Cricket in The United States - Cricket in American Culture

Cricket in American Culture

In 2006 it was estimated that 30,000 American people play or watch cricket annually. Cricket in the United States is not as popular as baseball and is not as popular among as large a fraction of the population as it is within either the Commonwealth nations or the other ICC full member (or Test cricket) nations. There are at least two historical reasons for the relative obscurity of cricket within the United States. One reason was the 19th-century-rise of the summer time bat and ball sport now called baseball, which seems to have displaced cricket as a popular pastime. Another reason was that in 1909 when the ICC was originally organized as the Imperial Cricket Conference it was open only to Commonwealth nations and thereby excluded the US from participating in the sport at the highest level.

Nevertheless in 1965 the US was admitted to the renamed ICC as an associate member and the sport grew in popularity in the second half of the 20th century. An oft mentioned reason for the growing popularity of cricket is the growing population of immigrants to the US who come from cricket playing nations.

With the launching of the United States Youth Cricket Association in 2010, a more focused effort to bring the game to American schools was begun, with the intention of broadening cricket's fan base beyond expatriates and their children.