Opinion
On a hot summer’s day at Grand Prairie Stadium on the outskirts of Dallas, Texas the American Major League Cricket T20 tournament got off to a start.
Fanfare? Well, not packing out to the rafters (yet). However, it’s a valid competition in a nation with a huge Indian expat population, amongst others. Arguably there’s potential to gain a solid foothold. And with the Texas Super Kings taking on the Los Angeles Knight Riders, the IPL franchising is helping connect to that demographic.
Despite the early loss of Faf du Plessis for a golden duck, Devon Conway with 55 and David Miller 61 underpinned the Super Kings’ 181-6 over 20 overs.
The venue is a former baseball venue that was adapted to also host soccer. It’s now been redeveloped to be the Super Kings’ home ground – under lease to American Cricket Enterprises who are partnering USA Cricket. The original 5400-seat stadium is now to be not just a MLC venue but also a high performance centre for USA Cricket.
It had also been regarded as one of the best sports performance facilities in Minor League Baseball during its tenure with the now folded Texas AirHogs.
The long-term lease agreement with the City of Grand Prairie shows a determination for the medium term at least to sufficiently crack the US market.
Should cricket crack the USA – sufficiently – with a goal of full ICC membership by 2030, what might that mean for close neighbours in the Caribbean? Could cricket in the West Indies undergo a much-needed resurgence? It may be the last chance for the West Indies to not be completely consumed by the combination of baseball, basketball and soccer. It would be wonderful if cricket in the West Indies could leverage off this in some way.
The LA Knight Riders lost Guptill 3 balls in and never gained any top order momentum; soon collapsing to 4-20. Eventually dismissed for just 112 off 14 overs, the only bright spot being a breezy 55 from Andre Russell with seven 4s and three 6s.
It’s especially vital that the old baseball diamond is gone. This is not a venue of compromise – a key element of the development being the conversion to an international size and quality cricket field capable of hosting major international competitions. Additionally, the plans include a number of training nets and batting ‘lanes’, as well as two additional outside turf fields that will be used for training and by the affiliated MLC academies.
Crucial to this push for cricket in the USA is that it’s not just pie in the sky wishful thinking. And it is being driven by significant funding from investor groups driving the unprecedented cricket infrastructure development for the US. This brings the best cricketers to play at cricket specific venues with natural turf wickets and quality spectator amenity. And plans for high performance development of talent.
Some of the investors include Satya Nadella (CEO of Microsoft) and Soma Somasegar (MD of Madrona Venture Group) amongst others from the business world. A group of investors very keen on making this push a winner.
It should be noted that there is reportedly a population of more than 4.5 million Indian-Americans (around 1.35 per cent of the total US population and the largest group of South Asian-Americans after Chinese-Americans). Significantly, Indian-Americans are the highest-earning ethnic group in the US.
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