By T. Jayani, JadeTimes News
The men's T20 World Cup, co-hosted by the USA and West Indies, begins on Sunday morning (01:30 BST). A frequent pub quiz stumper which two countries played the first international cricket match? It wasn't England and Australia, who contested the first Test match in 1882, leading to the Ashes series after Australia's win and the famous 'obituary' for English cricket.
The first international match actually took place in the USA on 24 September 1844, in New York, at a location now in Manhattan near First Avenue and East 31st Street. The USA played Canada in what is considered the first international sports encounter, predating the America's Cup by almost seven years. The match lasted three days due to rain, with 5,000 attendees on the first day and bets totaling around $100,000 (about $4.2 million today).
Canada, exhausted from their journey, batted first and scored 82, facing the American bowlers Sam Wright and Harry Groom, both from Yorkshire. David Winckworth starred for Canada, scoring 12 runs and taking four wickets as the USA was bowled out for 64. Canada set a target of 82, which the USA failed to reach, suffering a collapse to lose by 23 runs.
The match sparked a series of contests between the nations, with Canada winning both matches in 1845 and the USA winning a contentious match in Harlem in 1846. This period was crucial for cricket's potential growth in the USA, which was overtaken by baseball. Cricket was popular enough to be played by George Washington, but the Civil War in 1861 halted its progress.
After the war, cricket survived in elite clubs around New York and Philadelphia and in colleges. The Philadelphian Club toured England in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with notable performances by all-rounder Bart King. However, with the formation of the Imperial Cricket Conference in 1909, cricket's international focus shifted to the British Empire, sidelining the USA.
The sport maintained a foothold in America through immigrant communities and notable clubs like the Hollywood Cricket Club and the Compton Cricket Club. The advent of Cricinfo in 1993 by Simon King at the University of Minnesota became a significant online resource for the sport.
T 20 cricket, launched by the ECB in 2003, found global popularity, especially through the Indian Premier League, making each game highly valuable. The USA's potential for cricket grew with its admission to the ICC in 1965, but the sport struggled due to mismanagement. Major League Cricket, established in 2023, represents the latest effort to popularize the sport, attracting major international players and investors like Microsoft's Satya Nadella and Adobe's Shantanu Narayan.
The USA and Canada will compete in the upcoming World Cup, starting with their opening fixture in Dallas on 1 June. Matches will be held in Florida, New York, and Texas, including the marquee India Pakistan match in New York on 9 June, in a temporary stadium seating 34,000. These events reflect the continued interest in cricket's growth in the USA, driven by the country's affinity for large scale sporting events.