The U.S. Can Provide A Much-Needed Tonic For American Cricket At T20 World Cup

The U.S. will be playing at the upcoming T20 World Cup (Photo by Alex Davidson-ICC/ICC via Getty Images)

ICC via Getty Images

Cricket’s American dream has not gone to plan in 2025. The sport’s No.1 target market, an infatuation of power brokers that has often raised the ire of plenty of rivals, has been in chaos.

USA Cricket, the perennially troubled governing body, is currently suspended by the International Cricket Council and entangled in a legal row with former partner American Cricket Enterprises over a dispute that has thrown into jeopardy the well-heeled Major League Cricket T20 competition.

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In the ICC’s own words, there has been “reputational damage to cricket” with the Los Angeles Olympics looming.

The saga has caused uncertainty over key cricket infrastructure for LA 2028 – where cricket is supposed to not only seriously emerge in the U.S. but also provide a launch pad to start cracking other coveted financial markets.

So much work has gone into shoring up American cricket but there are grave doubts over whether the situation in the world’s biggest sports market will ever stabilize.

The besieged USA Cricket, meanwhile, has gone on the offensive with its latest salvo under the guise of a media release aiming to provide “factual clarity about recent challenges and the actions taken to protect the game’s future in the United States”.

“This is not just a story of struggle, it is a story of resilience, of a governing body determined to learn, to be better, and to serve the game with honesty and heart,” the lengthy essay concluded.

While there is a lot of white noise in the U.S, the ICC board is viewing the governing body as ceasing to even exist. “They are irrelevant to us now, no point monitoring all the chaos there because they no longer run U.S cricket,” an administrator told me.

The ICC, officially, are dealing with this situation through ‘Project USA’ which was launched after the suspension of USA cricket. It is temporarily overseeing the management and administration of the national teams.

There had been a belief that interim administrators would be tasked with helping stabilize USA Cricket.

As I reported previously, Faisal Hasnain, a former long-time cricket administrator, and Indra Nooyi, the legendary ex PepsiCo boss, were bandied around as possibly being sounded out as they are both U.S. based.

But it is now learned that no such stabilizing figures will be tapped on the shoulder for the time being with the pieces to be eventually picked up amid the inevitable rubble.

In the meantime, the U.S. men’s team have been faced with the tough task of shutting out these untimely off-field distractions ahead of the T20 World Cup early next year in Sri Lanka and India.

It is the second straight T20 World Cup for the U.S. – ranked 18 in the T20I rankings – after their momentous debut last year on home soil marked by defeating Pakistan in one of cricket’s biggest upsets.

U.S will again play Pakistan and India – who they lost to in New York in one of the showpieces games of 2024 – in Group A also featuring fellow top Associate nations Namibia and the Netherlands.

To the utter shock of no one, India and Pakistan once again were drawn in the same group to ensure cricket’s money-spinning fixture ensues. It does mean the U.S. will have a couple of massive games in the spotlight and if they can shock the world once again then a much-needed tonic will be felt in American cricket.

Even if it’s fleeting.