Illustration by Danielle Del Plato. Source: Getty.
Fiksi Dan Puisi
2024-08-03 20:32:00
The Atlantic
Inside U.S. Cricket’s Shocking Victory
How an American team of retreads, castoffs, and one software engineer took down a dominant world power
By Joyce Cary
When the players on the U.S. men’s cricket team showed up at a stadium outside Dallas on the morning of June 6, they were well aware that few people who knew anything about the sport gave them a chance of winning. That the match was even taking place was curiosity enough. Their opponent was Pakistan, one of the great cricketing powers. In Pakistan, cricket is the nation’s most popular sport, whereas in the U.S. many are surprised that America even has a cricket team of its own. The two teams had never faced off before.
The website for USA Cricket contends that “America has one of the richest cricketing histories” of any country, but the argument is a dubious one. A timeline offers a few bright early moments—it notes, for instance, that in 1754, Benjamin Franklin brought a cricket rule book over from England; reports that the very first international cricket match took place in New York (America versus Canada, in 1844); and asserts that, at one time, there were up to 1,000 cricket clubs across the country. But it mostly details the waning of the sport, eclipsed by baseball in American life. From the 1960s onward, descriptions of purported achievements by U.S. national teams almost invariably include a phrase that lets slip the underlying reality: “narrowly miss out,” “bottom of their pool,” “not quite enough.”When the players on the U.S. men’s cricket team showed up at a stadium outside Dallas on the morning of June 6, they were well aware that few people who knew anything about the sport gave them a chance of winning. That the match was even taking place was curiosity enough. Their opponent was Pakistan, one of the great cricketing powers. In Pakistan, cricket is the nation’s most popular sport, whereas in the U.S. many are surprised that America even has a cricket team of its own. The two teams had never faced off before.
The website for USA Cricket contends that “America has one of the richest cricketing histories” of any country, but the argument is a dubious one. A timeline offers a few bright early moments—it notes, for instance, that in 1754, Benjamin Franklin brought a cricket rule book over from England; reports that the very first international cricket match took place in New York (America versus Canada, in 1844); and asserts that, at one time, there were up to 1,000 cricket clubs across the country. But it mostly details the waning of the sport, eclipsed by baseball in American life. From the 1960s onward, descriptions of purported achievements by U.S. national teams almost invariably include a phrase that lets slip the underlying reality: “narrowly miss out,” “bottom of their pool,” “not quite enough.”When the players on the U.S. men’s cricket team showed up at a stadium outside Dallas on the morning of June 6, they were well aware that few people who knew anything about the sport gave them a chance of winning. That the match was even taking place was curiosity enough. Their opponent was Pakistan, one of the great cricketing powers. In Pakistan, cricket is the nation’s most popular sport, whereas in the U.S. many are surprised that America even has a cricket team of its own. The two teams had never faced off before.
The website for USA Cricket contends that “America has one of the richest cricketing histories” of any country, but the argument is a dubious one. A timeline offers a few bright early moments—it notes, for instance, that in 1754, Benjamin Franklin brought a cricket rule book over from England; reports that the very first international cricket match took place in New York (America versus Canada, in 1844); and asserts that, at one time, there were up to 1,000 cricket clubs across the country. But it mostly details the waning of the sport, eclipsed by baseball in American life. From the 1960s onward, descriptions of purported achievements by U.S. national teams almost invariably include a phrase that lets slip the underlying reality: “narrowly miss out,” “bottom of their pool,” “not quite enough.”
When the players on the U.S. men’s cricket team showed up at a stadium outside Dallas on the morning of June 6, they were well aware that few people who knew anything about the sport gave them a chance of winning. That the match was even taking place was curiosity enough. Their opponent was Pakistan, one of the great cricketing powers. In Pakistan, cricket is the nation’s most popular sport, whereas in the U.S. many are surprised that America even has a cricket team of its own. The two teams had never faced off before.
The website for USA Cricket contends that “America has one of the richest cricketing histories” of any country, but the argument is a dubious one. A timeline offers a few bright early moments—it notes, for instance, that in 1754, Benjamin Franklin brought a cricket rule book over from England; reports that the very first international cricket match took place in New York (America versus Canada, in 1844); and asserts that, at one time, there were up to 1,000 cricket clubs across the country. But it mostly details the waning of the sport, eclipsed by baseball in American life. From the 1960s onward, descriptions of purported achievements by U.S. national teams almost invariably include a phrase that lets slip the underlying reality: “narrowly miss out,” “bottom of their pool,” “not quite enough.”When the players on the U.S. men’s cricket team showed up at a stadium outside Dallas on the morning of June 6, they were well aware that few people who knew anything about the sport gave them a chance of winning. That the match was even taking place was curiosity enough. Their opponent was Pakistan, one of the great cricketing powers. In Pakistan, cricket is the nation’s most popular sport, whereas in the U.S. many are surprised that America even has a cricket team of its own. The two teams had never faced off before.
The website for USA Cricket contends that “America has one of the richest cricketing histories” of any country, but the argument is a dubious one. A timeline offers a few bright early moments—it notes, for instance, that in 1754, Benjamin Franklin brought a cricket rule book over from England; reports that the very first international cricket match took place in New York (America versus Canada, in 1844); and asserts that, at one time, there were up to 1,000 cricket clubs across the country. But it mostly details the waning of the sport, eclipsed by baseball in American life. From the 1960s onward, descriptions of purported achievements by U.S. national teams almost invariably include a phrase that lets slip the underlying reality: “narrowly miss out,” “bottom of their pool,” “not quite enough.”
When the players on the U.S. men’s cricket team showed up at a stadium outside Dallas on the morning of June 6, they were well aware that few people who knew anything about the sport gave them a chance of winning. That the match was even taking place was curiosity enough. Their opponent was Pakistan, one of the great cricketing powers. In Pakistan, cricket is the nation’s most popular sport, whereas in the U.S. many are surprised that America even has a cricket team of its own. The two teams had never faced off before.
The website for USA Cricket contends that “America has one of the richest cricketing histories” of any country, but the argument is a dubious one. A timeline offers a few bright early moments—it notes, for instance, that in 1754, Benjamin Franklin brought a cricket rule book over from England; reports that the very first international cricket match took place in New York (America versus Canada, in 1844); and asserts that, at one time, there were up to 1,000 cricket clubs across the country. But it mostly details the waning of the sport, eclipsed by baseball in American life. From the 1960s onward, descriptions of purported achievements by U.S. national teams almost invariably include a phrase that lets slip the underlying reality: “narrowly miss out,” “bottom of their pool,” “not quite enough.”When the players on the U.S. men’s cricket team showed up at a stadium outside Dallas on the morning of June 6, they were well aware that few people who knew anything about the sport gave them a chance of winning. That the match was even taking place was curiosity enough. Their opponent was Pakistan, one of the great cricketing powers. In Pakistan, cricket is the nation’s most popular sport, whereas in the U.S. many are surprised that America even has a cricket team of its own. The two teams had never faced off before.
The website for USA Cricket contends that “America has one of the richest cricketing histories” of any country, but the argument is a dubious one. A timeline offers a few bright early moments—it notes, for instance, that in 1754, Benjamin Franklin brought a cricket rule book over from England; reports that the very first international cricket match took place in New York (America versus Canada, in 1844); and asserts that, at one time, there were up to 1,000 cricket clubs across the country. But it mostly details the waning of the sport, eclipsed by baseball in American life. From the 1960s onward, descriptions of purported achievements by U.S. national teams almost invariably include a phrase that lets slip the underlying reality: “narrowly miss out,” “bottom of their pool,” “not quite enough.”When the players on the U.S. men’s cricket team showed up at a stadium outside Dallas on the morning of June 6, they were well aware that few people who knew anything about the sport gave them a chance of winning. That the match was even taking place was curiosity enough. Their opponent was Pakistan, one of the great cricketing powers. In Pakistan, cricket is the nation’s most popular sport, whereas in the U.S. many are surprised that America even has a cricket team of its own. The two teams had never faced off before.
The website for USA Cricket contends that “America has one of the richest cricketing histories” of any country, but the argument is a dubious one. A timeline offers a few bright early moments—it notes, for instance, that in 1754, Benjamin Franklin brought a cricket rule book over from England; reports that the very first international cricket match took place in New York (America versus Canada, in 1844); and asserts that, at one time, there were up to 1,000 cricket clubs across the country. But it mostly details the waning of the sport, eclipsed by baseball in American life. From the 1960s onward, descriptions of purported achievements by U.S. national teams almost invariably include a phrase that lets slip the underlying reality: “narrowly miss out,” “bottom of their pool,” “not quite enough.”