USA Cricket team...

[luckyeddie]

Originally Posted by jhans

Along with 30+ million other people I live in California and have had an opportunity to play many sports on the beach so I don't think living by the sand has alot to do with our failure to play cricket. I can think of numerous reasons why it will be hard to ever get Americans to play cricket but you’d probably stop reading after the first paragraph so for the sake of brevity I do have a somewhat oversimplified explanation. Both cricket and baseball are just formalized evolutions of stick and ball games played throughout history. Either game (with rule changes and proper promotion) could have become “our national pastime” but baseball won out. Americans as a whole like to work on a schedule and need finality. The evolution that became baseball almost always gives us that.

FYI: Due to the changing culture of America I doubt baseball will be anything more than a minor sport in America a hundred years from now.

Welcome to CricketWeb - glad that the inability to play the game doesn't necessarily prevent people (you and quite a few others) from taking an interest in it.

An interesting aside - in England, there was a guy from Derby in the 1890's went to America and was heavily influenced by baseball - so much so that when he came back to this country, he tried to introduce the sport.

A custom-built stadium was built in his home town, but the sport never took off. A local football club (my team - Derby County) bought the Baseball Ground and played there for a century (they have now moved to Pride Park, but there's not much pride in their play any more).

Perhaps it explains why I like hot dogs.

[BoyBrumby]

One thing that has puzzled me about the US team that perhaps someone could clear up for me is its make up. It seems to be peopled almost exclusively by Caribbean & Sub-Continent ex-pats. These are obviously the natural constituency for cricket in America, so that in itself isn't surprising. However, I do seem to recall that the UAE fielded a team in the 96 World Cup consisting for the most part of Indian & Pakistani ex-pat workers. The ICC then, in their wisdom, introduced a rule saying (I think) that 7 of the team for associate members had to be natives or citizens of the country they represent.

Did I imagine this or has the rule been rescinded since?

[Nnanden]

Originally Posted by BoyBrumby

One thing that has puzzled me about the US team that perhaps someone could clear up for me is its make up. It seems to be peopled almost exclusively by Caribbean & Sub-Continent ex-pats. These are obviously the natural constituency for cricket in America, so that in itself isn't surprising. However, I do seem to recall that the UAE fielded a team in the 96 World Cup consisting for the most part of Indian & Pakistani ex-pat workers. The ICC then, in their wisdom, introduced a rule saying (I think) that 7 of the team for associate members had to be natives or citizens of the country they represent.

Did I imagine this or has the rule been rescinded since?

ummm....

ya mum.

[BoyBrumby]

Originally Posted by Nnanden

ummm....

ya mum.

Que?

[Waughney]

I think he meant to say ya mun.

[luckyeddie]

Originally Posted by Waughney

I think he meant to say ya mun.

What's wrong with a nice, clear "yo"?

[jhans]

Personally I think it takes away from any international competition when people are able to compete under a flag that is not their own. I was shocked this year when I found out that the Greece’s Olympic baseball team was comprised of Americans that couldn’t even speak Greek. It makes a mockery of the fundamental purpose of the event. If all you want to do is to field the most viable team available why not take down the flags and just play as independent professional clubs?

[luckyeddie]

Originally Posted by jhans

Personally I think it takes away from any international competition when people are able to compete under a flag that is not their own. I was shocked this year when I found out that the Greece’s Olympic baseball team was comprised of Americans that couldn’t even speak Greek. It makes a mockery of the fundamental purpose of the event. If all you want to do is to field the most viable team available why not take down the flags and just play as independent professional clubs?

It's not always like that, but I see what you mean.
We in Britain are part of a larger international community (the EC) and, like it or loathe it, there are regulations with respect to employment across the community, and regulations with respect to joint nationality as well. It's the same with other countries - and of course the whole thing gets abused or diluted whenever vested interests become involved.

There are times, though, when it pays to be European.

*cough*3 1/2 - 1/2 after the first four-balls*cough*

[The Baconator]

i no it sounds stupid but i was kinda hopin 4 baseball swings

but then none of them were american

[jhans]

Originally Posted by luckyeddie

It's not always like that, but I see what you mean.
We in Britain are part of a larger international community (the EC) and, like it or loathe it, there are regulations with respect to employment across the community, and regulations with respect to joint nationality as well. It's the same with other countries - and of course the whole thing gets abused or diluted whenever vested interests become involved.

There are times, though, when it pays to be European.

*cough*3 1/2 - 1/2 after the first four-balls*cough*

*pretends like he doesn't watch golf*
3 1/2 - 1/2 is that some cricket scoring I don't understand?

From some of the discussion I thought that I understood that this was not a situation of joint nationality but a case where a non-citizen was playing under another nation's flag. If they have dual citizenship that's a little more difficult to argue against, although, the sanctioning body should at least provide a minimum length of time that the particular person has to be a citizen prior to competing.

[luckyeddie]

jhans:

With respect to the (checks thread title - ah!) USA cricket team, I'm not sure whether a residential qualification period of a number of years was applied prior to selection or not.

Perhaps you could enlighten me?

*notices USA are fighting back hard - currently keeping a log of morons who shout "In the hole" when someone tees off on a par-5*

[jhans]

Originally Posted by luckyeddie

jhans:

With respect to the (checks thread title - ah!) USA cricket team, I'm not sure whether a residential qualification period of a number of years was applied prior to selection or not.

Perhaps you could enlighten me?

*notices USA are fighting back hard - currently keeping a log of morons who shout "In the hole" when someone tees off on a par-5*

I can provide no light to the first subject but I would like to say that I hate those morons too. Furthermore, I really hate the morons that whistle loud and obnoxiously after every shot so that they can hear themselves on TV when they get home for the highlights.

[dro87]

Originally Posted by BoyBrumby

One thing that has puzzled me about the US team that perhaps someone could clear up for me is its make up. It seems to be peopled almost exclusively by Caribbean & Sub-Continent ex-pats. These are obviously the natural constituency for cricket in America, so that in itself isn't surprising. However, I do seem to recall that the UAE fielded a team in the 96 World Cup consisting for the most part of Indian & Pakistani ex-pat workers. The ICC then, in their wisdom, introduced a rule saying (I think) that 7 of the team for associate members had to be natives or citizens of the country they represent.

Did I imagine this or has the rule been rescinded since?

Hi! My name is Leandro and i come from Italy... Yes and i play cricket... IN ITALY! Cricket in Italy started around 25 years ago... And in the begining only expats played... but now every club has 2 have at least 9 italian... I'm actually have sri lankan... My dad played 4 sri lanka u16 and when he was 18 he came in Italy, and started playing cricket here... I learnt my cricket here in Italy and now i'm captain of Italy u17!!!! Italy has a national team, which is nearly as good as America's... Whe have Joe Scuderi who is a half Austalian half Italian who nearly got into the aussie 1996 world cup team and another couple of first class players (south Africans). But toghter with these first class players we field some toaly home grown ITALIAN players like Gabriele Passaretti (who was awarded player of the European Championships) and some more... The problem is that to make cricket famous in Italy we need to play in big competitions... Just like italy in rugby... The rule boyBrumby was talking about is still valid... Most of the American players have been living there for several years, and know have American citizenship...

[luckyeddie]

dro87:

Welcome to CricketWeb, Leandro.

My word, we are becoming one of the wider international cricket websites now (as well as the best). I'm delighted to see cricket flourishing in your part of the world - and it's good to see a positive approach with respect to recruiting Italian nationals into the teams.

I agree that you need more international competition - not just one tournament per year. The game is fairly strong in other countries too, I believe - Austria, Estonia, Slovenia, Switzerland and one or two others not too many hundreds of miles from yourselves (I did a 'spoof' writeup on a European tournament a year or so ago - hope I didn't offend anyone). These things do take time, though, but the more people who know about you the better.

[Samuel_Vimes]

Originally Posted by dro87

Whe have Joe Scuderi who is a half Austalian half Italian who nearly got into the aussie 1996 world cup team and another couple of first class players (south Africans).

Yup, he's class. Without him you'd have struggled to beat us at the EC (though we made a mockery of the France and Germany games... )

Back on topic: first-class games are a great idea...but it has to be covered by some funding, I'm afraid. The biggest problem the minnows face are that all their players are "happy amateurs", whereas cricket is a game where professionalism really is required. Especially first-class cricket. Nobody can afford to take four days in ten off work regularly - and add training to that as well.