Cricket in the United States

Cricket in the United States is a sport played at the amateur, club, intercollegiate and international competition levels with little popularity, with 200,000 players (<0.1% of the population) across the country.

One reason was the 19th-century-rise of the summer time bat-and-ball sport now called baseball, which displaced cricket as a popular pastime.

[6] 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 U.S. from participating in the sport at the highest level.

[18] Philadelphia is typically considered to be the center of North American cricket, with a long history of teams and matches.

[17] Clubs from the United States (St. George's CC) and Canada participated in one of the first international cricket matches on record in 1844 in Bloomingdale Park in Manhattan.

Roughly 500 officially established clubs existed and it is probable that in 1860 there were 10,000 boys and men in America who had actively played the sport for at least a season.

[16] St. George's CC employed Sheffield native Samuel Wright as its professional cricket playing groundsman.

Wright's two sons, Harry and George, played for the United States XXII against the All England XI in 1859 in New York and Philadelphia.

Grace – was an American-born cricketer and lawyer by profession, described as brilliant under pressure when facing first-class English sides.

[31] An army making a brief stop at a location could easily organise a game of baseball on almost any clear patch of ground, while cricket required a carefully prepared pitch.

In 2005 the USACA was suspended from the ICC's annual conference due to issues with the association's election process, but that suspension was lifted in March 2006.

[40] In February 2006, a competing commercial body, Major League Cricket (MLC) proposed that it replace the USACA as the United States' representative in the ICC.

[44][45] In 2017, the ICC voted to expel the USACA, citing its increasing debt and failure to ratify a certified constitution.

[44] In January 2019, a new body known as USA Cricket was approved as a new associate member of the ICC, replacing the USACA as the United States' representative.

[49][50] On November 16, 2021, the ICC announced that the United States and West Indies would co-host the 2024 Men's T20 World Cup.

[51] It will be the first ICC World Cup tournament to feature matches played in the United States - with three venues finalized in New York, Florida & Texas.

[68] The game is also played on a number of shared purpose venues, including Van Cortlandt Stadium in Bronx, New York.