History of cricket in the United States
[2] Around the time of the United States Civil War, the game began competing with baseball for participants, but then slowly declined in popularity.
In the latter part of the 20th century immigrants from cricket-playing nations in South Asia and the West Indies helped spark a resurgence in the game's popularity.
In 2007, the United States of America Cricket Association was suspended by the ICC because of problems with its administration, but was again recognized beginning in 2008.
[3] The earliest definite reference to American cricket is in the 1709 diaries of William Byrd of Westover on his James River estates in Virginia.
In many cities, local cricket clubs were contributing to their own demise by encouraging crossover to the developing game of baseball.
After the United States Civil War the Cincinnati Red Stockings brought a talented young bowler from the St. George's Cricket Club in New York to serve as a player and manager of the team.
Harry Wright applied the "scientific" batting and specialized placement of fielders that he had learned in cricket to his new sport.
[16] 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.
[36] These collegiate clubs generally drew their talent from pools at secondary schools which also fielded team and played in interscholastic competitions in this period.
[38] Throughout their first-class period of play, the Philadelphians produced such cricketers as Bart King, George Patterson, and John Lester.
[38] Crowds of several thousand fans "ranging from millionaires, coaching parties, and box holders to newsboys" routinely filled the stands at the big four clubs during international matches.
Unlike the other regional pockets of cricket enthusiasm across the country, the sport maintained is popularity for almost two decades into the twentieth century.
Though the results may have been less satisfactory than hoped for by promoters, the tour was arranged mainly for educational purposes and few of those on the American side expected to win many matches.
[40] While it initially aroused some curiosity, many English fans lost interest until Bart King and the Philadelphians met the full Sussex team at Brighton on 17 June.
From around 1905, there was a decline in the number of matches held, and some of Philadelphia's great clubs closed due to a shortage of members.
The last first-class match was played there in 1913, and Bart King's own Belmont Cricket Club sold its grounds and disbanded the following year.
Although commentator Robert Waller predicted that cricket "had taken so deep a root in Philadelphia that it could never be uprooted,"[51] the lack of support and international apathy caused an irreversible decline.
[52] The sport's negative association with foreign heritage was strong enough that in 1923, the city of Seattle, fearing that its residents were becoming too similar to their nearby Canadian neighbors, decided to mostly ban cricket.
In the second half of the twentieth century, immigrants to the United States from traditional cricket strongholds such as South Asia and the West Indies helped to stimulate the growth of the game.
[56] In 1961, an expatriate Englishman, John Marder, helped to establish the United States of America Cricket Association.
[52] The United States was also able to participate in the ICC Trophy when the tournament started in 1979, where they have been successful and have continued to improve despite not yet qualifying for the World Cup.
[55] Unfortunately, the USACA proved unable to administer the sport in the United States effectively, leading to suspensions, and subsequent disqualification from tournaments.
The team, which includes Latino and African American ex-gang members, was founded in 1995 by US homeless activist Ted Hayes and Hollywood movie Producer Katy Haber to combat the negative effect of poverty, urban decay and crime in Compton.
The club uses the ideals of sportsmanship, and the particular importance of etiquette and fair play in cricket, to help players develop respect for authority, a sense of self-esteem and self-discipline.
It consisted of eight geographically distributed teams organized in two divisions that mostly used minor league baseball parks as home fields.
Although most of the games were shown on Dish network PPV, the competition was linked to the unsuccessful launch of the so named "American Desi TV" channel[62] based in New Jersey.
All of these changes were designed to shorten the game and produce more aggressive batting, which the league administrators believed would help make the sport more appealing to the U.S. public.
However, several notable players without contracts, such as Ajay Jadeja, Daren Ganga, Mervyn Dillon, Colin Miller and Rahul Sanghvi took part in the competition.
Progress has since been slow but steady, and many hoped that Pro Cricket would prove to be a turning point in the popularity of the sport in the U.S.
Ken Weekes was born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1912 and played in two of the Tests on the West Indies' tour of England in 1939.
