Key Points
A national cricket team that most Americans didnt even know they had beat one of the sports global powers Pakistan, for whom the game is a national obsession.. ..
The triumph Thursday in the T20 World Cup a global tournament using a shortened, three-hour version of a game that can last five days and still end in a draw shocked the cricketing world.. . Cricket briefly flickered into US consciousness as the result popped up on news sites in a rare moment for a sport that lives in obscurity in the United States outside the South Asian and Caribbean communities.. . Beating Pakistan in the World Cup is going to open many doors for us, said USA Cricket captain Monank Patel in Texas, where the game took place in a converted minor league baseball park.. . Corey Anderson, who represented New Zealand internationally and now plays for the US team, told CNN he got hundreds of text messages after the win.. ..
Its probably shocked the cricketing world, said the 33-year-old who has an American wife and kids..
But the US victory over Pakistan is exactly what global cricket chiefs hoped for when bringing some of this years T20 World Cup to the United States, which is co-hosting along with islands in the Caribbean, a more traditional hotbed of the game that has faced challenges from the encroachment of US sports.. ..
There are hundreds of club teams, and it is no longer unusual to see games in public parks in big US cities with teams mostly drawn from Indian, Pakistani, Sri Lankan and Bangladeshi communities.. . Elite US cricket is dominated by players of South Asian or Caribbean descent..
