• Welcome to the Cricket Web forums, one of the biggest forums in the world dedicated to cricket.

    You are currently viewing our boards as a guest which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our free community you will have access to post topics, respond to polls, upload content and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free so please, join the Cricket Web community today!

    If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us.

Push to have T20 World Cup in USA

brockley

International Captain
CRICKET
Bold bid to stage T20 World Cup in New York City's Central Park
Ben Horne, The Daily Telegraph
October 28, 2017 9:50am
Subscriber only
CRICKET is determined to take a chunk out of the Big Apple, and James Sutherland reckons they should be going straight for the core.

With Yankee Stadium the wrong shape and the international cricket ground in Florida too irrelevant, the Cricket Australia chief executive is asking why the iconic New York landmark, Central Park, smack bang in the middle of Manhattan, can’t host Australia v India in a World Twenty20 showpiece for the ages.

TWIST: Ben Stokes saga takes another turn

EXTREME: War comparison a bit far for Root

The world’s most iconic park visited by 25 million people every year has packed in hundreds of thousands of fans for superstar concerts like Bon Jovi, Mariah Carey and Paul Simon, and now Virat Kohli and David Warner are being imagined as the next headline acts to grace the open green pastures of cricket’s first-ever pop-up stadium.


Adam Zampa, Usman Khawaja and Steve Smith in Times Square, New York.
The ICC board led by Cricket Australia are pushing for a World Cup to be played in the United States in the next eight-year international cycle, between 2023-2031, which they believe with the right planning and investment can emulate FIFA’s hugely successful American World Cup back in 1994.

However, unlike soccer which simply used big time rectangular NFL stadiums located in every city, finding appropriate cricket venues remains an enormous obstacle for administrators to overcome.

When Shane Warne took his band of All-Star globetrotters to America a couple of years ago, the crowds in New York, Houston and Los Angeles were stunning, but the legitimacy of cricket played on elongated baseball diamonds was ridiculous.


Fancy, but not cricket friendly. Pic: Getty
Equally, attempts to make a big deal out of cricket played on proper fields in the back waters of Florida is virtually pointless.

Enter Central Park — the 843 acre oasis in the middle of the world’s most buzzing metropolis, which in Sutherland’s crystal ball, could find the room next to its zoo, ice rinks and museums to play host to a multimillion-dollar pop-up cricket ground, complete with temporary grand stands, light towers, a drop-in pitch and the potential to break broadcasting records.

“Look, this might be a ridiculous dream. But just imagine Australia versus India played at Central Park on Manhattan Island,” Sutherland told The Daily Telegraph.


Australia v India can put on a show. Pic: AFP
“We know that within 50km or so of New York City there are literally tens of thousands of cricket fans. And we also know the propensity of Indian fans to travel from all over America.

“There’s lots of expats there. To that end. We don’t need to just look at the traditional American stadiums, we can also look a little bit creatively at the opportunity to play a big international match, to make a statement in an iconic place like Central Park.

“Perhaps there are other good examples of places across America where you could play a big game like that with temporary grandstands.

“My personal view is that it would be great at some stage in the next cycle for the ICC to commit to having a world event in the USA. Why not? … Bring big games and big names to the country … It’s one of the biggest commercial markets in the world.”


David Warner could be the face of New York cricket.
Sutherland knows the Central Park idea seems out there, but he says cricket must explore every avenue to cash in on its biggest untapped market and that it must happen in the next decade.

Of the 90,000 international fans to travel out to the 2015 World Cup in Australia and New Zealand — 25,000 were from North America — a higher number than any other continent.

The USA sits below only India, Australia and England when it comes to cricket TV rights and the fact Warne pulled crowds in excess of 30,000 to matches involving past greats illustrates what an enormous potential the game has to reach out to America’s huge expat population of people with subcontinental backgrounds.

Sutherland says cricket must follow the blueprint set by soccer, which followed up arguably the most successful World Cup of all time with a Major League Soccer competition two years later.

“The reality is if you give enough lead time and telegraph it, you can get there,” said Sutherland.

“There’s two or three stadiums now, there are stadiums you can convert and there’s green space you can convert with temporary grandstands.

“Soccer is a good analogy in terms of the big decisions FIFA and others made in terms of their desire to grow the game in the US a long time ago.

“There’s a very clear strategy in how to grow the game and there’s a lot of layers to that … and as I often talk about it’s building from the top down and the bottom up.

“There are tens of thousands of people who live in America who play cricket every week during summer.

“Participation is really important, engaging with the competition, but also at the higher level, creating aspiration to play for your country and having a pathway competition, including in the college system.”
 

Burgey

Request Your Custom Title Now!
It's supreme...

Hope they have this in the US. Hope they never have it here.
 

SillyCowCorner1

Request Your Custom Title Now!
There's no way cricket can turn the traditional past time of American sports: Baseball

They tried that with soccer... and it's nothing compared to the following of traditional US sports.
 

cnerd123

likes this
I feel that if you want to host a fixture from the T20 world cup in a non-Test playing country, you should do so in one that has the most potential of becoming an actual Test nation. USA has pretty large playing numbers (due to expats) but does it have good grass roots programmes and is it working on building sustainable cricket infrastructure? Last I heard they were kicked out of the ICC for being corrupt and incompetent and squabbling amongst themselves.

If all this effort is going to be put in, why not in a place like Nepal or one of the European or African countries? Places that have consistently produced good quality teams filled with local players, and clearly have some sort of sustainable cricket structure in place? Seems like there would be a much bigger return on investment to be gained from playing in there, than by hoping that a one off T20 in Central Park will finally inspire the USA Cricket community to get its **** together and get dozens of American kids playing cricket.
 

SillyCowCorner1

Request Your Custom Title Now!
Why Central Park though?

Mojave Desert would be a spinners Paradise.

Or Death Valley and below sea level altitude...higher gravitational interaction
 

Spikey

Request Your Custom Title Now!
the Cricket Australia chief executive is asking why the iconic New York landmark, Central Park, smack bang in the middle of Manhattan, can’t host Australia v India in a World Twenty20 showpiece for the ages.
i can't believe this a question that is being asked
 

stephen

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
A small market share in the USA is still big dollars. Which is why the ICC wants the game over there so badly.

And what better thing to run over there than the pointless Americanised version of the sport. It's not like the World T20 is meaningful.
 

srbhkshk

International Captain
Nah, if it's USA, it would be better to have 5 overs game with modified equipment ensuring at least 2 sixes an over. Then the Americans can call that sport real "cricket" and have a world championship with only participants being US states.
 

ankitj

Hall of Fame Member
Look forward to a bunch of articles and video features on what is Cricket and how it compares with baseball :dry:
 

Starfighter

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Part of me wants it here, but that would probably mean sacrificing two tests which is unacceptable.

So yeah, why not America?
 

Top