Dead Pom Bounce

Cricket, says the BBC, is making a big comeback in...

...the US.

The game - completely inscrutable to Yanks raised on baseball as well as lesser sports like football, basketball and hockey - was once America's primary sport:

Today, thanks to a huge influx of immigrants from India, Pakistan and the West Indies, cricket is bouncing back.

There are 29 leagues nationwide, with an estimated 700 clubs and 50,000 active cricketers. As well as traditional bastions like Philadelphia and New York, where Mayor Bloomberg recently announced a $1.5m investment for a purpose built pitch in Queens, cricket is now being played in such unlikely places as Dallas, Texas, and Wichita, Kansas.

A cigar to you if you just knew this next bit was coming...:

In Los Angeles, a team called Compton Homies & Popz uses cricket to teach "boyz from the hood" old-fashioned virtues like discipline and manners.

Next stop, polo.

The story's subject - a West Indian from Atlanta named Des Lewis - has a dream:

So can cricket do what soccer has done, and once again become a contender in the US?

A student I met at a charity game in Atlanta was more than a little sceptical. "It's way too complicated for Americans," he said. "And too slow."

But that doesn't stop Des Lewis from dreaming.

"My dream is to get a piece of property," he told me, as the sun began to set over Georgia.

"Twenty acres or so. And build a proper cricket field. With a real pavilion."

Tell him to have his people call the Minnesota state legislature.

Posted by Mitch at September 7, 2006 07:03 AM | TrackBack