Cricket won’t steal America’s sporting pie but it can snatch a tasty bite, says Robert Craddock

IF cricket could have one wish for its future it would be to crack the big time in the US. Many years ago it actually did, writes Robert Craddock.

Cricket All-Stars Series - Dodger Stadium

IF cricket could have just one wish for its future growth it would be to crack it big time in the US. Many years ago it actually did.

Cricket, with lacrosse, were the first active team sports played in the US way back in the 18th century by British colonists.

Sadly, because of that nation’s infatuation with baseball, cricket all but disappeared.

It is fanciful to think cricket can steal America’s sporting pie but entirely plausible to think it might be able to snatch a tasty slice of it.

Australian rock bands realised long ago that because the US is so big that cracking it in a state like California (population 38 million) can be more lucrative than making it in Australia (population 23 million).

The same theory can work with cricket. Cricket does not have to take over the place. It just has to find a niche.

And Shane Warne’s legends troop may have shown the way forward when they played three games in the US last month and attracted crowds of around 30,000 a game.

GRAND PLANS: Cricket’s American dream

Critics of the enterprise played down its impact, claiming the crowds were “mainly expat Indians.’’

There is a large Indian ex-pat community in the US.

What are were saying … that expat Indians don’t count?

There are more than three million of them living in the States and many of those are cricket crazed and cricket starved and would be the lifeblood of any future project.

A New York Times reporter who followed Warne and Sachin Tendulkar through the streets of Manhattan said 19 of every 20 passer-bys did not give them a second thought.

But the 20th went off tap with excitement.

In a nation of more than 300 million you’d take one in 20 every time.

Eight years ago Disney’s sporting juggernaut ESPN purchased the influential Cricinfo website and last year it broadcast the World Twenty20 final for the first time, attracting 2.4 million viewers.

A window of opportunity is opening. Many have tried to take cricket back to the US and many have failed.

Funds and collective commitment from well-meaning amateurs eventually ran dry.

But at least with the Twenty20 game, cricket at last has the right vehicle to try it – Test cricket was never going to work.

Any future venture would need massive funds and a long-term plan.

It may seem like Fantasyland and Frontierland rolled into one but people once said the same about Twenty20 cricket.