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Cricket in the US |
| ‘You must be joking,’ is the usual response
when you mention cricket in the USA, though the annual US-Canada
cricket competition is one of the oldest two-nation contests
in the world. Canada in fact took part in the first cricket
World Cup held in 1975 in England. |
| The USA won the 2002 Americas Championships
tournament held in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Canada, Bermuda,
Bahamas, Cayman Islands and hosts Argentina were the other teams.
The highlight of the tournament was the convincing victory the
US achieved over the World-Cup 2003 bound Canada team. |
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| Philadelphia’s Belmont Cricket Club by water
colour artist Frank Taylor. |
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| Cricket in the United States is undergoing a revival,
led by expatriates from the West Indies, India and Pakistan. The national
team is led by Faoud Bacchus, an opening batsman who once scored 250
in a Test innings in India, playing for the West Indies. The team
is coached by Syed Abid Ali, a former India Test all rounder. |
| Settlers from England started playing cricket in
America in the early 17th century, about the same time that cricket
clubs started to emerge in England. Teams from the West Indies, England
and Australia played in different cities in the US and Canada on their
way from one continent to another. |
| The US has played Canada since the 1840s and has
sent touring sides abroad. On January 5, 1888, in possibly its finest
hour on the international cricket stage, the US defeated a full official
West Indies side on its home ground, in a single day by nine wickets.
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| From around the mid-1850s, Philadelphia has been
the home of US cricket, with an unbroken history of the game being
played competitively there, and excellent facilities, including a
full-fledged stadium available to its practitioners. Its pace bowler,
John Barton King, was considered the fastest bowler in the world,
and teammates George Patterson and John Lester were also highly regarded.
In 1897, King took the prize wicket of Sussex’s Ranjitsinhji with
a delivery that according to one report, “would have taken out the
stumps of any batsman in the world.” |
| In 1893, Philadelphia made 525 against a touring
Australian side in an innings described in haste by the local press
as “the greatest innings in the history of the world.” The Philadelphians
went on to win that match and repeated the feat three years later
when the Australians toured again. |
| Great hopes were raised by these unexpected victories
but dashed when Philadelphia toured England in 1897 and the team realised
that there still existed a gap between their cricket and county cricket.
When they toured England again in 1903, they were written off even
as they landed on British soil, but this time, they surprised themselves
and their hosts, winning seven of the 16 matches they played, drawing
three, and losing the rest. King and Lester were prominent in this
vastly improved display by the tourists. |
| Today, cricket is growing in popularity among immigrants. |
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