In America, cricket returns for a rousing home run

MIAMI/FORT LAUDERDALE: Cricket was one of the many interests of the storied American polymath Benjamin Franklin. Fellow Founding Father John Adams advised that the White House occupant not be called President because only "fire brigades and cricket clubs have presidents." And cricket games were being played - and in-swingers and off-breaks bowled - in Maryland and Georgia at the time of American Independence, long before baseball threw a curveball or a fastball.
So cricket in America is not all that new; baseball evolved from the mother game. In fact, a match played between the U.S and Canada in 1844 at the St George's Cricket Club in New York, watched by more than 10,000 spectators, is considered the game’s first international - and indeed, the oldest international sporting event in the modern world - predating even the modern Olympics by nearly 50 years. Canada won by 24 runs.
Still, cricket made a big splash on its return to the United States this weekend with India and the West Indies playing the first international on continental America in modern times. In a state that is more familiar with Miami Heat and Miami Dolphins, the two sides rained 32 sixes on a 15,000 expat crowd that came from all over the country, as if to also remind the host country that they knew what home runs are all about.
With half the team fresh from victory ( or stale from exertions) in the Caribbean, the Indian team lurched through the first hour of the game as if the players had spent Friday night in South Beach or Little Havana (the local hotspots), before they regrouped on a wicket where batters punched through bowlers and left them limp like hanging chads. A colossal 489 runs were scored in three and half hours of mayhem before West Indies prevailed by a whisker to take a 1-0 lead, with a return game set for Sunday in peril after rains came down post-match.
The result was less important than the breakthrough spectacle of one of India’s two principal modern religions (Bollywood being the other) formally debuting in America.
Indeed, the Indian Cricket Board President Anurag Thakur spoke of cricket in terms of an export commodity, telling ToI in an interview on the sidelines of the game that he saw the United States as a big market based primarily on a passionate expat audience. Miami, Florida could be the beachhead for future games in Texas and California, where clement weather and large commonwealth expat population offer greater possibilities.
Indeed, cricket aficionados came from all over the country, joining a large local contingent. In fact, West Indies are as much at home in Florida (the Caribbean greats Wes Hall and Lance Gibbs lived here) as the Pakistanis are in Dubai/Sharjah, and they showed in the way they plowed through the ragged Indian bowling at the start. "No better place than Florida to bring back cricket to America," said Felix Campos, a Miami local and an expat businessman originally from Hyderabad, who counts the late M.L.Jaisimha and Abbas Ali Baig among childhood idols, and later, friends.
Like Campos, New Jersey entrepreneur Ravi Suri has traveled far and wide chasing cricket across the world, and would love to see more games in the United States. Texas and California offer the best prospects because of the weather, he reckons, although Washington DC he agrees has the best league, with first class players from the Caribbean and the subcontinent playing there.
But back at the Broward Cricket Ground, India not only pulled it back with their bowling, but gave a thrilling riposte with their batting before falling short by a run of the last ball. In the process, they also showed Americans - the few who were watching - that cricket is not baseball on Valium, as Robin Williams said; at least, insofar as T20 is concerned, it is baseball on steroids.