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I was shocked to learn that cricket matches are sensory overloads. I thought they’d be boring or English—synonyms, surely. But a week spent attending the ICC T20 World Cup at Kensington Oval in Barbados quickly showed me otherwise.
There was a Bajan brass band walking around the stadium; there were Desi drummers banging out beats; there was a swimming pool in the all-inclusive party stand—and a beach too. There were professional dancers who jumped up on stages whenever anything important happened, and also regular people dancing whenever anything important happened. The concession stands sold curry, KFC, and the absolute coldest beers you will ever consume. There were spectators from every inhabited continent in the stands—including, believe it or not, some people from the United States. There are wealthy visiting fans who spent thousands on expensive flights and tropical hotels, and locals who spent a few bucks to get in the gates. There were also hugely important cricket games on the massive field in the middle of the stadium, although I’m not sure how you’re supposed to pay attention to it in the midst of everything else going on.
Two weeks ago, on a lark, I went to a Canada-Ireland game on Long Island, part of the opening rounds of the World Cup cohosted by the United States and the West Indies. I’d watched cricket before out of curiosity, but had never been to a game. It was fun, if sparsely attended. A few days after that, GQ asked me if I wanted to cover the USA-India game at the same stadium. It was not empty.
A few days after that, the ICC—the group that runs international cricket—invited GQ down to the next round of the tournament. I’d be able to follow Team USA to see them try to keep their run as cricket Cinderellas alive. Their first-round win over Pakistan shocked the world and inspired a level of joy best summarized by captain Monank Patel’s suffering a tournament-ending injury celebrating on the team bus. The win helped send Team USA to the Super 8 round, where I would watch them play England and the West Indies with semifinal spots on the line.
Team USA would turn out to be overmatched in Barbados—and so was I. I had only just seen this sport for the first time, and was suddenly dropped on a cricket-obsessed island to see the biggest stars and top teams in one of the most popular sports in the world playing massively important matches. Cricket celebrities and ex-players fought through crowds of screaming fans seeking autographs and photos—and then came to talk to me, a guy who had just googled them. It was a cricket fan’s dream week, granted by a rum-drunk genie to a confused American as some sort of mix-up. (Somebody in Mumbai is getting courtside Knicks tickets.)
After beating Pakistan, the world asked: Since when does America play cricket? Americans also asked Since when does America play cricket? Some portrayed Team USA as a plucky pack of part-timers going head-to-head with the world’s best; others argued the so-called Americans were really imported ringers from actual cricket-playing nations.
Hanging around the team hotel in Barbados, I got a clearer look at one of the most fascinating American sports teams ever assembled, one made up of guys overlooked by their homelands, but that were somehow good enough to beat some of the teams they supposedly weren’t good enough to play for. “It’s the beauty of this sport and the beauty of this country, the land of opportunity,” says Pakistan-born Ali Khan, who gave up on his cricket dreams when he moved to Dayton, Ohio—only to get noticed in local tournaments and defeat his homeland in the World Cup. “Who would’ve thought we would come from all over the world, settle here, and play cricket at the highest level?”
My cricket crash course gave a glimpse into why cricket in America could work, and how invested the cricketing world is in making that happen—and the real hurdles holding the sport back. American cricket is farther along than just about anybody realized. But how far can it go?
It was the moment Aaron Jones had always dreamed of. He was playing in front of a packed house on his home turf in Barbados, serving as captain in a World Cup game. It felt like the whole island had turned out to see the West Indies squad, which unites players and fans from across the Caribbean into one world-class team. I can only imagine the emotions Jones felt when the four-hour party in the stands briefly stopped for a loud, proud rendition of “Rally Round the West Indies,” the soaring calypso anthem that sent flags of every country in the region waving in the stands.
But Jones wasn’t allowed to sing along. The Queens-born, Barbados-raised slugger was the captain of Team USA, not the team he spent his childhood rooting for. “Growing up as a kid, I would never think that I would play in a World Cup game, at home…against the West Indies,” Jones said with a laugh after the match.
It was a complicated-yet-common predicament for the heavily hyphenated American roster. Of their six games in the World Cup, five were against countries where at least one player on the roster was born. The team instituted a joking policy: Players caught singing the other team’s national anthem would have to put $20 in a fine jar. Sources told me the jar got pretty full over the course of the tournament.
To compete in their debut major international tournament, Team USA relied on players who had played top cricket elsewhere in the world—most notably Corey Anderson, a Kiwi who played in the 2015 Cricket World Cup final with New Zealand, but moved to the Dallas area in 2020 to live with his Texan wife. (“A Buc-ees is like a whole city in New Zealand,” Anderson told me.) Although they may be adoptive Americans, Anderson said nobody on the team is half-hearted. “It's a massive sacrifice to pick up your life and move across the world,” he said. “We’re proud to play for Team USA.”
But Team USA also got critical contributions from players developed in America’s surprisingly large homegrown cricket talent pool. The biggest success story is Khan, who only became a professional cricketer after moving to Ohio. When he first got here, he made ends meet with a job selling phones at—you’re never going to believe this—Cricket Wireless.
“I didn’t know there was any cricket, but my uncle who already lived here told me he played Sunday cricket,” Khan recalled. “When I went to practice, they said, who is this new kid bowling really fast?” His play in the US Open tournament was spotted by West Indies star Dwayne Bravo, who got him a gig in the Caribbean Premier League. He’s gone on to play around the world, including a return to his homeland in the Pakistan Super League.
America doesn’t necessarily need to become a cricket country—in many respects, we already are one. There are millions of American cricket fans and hundreds of thousands of Americans who play cricket regularly. They all have stories about what strings needed to be pulled to get a permit for their league to play in the public park, and they will tell you these stories regardless of whether you ask. They’re almost all from countries that already have a connection with cricket—but they’re American.
There were even American fans in Barbados. They were mainly Indian Americans who took advantage of a weekend with two USA games and an India-Afghanistan match. Even with the flights and hotels, it was cheaper than going to India-Pakistan in the States. Some crowded around the team hotel lobby with hopes of getting a glimpse of India’s stars—but also took pictures when they spotted Ali Khan walking around. USA Cricket has made it.
For a hundred-plus years, the insular world of cricket didn’t really make much effort to expand outside of the traditional countries where the game was played. Why would it, when those countries have literal billions of fans who treat the sport like a religion? Now, the sport is looking to branch out, for obvious reasons. “When they see the USA, it’s like Scrooge McDuck with his eyes bulging out and dollar signs flashing,” said American cricket journalist Peter Della Penna. It’s why the ICC hosted the first round of the tournament in the States, and on a significantly smaller scale, why it wanted me to come down to Barbados.
The international press was intrigued and delighted by the presence of a confused American stumbling around the cricket grounds. On BBC Radio’s international call of the USA–West Indies match, former Women’s World Cup champion Alex Hartley mentioned that “GQ has flown somebody out to cover this World Cup… Greg from GQ…. GQ coming out is a big deal.” My name is Rodger. I made up my mind that if they were going to call me Greg, I’d be calling every ball hit over the boundary a cricket homer. I’m supposed to help convince Americans to like this game, right?
The desire to make American cricket happen is there. The execution is often lacking.The original American cricket federation, USACA, was expelled by the ICC in 2017 after a series of suspensions and reprimands over poor governance and financial issues. It was replaced by an organization called USA Cricket, which was expected to do a better job. Instead, it’s also on the verge of suspension. USA Cricket was only able to secure one sponsor for the World Cup—an Indian dairy company called Amul whose products aren’t widely available in the United States. It often feels unclear whether the goal is to expand to new fans in America, or simply continue profitably banking on the wealthy diaspora communities that already care deeply about the sport.
The best way to grow the game is clearly by quality performances from national teams, as evidenced by the spike in interest after the Pakistan win. But the administrators don’t seem committed to that, either: According to Della Penna, the board spent the months before the World Cup feuding with players over their pay.
New fans looking to scratch the cricket itch can tune into season two of Major League Cricket, a well-funded pro league that starts next week at two venues, in Grand Prairie, Texas, and Morrisville, North Carolina. Most of the players from Team USA—as well as stars from teams like South Africa and Australia—will be involved, and they want you to come to the games. “If you like baseball, think of going to watch Aaron Judge hit home run after home run after home run and staying at the plate and being able to keep doing it,” said Anderson.
I can confirm that’s how cricket works—unfortunately, because I watched players from England and the West Indies do it to Team USA. Neither game was competitive, ending the American dream run with a harsh reminder of the work to be done. England’s Jos Buttler smacked seven cricket homers, including five on a stretch of six balls. One flew so far that it left a ball-shaped hole in the solar paneling on top of Kensington Oval. Barbados’s own Shai Hope did even better, with eight cricket homers. Watching a player for their team in their sport blast ball after ball into the Bajan night, the island crowd went full jet engine. When Hope ended the game with a massive shot into the section where I was standing, all the trumpets and drums and voices and vuvuzelas and loudspeakers exploded in a supernova of joyful noise.
I enjoyed my time in a country consumed by cricket. Every game was on seemingly every TV and radio. There were Bajans at the bar celebrating Afghanistan’s unexpected win over Australia, even though they were distinctly not from Afghanistan. On my last day, I played some beach cricket with locals, who didn’t seem to mind that I had no idea how to legally throw a cricket ball. One of them got me out with a one-handed diving catch into the ocean, the single most athletic play I’ve ever seen in any pickup game I’ve ever played. It was all so friendly and fun that I half-believe it was an ICC psyop preplanned to ensure the American writer went back with positive vibes.
Cricket will never achieve that level of omnipresence in America. We already have the hegemonic NFL, the most popular basketball, baseball, and hockey leagues on earth, a massive college sports ecosystem, a World Cup–winning soccer team (and, allegedly, a men’s team as well), and the all-time lead in Olympic medals.
But there’s clearly room for an infectiously fun sport—one that already means so much to so many Americans. Team USA’s play qualified it for the 2026 World Cup. As hosts, they will automatically qualify for the cricket competition in the 2028 Olympics. And whether their players honed their skills in Ohio or on the other side of the world, they’re Americans now, and they’re not going anywhere.