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Making History – the US is Ready for International Cricket

Making History – the US is Ready for International Cricket

With the US all set to co-host the T20 2024 World Cup tournament, a new chapter in the history of cricket is taking shape. The country known for its passion and devotion to sports like football, basketball, and ice hockey, is all prepared to welcome the ICC T20 World Cup participants. 

The 2024 ICC Men’s T20 World Cup will be co-hosted by the West Indies and the United States from 1st to 29th June 2024. It will be the ninth edition of the men’s T20 World Cup, organised by ICC. This is the first time the US, which has not yet attained the status of a test-playing nation, will host a major ICC tournament. In this edition of the T20 World Cup, 20 teams will be competing for the first time in the history of the ICC World Cup.

Out of these 20 teams are the top eight teams from the 2022 edition of the Men’s T20 World Cup, the next two teams in the ICC Men’s T20I Team Rankings, and eight teams were determined by regional qualifiers. There are also two host teams in the tournament. Canada and Uganda are participating in the 2024 ICC Men’s T20 World Cup. These two country’s teams qualified for the men’s T20 World Cup for the first time. The US is also participating in the T20 World Cup for the first time; it has automatically qualified for being the co-host of the tournament. 

The selection of the US as the joint host for the forthcoming edition of the men’s T20 World Cup may have surprised many, as the US lacks cricket infrastructure and resources compared to many other renowned cricket-playing nations. The reason may be that tournaments like the NBA, NFL, and MLB have made the US one of the richest sporting countries in the world. The US also has the biggest sports market in the world. 

Moreover, with the introduction of Major League Cricket (MLC) as a franchise league last year, the platform for international cricket in the US has been strengthened. MLC is a professional Twenty20 cricket league in the United States. The US is not exactly new to cricket; the sport has been played in the great country since the 18th century.  Besides these facts, with the sizeable diaspora population of Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis in the US, many of whom have a craze for cricket, the crowd-pulling capacity of such a major tournament in the US is more or less assured.

For the forthcoming edition of the men’s T20 World Cup, the 20 teams are divided into four groups, each comprising five. Group A includes India, Pakistan, Ireland, Canada, and the USA; Group B includes England, Australia, Namibia, Scotland, and Oman; Group C comprises New Zealand, West Indies, Afghanistan, Uganda, and Papua New Guinea; and Group D includes South Africa, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, the Netherlands, and Nepal.

The tournament will have 55 matches across nine venues. Six of these venues are located in the West Indies and three are in the USA. West Indies will host the Super Eight matches and the knockout stage matches. 

The three venues in the US will be Central Broward Park in Lauderhill, Florida, Nassau County International Cricket Stadium in New York, and Grand Prairie Stadium in Dallas, Texas. The tournament is set to begin on 1st June at the Grand Prairie stadium in Dallas, with a contest between the USA and Canada teams. The final will be held on 29th June at Kensington Oval in Barbados. In total, 16 of the 55 matches will be hosted in the US, which includes the India-Pakistan clash at the Nassau County International Cricket Stadium in Long Island, New York, on 9th June.

Four matches will be played at the Central Broward Park in Lauderhill, Florida(capacity of 40,000), eight matches will be held at Nassau County International Cricket Stadium in Long Island, New York(capacity of 34,000), and four matches will be held at Grand Prairie Stadium in Dallas, Texas(capacity of 15,000).

So, we can expect a great contest in June in the shortest format of the game. The defending champions are England, which defeated Pakistan in the final of the 2022 ICC Men’s World Cup. However, besides England, the Indian team(led by Rohit Sharma), the Australian team(led by Mitchell Marsh), and the New Zealand team(led by Kane Williamson) are also hot favourites to win the T20 World Cup 2024.

Co-hosting this major event will likely give the US a big fillip in international cricket.

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