. A wonderful (although very long) game! Let’s hope it catches on here in the USA.
Oh dear, You’re getting caned. It’s no disgrace though - NZ are very good.
However 21 wides is really not good at all.
I did hear that there were plan to play an international in the USA (India vs W. Indies from memory) as there was somewhere where there were enough expats to make in commercially viable.
It’d be great if this was to mark the beginning of the Great Age of International Cricket…but unfortunately is probably just one of the low points of Robert Mugabe’s slow decline.
Crickets? A thread about playing with noisy insects? This may win most bizarre thread. People play with crickets on an international basis? There’s a world championship tournament for it? Too weird!
Oh, trust me, I am all over this one. I was going to start a thread around here, but I haven’t started a thread in months and didn’t want to make any waves.
Heh, you must be referring to the Mugabe XI. Strangely, though, I haven’t seen a scorecard of this match anywhere. Geez, I call myself a researcher, too!
Actually, not really. Only the US qualified from the Six-Nations tournament. Kenya qualified automatically because they have “ODI” status, which means they are a full-up member just like England, Australia and the rest–but only for one-day matches. I know, strange. Why the ICC hasn’t just gone whole-hog and made them an official Full Member is beyond me. Anyway, Kenya got a free pass.
9,999 expats and me. Well, almost. When I played in a league in Los Angeles, I think I met only one other player who would have self-identified as “American” and American alone. Everyone lived there, of course, but about 95% were born elsewhere, and almost all the rest were second-generation immigrants.
Another nitpick–the first USA v Canada international was in 1844, thirty-three years before the first Eng v Aus Test. This year’s USA v Canada match, BTW, was the first time that the ICC declared the match “first-class.”
Ummmmm… how did we do? Did our flarf get many shmuggles? How many total Kranzes? Was our thomp grooping the wimbs very well?
Just kidding, I just don’t think I have any more space in my brain to learn any more sports, and Cricket always confused me with them strange furrin terms.
I’m a native-born U.S. citizen, and I played cricket once, decades ago. I was told that we won and that I played very well, but you couldn’t prove it by me. Mostly I remember being constantly surprised when the game didn’t end, and then being surprised when it did. It was fun, though.
Actually, I think Bonds is one of the few players who could make the transition. Barry hits the ball so hard, so precisely, and so rarely misses when he swings: he’s got the right skill set. Plus, he’s a patient hitter, and he knows when to leave a pitch alone, two psychological factors that would serve him well in cricket. If he could learn the mechanics of cricket, I think he could be a very dangerous batsman. I wouldn’t want to bowl to him, I can tell you that.
But I think the baseball player who would be best suited to cricket would be Ichiro Suzuki, who has all the skills of Bonds, plus he hits the ball along the ground most of the time–de rigeur in cricket–and he’s fast. If Japan was a cricket-playing rather than a baseball-playing nation, Ichiro would be starring in the ICC Champions Trophy right now.
Well, there’s a group of fellows that gets together around here and plays–I see them on the high school fields on my way home from work. Judging from a distance as I zip by, it looks like many of the players originated from the Indian subcontinent
