On June 9, for the first time, the United States will host one of the world’s most-watched sporting events.
In Long Island, New York, India will take on Pakistan in the group stage of the International Cricket Council (ICC) T20 World Cup.
With geopolitical tensions intensifying the rivalry between the two most-supported cricketing nations, the match is expected to be tuned in by more than 400 million people. For comparison, the 55th Super Bowl between the San Francisco 49ers and Kansas City Chiefs in 2024 drew an audience of around 125 million.
With the sporting spotlight focused on New York this weekend, why would the biggest spectacle of cricket, a sport little known in North America, be played on Long Island? Well, the US beat one of those cricketing powerhouses yesterday. Their victory over Pakistan was one of the biggest upsets in cricket history.
Let me Athletic explain…
What is T20 Cricket?
Since its inception in the early 2000s, T20 has increasingly become the sport’s most popular and most lucrative format for players. It is the shortest format, with each team batting for 20 overs (each over is six balls from the same bowler on the defensive team), and matches tend to last around three hours. It is a reflection of modern society, making cricket more action-packed and intended to attract a wider audience.
At left, Saurabh Netravalkar led the United States to victory over Pakistan in Texas. (Andrew Caballero Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images)
Each team bowls 120 balls and the team that scores the most runs in the allotted time wins. Historically, cricket has been a long-term sport, with Test matches lasting up to five days with no guarantee of a winner at their end, and One Day cricket being 50 overs per team.
The T20 World Cup has typically been held every two years since the inaugural tournament in 2007. The ongoing tournament is the first to feature 20 nations, with teams split into four groups of five each. The top two teams from each group advance to the “Super Eight”, another group stage in which the top two teams advance from each group of four. This is followed by a semi-final where two teams will ultimately compete for the championship.
The match between India and Pakistan will be the second of three group matches, with Pakistan shocking the US with a dramatic win on Thursday.
Why is the World Cup held in America?
Well, not really. Overall All matches will be held in the United States. The World Cup will be co-hosted with the West Indies, a group of 13 Caribbean countries competing under one umbrella. The United States will host a total of 16 matches, which will be played in Grand Prairie, Texas, Lauderhill, Florida, and East Meadow, New York. However, most of the matches, including the semi-finals and final, will be played in the West Indies.
Essentially, the purpose of the US hosting the T20 World Cup matches is to promote the growth of cricket in the country, with revenues from the matches in New York being invested in raising awareness of the sport.
Following in the footsteps of other cricketing nations, the United States is launching its own franchised league in 2023. The inaugural season of Major League Cricket (MLC) was played over three weeks in North Carolina and Texas, featuring six teams representing US cities.
This year’s tournament begins just four days after the T20 World Cup final and will feature some of the sport’s biggest stars, including Australia captain Pat Cummins, who recently signed a four-year contract with the San Francisco Unicorns, as well as other notable names such as Bangladesh’s Shakib Al Hasan and South Africa’s David Miller. The plan is for the MLC to expand to 10 teams.
Cricket will be added to the Olympic Games from 2028, when Los Angeles will host the event. Los Angeles was the first major US city under consideration by the ICC to host the World Cup, with plans to build a 25,000-seat stadium in California in December 2022. Ultimately, it was decided that Los Angeles would not be considered as a host city, as the time difference was too great, with the West Coast 12.5 hours behind cricket’s new economic powerhouse, India.
USA Cricket has faced many problems since it was founded five years ago, including the fact that it has few full-time staff and relies on volunteers and temporary contractors.
Either way, the U.S. team, made up of American-born citizens and players from other countries who qualified, has shown impressive progress since Australian coach Stuart Law took over in April, despite the team having played just 12 games in nearly three years.
Before the tournament began, the U.S. swept Canada 4-0, then beat Bangladesh 2-1 in a bilateral series. Then, in their most famous win yet, the U.S. defied the odds again by beating Pakistan in just their second World Cup match.
What was the India vs Pakistan picture?
It’s getting complicated.
That means the US has no experience or knowledge of hosting a cricket event of this magnitude, and every step has been mired in problems, with multiple reprimands from the ICC, multiple sanctions imposed and funding suspended for 2022. Amazingly, USA Cricket has no CEO, which is why they are scrambling to get the stadium ready in time.
It was only on November 17 last year that the ICC signed a contract with Nassau County on Long Island to build a stadium in New York and host eight World Cup matches, including three against India. It was decided that the arena would be built in Eisenhower Park on Long Island and would be spread over an area of over 900 acres.
Construction on the 34,000-seat stadium began on Jan. 8 but didn’t begin until Feb. 18, leaving USA Cricket just 105 days before the tournament begins.
Eisenhower Park received its drop-in pitches in April – built in Australia by Adelaide Oval groundskeeper Damien Hough – when 10 pitches were transported overland in a convoy of 22 trucks over two days from Florida to New York.
Further problems have surfaced since hosting the opening match, the latest being the quality of the pitch, with the actual wicket – the 22-yard area into which the ball is bowled – raising safety concerns. India captain Rohit Sharma had to stop batting in the win over Ireland after being hit by a ball that showed uneven bounce.
What is the importance of India vs Pakistan?
Matches between the two countries are rare and they do not cooperate outside of ICC events due to political hostility. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and the Indian government have banned a bilateral series with Pakistan due to Pakistan’s suspected links to anti-India terrorist organisations.
Tickets went on sale in early February, but demand was so great that the number of people wanting seats reached more than 200 times the stadium’s capacity of 34,000. As a result, prices have skyrocketed, with tickets on the secondary resale market selling for between $600 and $1,200 (£470 and £620) depending on the website. If you want VIP tickets, prices can exceed $50,000.
The last Test match between the two countries was in December 2007, but Pakistan and India last met less than a year ago in the group stage of the 50-over World Cup in October 2023. The match was played in India and drew a crowd of 132,000 at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad. The two countries regularly meet each other in global competitions.
More than 120,000 fans watched India beat Pakistan in last year’s 50-over World Cup (Alex Davidson-ICC/ICC via Getty Images)
How did the hostility between the two countries begin?
Since India and Pakistan became independent in the 1940s after decades of British rule, the two countries have fought four wars together — the first in 1947 and three more in the 1960s, 1970s and 1990s.
Relations between the two countries have changed over the years, warming enough to allow the two countries to co-host two World Cups between 1987 and 1996. But they have deteriorated sharply since 2008, when militants blocked off the Indian capital, Mumbai, killing 166 people over three days, including six Americans. India and the United States hold Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Toiba responsible for the atrocities, which they say have ties to Pakistan’s top intelligence agency.
India, under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has steadfastly refused to repair any ties. Eight years ago, 18 Indian soldiers were killed at a remote military base, which India blamed on a different group that it said had ties to Pakistan’s top intelligence agency. India responded by saying it had carried out “precision strikes” on terrorist camps in Pakistan.
From a sporting perspective, there are also ripple effects in cricket, with Pakistan players banned from the Indian Premier League (IPL), the world’s richest franchise tournament.
Cricket is the second most popular sport in the world with over one billion fans – Indian supporters make up 90 percent of the total fan base, according to an ICC survey – and now, with India and Pakistan facing off again in New York, cricket is poised to win over American audiences.
(Photo above: For fans in India and Pakistan, cricket is just a religion. Courtesy of Getty Images)
