Dear America: Please give cricket a chance

If I told you the guy at the crease picked the leggy’s googly and it sailed past silly mid-on for four, you’d probably — rightly — think I’d had a seizure.

For those of you wondering, I am talking about cricket, arguably Western civilization’s greatest achievement since free speech, Michelangelo’s David, and whatever they have done to Madonna's face.

The US national team also draws heavily on South Asian immigrants and famously beat Pakistan in the 2024 T20 World Cup.

I was inspired to write this after reading Andrew Chapados’ piece in Fearless lamenting Canadians’ loss of ice hockey as the CBC starts experimenting with broadcasting cricket.

Don’t get me wrong. I love ice hockey. When I stayed in Nova Scotia, it didn’t take long to understand why these super-friendly people love the game. The speed, intensity, and aggression. I was hooked. The way the refs mostly let ’em fight it out, the mullets ... more fights. Some of my most memorable nights were spent watching a game on a big TV with a bunch of fishermen and giant cans of Colt 45.

Sticky wicket

But I am going to try to use this article to defend cricket, though I don’t hold much hope.

For starters, explaining the rules is like asking a crab to describe the chemical composition of water. The traditional version of the game, Test cricket, doesn’t help my case. While baseball lasts a few hours, Test cricket can occupy six hours a day for up to five days — and still end in a draw. It’s also possibly the only sport on Earth where the batsman is applauded for leaving the ball alone.

That said, this is a game that requires skill and nerves. The fastest bowlers send the ball down at close to 100 mph, and a short delivery can come screaming toward your ribs, head, or worse.

But my word, it can be boring.

If golf is a good walk spoiled, Test cricket can best be described as a decent sleep disrupted by a light round of applause — followed by a collective groan when the ball hits someone’s nuts.

Good luck selling that to Americans.

America's pastime

I love the game for its history and heritage. The English were knocking the cherry around a field decades before the Pilgrims set foot in the New World. Test cricket is a glorious aristocratic vestige of the British Empire. Naturally, its imperial pedigree has also made it a target for the usual colonialism critiques. All the more reason to embrace the game.

At its most traditional, this sport is steeped in British pomp and pageantry. Cricket players dress in pristine whites, stop for tea, and politely applaud opponents who reach a century. At Lord’s, members watch from a pavilion that looks like the setting for a royal garden party.

A Test match can feel like a temporary reversion to Victorian Britain.

Before anyone accuses cricket of being un-American, best check the history books.

Long before Fenway Park was even a pile of bricks or Cooperstown immortalized its sluggers, America had a thriving cricket culture. New Yorkers were playing matches on Central Park’s North Meadow in the 19th century. Benjamin Franklin reportedly brought home a copy of the 1744 laws of cricket from England — it takes 250 years just to learn the LBW rule — and there is anecdotal evidence that George Washington’s troops played a related game called “wicket” at Valley Forge.

Abraham Lincoln is said to have watched cricket, and early baseball great Jim Creighton played both sports. Decades later, even Babe Ruth himself met Australian cricket legend Don Bradman to see what all the fuss was about.

Twenty20 vision

Which brings me to my modest proposal.

For 50 years America has led the way in exporting its culture around the world. It’s time for recolonization. You’ve given us Steven Seagal; it’s only right we give you cricket.

Sure, the British Empire is not what it was — it currently consists of an elderly mailman on Tristan da Cunha and a heavily discounted Prince Andrew T-shirt kiosk in the Falklands — but a fair trade is a fair trade.

Okay, “Under Siege” was good, but hundreds of straight-to-video slap-fests where Seagal’s biggest enemy is the stairway is enough. Seriously, he uses a body double to go upstairs. I have watched this man “fight” sitting in a swivel chair.

Anyway, back to cricket.

The version you are likely to watch — who am I kidding, you won’t watch it — is T20. Otherwise known as Twenty20, it is a much shorter, flashier variant. “Twenty” refers to the number of overs each side gets; an over is six legal deliveries, or pitches.

Purists on this side of the Atlantic call it baseball in pajamas.

The goal is to score as fast as possible. Hitting a “six” is the rough equivalent of a home run. When a new batsman comes to the crease — home plate, basically — he is sometimes introduced as if he were walking into the Octagon. There are fireworks, cheerleaders, and short bursts of Pitbull or some other awful hype music between the action. The fans are rowdy, and the beer flows like a waterfall.

Like American football, it also stops every eight seconds to ask an attractive woman — sorry, a sideline reporter — standing six inches from a player’s face what’s happening.

RELATED: My 1990 World Cup sticker book — and a glimpse of football's simpler past

Staff/Mirrorpix/Getty Images

The empire strikes back

Believe it or not, this gaudy spectacle is taking root in the U.S.

Driven in large part by a huge South Asian diaspora, America now has its own professional T20 competition, Major League Cricket, featuring six franchises and plenty of international stars. Several of the teams have direct ties to Indian Premier League clubs, including MI New York, the Los Angeles Knight Riders, and the Texas Super Kings.

MLC features lots of international stars alongside a talented contingent of Indian- and Pakistani-born players. The U.S. national team also draws heavily on South Asian immigrants and famously beat Pakistan in the 2024 T20 World Cup. Several of its players came to America to work in tech. These guys are really good, cricket is in their blood, and honestly, even their H-1B team would give Australia a run for its money.

To give you a taste of the madness, during the 2024 T20 World Cup, a temporary 34,000-seat stadium was erected in Nassau County to host, among other matches, India versus Pakistan.

This rivalry makes Packers-Bears look like a Disney movie. Geopolitics is played out with a bat and ball before one of the biggest audiences in world sport.

America’s acquiescence truly arrives in 2028, when cricket returns to the Olympics for the first time since 1900 — in Los Angeles, of all places.

So America, open your arms. You’ve conquered baseball, basketball, and football — but not soccer; your women’s team is hilarious. Now let a bunch of foreign blokes in neon pyjamas take over for a few weeks.

Forget the British Empire striking back. This is the subcontinent striking back.

To borrow a well-known phrase: Howzat!

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