T20 World Cup not a ‘game-changer’ for cricket in USA, but it is a start

An administrator in a Test nation acknowledges that If the game is grown in the US “the lack of permanent facilities and good pitches is a big issue.” The ICC’s main focus at grassroots level in the US is criiio, a pop-up, informal version of the game. During the World Cup, criiio festivals were organised in Florida, Dallas, and New York, the three host cities. From August, the ICC is partnering with 127 schools, spread between the same three cities, to introduce this new iteration. 

Yet far more attention must be paid to supporting the existing cricket infrastructure: local club players continue to bemoan the abject grassroots facilities. Amit Bhatia from The Wanderers New York Cricket Club laments that “we have no proper grounds with turf pitches” in the city.

While US cricket governance has long veered between crises, the country now has an established T20 league. Major League Cricket launched last year and enjoyed a solid debut season. The task of encouraging sports fans in the US to go to live cricket will now largely fall to MLC.

In 2026, it intends to expand from its current six sides to eight; it then hopes to reach 10 sides by the end of the decade. The World Cup will “only help our conversations” with sponsors, says Justin Geale, the tournament director of MLC. “This allows us to go to towns and cities and tell them, ‘you can see the people coming’.”

Atlanta, Florida and Toronto could all soon have MLC sides. Yet the more immediate aim is to ensure that all six existing teams developed venues of their own. All matches in this season’s Major League, just like last year, will be staged either in Grand Prairie, Texas or Morrisville, North Carolina. “It’s very hard to build a Seattle and a San Francisco fan base when you’re playing that match in Dallas,” Geale admits.

MLC expects to get another fillip in 2028. At the Los Angeles Olympics, cricket will return to the Games for the first time since 1900. While the tournament will feature only five or six countries, the Games offers the best help for a transformation of US cricket.

With Olympic status, the US and other cricket boards will gain access to new government funding and support. Most importantly, Olympic status could lead to cricket being welcomed into the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). which runs college sports in the US.

“Most Americans aren’t following the success of the team,” says Stefan Szymanski, a leading sports economist and co-author of Soccernomics. “If cricket were to take off as a varsity sport, which is possible given it is now an Olympic sport, the strength of the collegiate system could give a real boost.”

Joining the NCAA would be particularly transformative for women’s cricket, which currently lags far below the men’s game. The civil rights law Title IX mandates that female and male student-athletes receive equal treatment, with universities funding male and female sports equally. The ICC aims to have women’s ‘softball’ cricket played in 40 colleges in the coming years to build its push to join the NCAA.

If cricket is played regularly at universities, with different colleges offering scholarships as they do in other sports, this would provide a regular pipeline of homegrown players to the national side. Cricket would still not be a front-rank US sport. But the size and sporting culture of the country is such that the US could still have a major impact on cricket in the years ahead.