Why Americans Don’t Fancy Cricket

If you had the country hosted the first international cricket match to guess many would answer with absolute certainty that it was England. It is said, however, that the first international sports event in the modern world between the USA and Canada was a cricket game in 1844, the modern Olympic Games dating. Although cricket holds a place in the top two on the list of the most popular sports in the world, falling just behind soccer, Americans just really do not care that much.

Maybe it's because Cricket considered not to be American. Cricket was played in the sixteenth century for the first time in southern England. The expansion of the British Empire played overseas for cricket is performed and by the mid-19th century the first international matches were held. Today Cricket is very popular in Australia, England, India and Southern Africa.

The English are proud that they created the game as the Americans are proud that they created basketball or baseball. Americans are deeply with the sports they participate born, but they do not participate much in international sports such as soccer and cricket. International sports create more competition and Americans would have to work that much harder their way to work at the forefront to remain a world power.

In the 2012 Summer Olympics, the United States brought 46 home gold medals, 29 silver and 29 bronze, they at the top of the Olympic medal table. Americans love watching the Olympics, because they like to prove that they have some of the world's best athletes. However, cricket is an exception, very rarely transmitted in the United States usually on television, Americans shy, after exercising at all.

Consequently, the United States has no great team. This means that no highlights on ESPN and no huge stadiums-out for sale. It is difficult for Americans to get excited about cricket when they can not see it live or even on television. The few dedicated American supporters can do it online to see, but very similar to football, support teams from other parts of the world instead of their home country.

So what do they do? Watch instead Baseball. Baseball is America's past time. Baseball Cricket and developed in the 19th century has been widely recognized as the national sport of the United States. Because men Cricket compare so closely with baseball, it is difficult to support for another sport to build a racket involved, a ball and running. They are to hold similar both worldwide popularity. Americans have time to argue about the differences between soccer and American football and the sport are nowhere similar spend with each other. You do not have the time to do the same for cricket and baseball.

Cricket was among the most popular sports in America in the mid-19th century, but the introduction of baseball came at the expense of Cricket. Marketing played an important role. After the Civil War exploded nationalism along with a new sense of American national identity. With evolving technologies communication and transport, acknowledged Baseball operators the opportunity to expand. They created the National Association in 1871 by some of the existing hiking clubs networking. Young athletes and fans hugged her quickly. Cricket clubs, but remained regionally and many of the top players Baseball switched, including Harry Wright and A. G. Spalding, who founded both sporting goods companies that are still active today. The American cricket fans went with them and never returned.

Cricket rules are very different from baseball and Americans do not want to spend their valuable time and effort to learn how to understand them. Various terms such as "bowler" instead of "Jug" and "wicket-keeper" instead of "capture" it throws away and they are not willing to accept them. Moreover, the idea of ​​a 360-degree field is the happening all the action in the middle, is unfathomable.

Last year, British Prime Minister David Cameron visited President Obama and tagged along for a college basketball game Mississippi Valley State vs. Western Kentucky. In turn, the president, a reporter said: "He is to teach me cricket because I do not understand what with that it goes."

With two leagues and 30 teams tons of games to play in both the season and playoffs, it's difficult as it is to follow for people Baseball. Americans do not have time to cricket to start having various leagues and types of games. This leads to another reason Americans do not follow cricket: they have no patience.

Some cricket matches can take days. The longest match of the world will be held from Blunham Cricket Club of Bedfordshire in England. The club played for 5 days 105 hours from 10am on Thursday 26 August 2010 to 19:00 on 30 August of 2010.

Each team gets 10 outs and usually values ​​between 300 and 400 runs in their turn at bat. Although the thought of it surprises most Americans, they just do not see the attention span of six or seven hours of cricket. You can see a three-hour American football game hardly without getting drunk they remember. Cricket observers, however, make out a date him, casually sipping their beer and their favorite clubs in the local pub on the television.

It seems that the Americans only get bored easily. In football, score teams remain interested too few points for the Americans and in cricket, teams score too many. Games are long and cumbersome in both sports and American viewers can not seem to find a balance. But they watch golf, one of the slowest tempo games are. Golf is the sixth most popular sport in the country, but did not even make the Top 10 Cricket section. This seems a bit odd considering cricket is the second most popular sport in the world.

"I tried to explain Test cricket to Americans who say:" How can any sport go on four or five days? "Then I say 'Tiger Woods on a Thursday starts and plays through Sunday or on Monday." We observe eight hours Gulf at a time, and the winner still do not know, "Jon Lockerbie, the United States of America Cricket Association Chief Executive Officer in 2009, told BBC News.

Noticing this trend and to spread in the hope of a larger audience, the Twenty20 league in 2003. was introduced Twenty20 or T20, cricket is the shortened form of the game. A game usually takes about three hours around. In T20, each team has a single inning, which lasts between 75 and 90 minutes. During this period, each team rolled bats for a maximum 20 overs, or a set of six balls.

Twenty20 cricketers are becoming very wealthy celebrities also. Mahendra Singh Dhoni, captain of the Chennai Super Kings, broke in 2008 1.500.000 $ for a little over six weeks on the field up, making him the top earner of the league. The expansion of the league can be seen only in monetary terms. For the 2013-2014 year, Mahendra Singh Dhoni is $ 26 million received: $ 3.5 million in annual match fees and $ 23 million recognition of leading companies such as Pepsi, Reebok, and Lays. He is the richest cricketer in the world. Most of the top paid cricketers from India are hailing with only two from Australia - Shane Watson ($ 5.9 million) and Michael Clarke ($ 4.9 million) - and one from England, Ricky Ponting ($ 4m).

"If Twenty20 cricket is marketed properly and fans, television and sponsors we embrace could see the cricket, to become the next big sport in the US, where other sports tried" Lockerbie said.

In addition to introducing a T20 league, other measures can be taken cricket to promote expansion in the United States. First, we need to have children, start to play the game. In New York, played 32 Schools Cricket among young adults aged 15 to 19, when it reported BBC in 2010 and had introduced in Atlanta, 35 schools, the sport in their physical education classes.

Jatin Patel, president of the Indiana Youth Cricket Association, said students in about 240 Indiana schools the basics of the sport have been shown since its Indianapolis-based group began an outreach program in of 2010.

In the US, there are now more than 50 leagues in the United States with 1,100 registered clubs and 32,000 active participants. These are all under the umbrella organization of the country for the sport, the United States of America Cricket Association (USACA). Once children start to become interested in the sport, maybe adults will follow. This process can be accelerated if the USACA a National Youth Cricket Coordinator appoints implement Cricket in more schools and youth programs throughout the country.

Correlating with exposure Cricket schools, Cricket Equipment must be sold, and only readily available in shops in the US can not drive bikes without helmets as children, they can not play cricket without proper equipment.

Moreover, the United States more places for Cricket must be played. In 2007, the first international standard stadium, Central Broward Regional Park and Stadium, in Lauder, Florida completed at the cost of $ 70 million. In May 2013, while a Phillies baseball game in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is played, it was a cricket match takes place simultaneously at the annual Philadelphia Cricket Festival. This five-day long event has resulted in the Philadelphia Cricket Club for 21 years, featuring clubs from around the country and sometimes internationally.

"It's like a kind of underground sports - a secret society - in the sense that it is everywhere, if you know where to look," says Della Penna, who is the cricket editor at ESPN. "But if you do not know where to look, you would not know that it exists."

Although the United States has a long way to go until they are even close to comparable to India, Australia, or England are many US states to make progress towards the sport, in the hope that they the international tourism increase and ultimately benefit from economic development.

"If your goal is to try and connect with many parts of the world for potential trade, commerce and tourism, which is to go to a huge market," said Lauder Mayor Richard Kaplan.

The city of Indianapolis, Indiana spends $ 6,000,000 to equip one of its parks with a leading cricket pitch. Indianapolis also has signed a three-year contract to host a US amateur cricket tournament and championship, starting in August 2014. hopes the city, that the heart of the American Cricket to be, as it is the heart of the American Auto Racing ,

"If people think around the world of cricket, I want them to think of Indianapolis," said Mayor Greg Ballard told media in India during a trade visit in April.

Cricket-followers in the United States have also found themselves in the media spotlight. Joseph O'Neill acclaimed novel, The Netherlands, was very encouraged by Oprah Winfrey and President Barack Obama, (I suppose after the Prime Minister explained the rules of the game to him). The novel tells the story of the cricket game immigrants in New York and is made in a Hollywood movie.

In addition to the big screen seen to Cricket, Cricket Highlights need TV to see Americans to adopt the sport. I remember sitting in a London pub when I visited Europe in 2011 and asks the bartender what was sports shown on screens above me. I was 18 years old and I had no idea what a cricket match or what it looked well. In retrospect, it seems terribly naive, but how could I have known that if I had never been exposed to in school and sports from ESPN is not even televised?

However, cricket is not as foreign as think most Americans. Today I can myself apart from most Americans and say that I have attended an international cricket match. From the minute I walked in the doors of the Oval, the competitive atmosphere turned to be very similar to that of an American sporting event. Even better, I understood the rules of the game.

Americans seem a rather odd obsession with having new born "Royal Baby." Maybe they will start following cricket, when the baby is old enough to play. Until then will continue American cricketers their sport in schools implementing expansion in the construction of stadiums, and the attempt to Cricket to tell their friends and family. The future of cricket is bright for Americans and in time they can easily take over the sport and perhaps even produce some of the world's top cricketers.