Cricket might have lastly gotten its second within the U.S.
The U.S. males’s nationwide cricket workforce delivered a shocking blow to heavyweight Pakistan in Texas on Thursday throughout a surprisingly shut T20 World Cup match that went into the equal of additional innings.
The match within the group-stage spherical of the event, which the U.S. is co-hosting with the West Indies, was performed in a former minor-league baseball park within the Dallas suburb of Grand Prairie, one in every of three U.S. venues the place the event is being held.
Cricket followers world wide are calling the win one of many greatest upsets within the historical past of the game. On NPR, “All Issues Thought of” co-host Juana Summers likened it to “the Boston Crimson Sox shedding to the Durham Bulls,” a Minor League Baseball workforce in North Carolina.
The group was dominated by green-shirt-clad supporters of Pakistan who have been disillusioned by their workforce’s efficiency, however left the grounds impressed with the U.S. aspect, stated fan Aziz Rajwani, a 58-year-old immigrant from Karachi who lives in Colleyville, Texas.
“That they had an important respect. The group was cheering,” Rajwani informed NBC Information on Friday. “Sure, they have been upset with their workforce, Pakistani followers have been. However on the identical time they have been appreciating this American workforce.”
The U.S. workforce, he stated, is now the “discuss of the city, discuss of the world.”
This historic American triumph isn’t getting the identical reception within the U.S, the place cricket remains to be thought of a really area of interest sport, performed principally amongst its Caribbean and South Asian diaspora.
“Beating Pakistan, and enjoying for the primary time, the best way we performed at the moment I’m actually happy with the boys,” stated USA captain Monank Patel, who was named participant of the match. “After all, beating Pakistan in a World Cup goes to open many doorways for us.”
The win in opposition to Pakistan is all of the extra exceptional as a result of the American gamers, who’re on the workforce half time and have day jobs, have been going up in opposition to a workforce that gained the T20 World Cup in 2009 and got here in second in 2007, the yr the event started, and once more in 2022.
Many of the U.S. gamers are of South Asian or Caribbean descent, and a few of them beforehand performed in India or the West Indies.
USA bowler Saurabh Netravalkar, an engineer at Oracle, is already reaching superstar standing in India, the place he previously performed for its junior workforce.
“Happy with the workforce and our very personal engineering and cricket star,” Oracle said in a post on X.
The U.S. win is nice information for the Worldwide Cricket Council, which selected it as co-host of the event partly in hope that it might stir American curiosity within the sport. Co-hosting gave the U.S. workforce an automated berth within the event, which it’s taking part in for the primary time.
“Now that’s develop the sport within the states,” Michael Vaughan, former captain of England’s cricket workforce, stated in a publish on X after Pakistan’s defeat.
For such a historic second, few People really noticed it. The match was not broadcast on U.S. tv, and the stadium holds solely about 7,000 folks.
“Credit score to USA, they carried out so nicely,” Pakistan captain Babar Azam stated after the match. “They have been higher than us in all elements of the sport.”