When Harmeet Singh left India in 2020, he was looking for a fresh start. His cricketing career had stalled and his dreams of breaking into the Indian national team and playing at sport's biggest stage, the World Cup, were fading.
His destination was the United States, where cricket has long struggled to gain mainstream recognition and where there were few opportunities to go professional. Arriving during the pandemic on a special visa given to individuals with extraordinary ability, Singh earned about $60,000 a year as part of his contract, playing for the U.S. men's national cricket team and smaller leagues and coaching on the side.
His decision has paid off in a big way this month. Singh and the U.S. team shocked the sports world on June 6 by defeating Pakistan in a Men's T20 Cricket World Cup match. On Friday, the team advanced to the second stage of the tournament, the first to be played partly in the United States, co-hosted with several Caribbean countries. The U.S. next plays South Africa on Wednesday in Antigua, the first of three matches in the second stage.
The team's success is the latest milestone in raising the profile of cricket in the United States, where investment in the sport has surged in recent years. Cricket still faces significant obstacles to gaining wider popularity, some of which were highlighted by the tournament, but its most ardent supporters are bullish on the sport's trajectory.
“I never imagined cricket would grow to this extent,” Singh said in an interview.
Most of the players on the U.S. team were born outside the country and joined the team after meeting residency requirements. The team has never played in a World Cup, but qualified this year as they were co-hosts of the T20 event. Star player Saurabh Netravalkar works as a software engineer for Oracle.
The first stage of the T20 World Cup was played in Texas, Florida and New York, making it the first ever World Cup to be held in the United States. The tournament's matches last around three hours, much shorter than the traditional one-day format of the Cricket World Cup. More than 34,000 people tuned in to watch last week's match between India and Pakistan, a record attendance for a cricket match in the United States.
Media companies are increasingly seeing value in broadcasting cricket to U.S. audiences, particularly those of Indian descent. Investors have spent more than $1 billion to develop cricket in the country, including the Major League Cricket League, which kicks off its second season this summer. The sport is set to be included in the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.
But the physical infrastructure needed to play cricket is still in its infancy in the U.S. Major League Cricket's inaugural season was played last summer in two stadiums, one in Texas and one in North Carolina. Most teams, including Singh's Seattle Orcas, don't yet have their own stadiums. (There are plans to build stadiums in Seattle, as well as in Southern and Northern California.)
“The large-scale infrastructure to be able to play cricket at this level doesn't really exist across the country,” Major League Cricket founder and CEO Vijay Srinivasan said. “Our challenge is to develop the home stadiums and convince cities that it's worth developing cricket there.”
New York's matches in the T20 event were played in a temporary stadium on Long Island, which has already been demolished as the next stage of the tournament will be held in the Caribbean. The Long Island pitch – the strip of grass onto which the ball is bowled to the batsmen – was grown in Florida and Australia and flown to New York. Several players and commentators have said the unevenness of the pitch and the long grass on the outfield also contributed to the low-scoring matches (the further the ball travels on the grass, the more runs tend to be scored).
Another potential stumbling block is the organization that governs cricket in the U.S. The previous federation that oversaw cricket in the U.S. was expelled from cricket's world governing body, the International Cricket Council, in 2017 due to funding and governance issues. Its successor, USA Cricket, is only five years old.
In addition to building infrastructure, the sports world needs to do more to identify and market American stars, said Satyan Gajwani, vice chairman of digital at the Times of India Group. He pointed to Netravalkar, whose work at Oracle and musical talents garnered a lot of attention on social media after the team's win over Pakistan.
Gajwani stressed the importance of a financially sustainable domestic league, which he said could help change the perception that cricket is a foreign invention, which has long hindered its popularity.
“Until cricket takes hold in the country, it will always remain something imported from far away,” Gajwani said.
For Singh, playing in the United States offered a chance for a comeback. His career in India was derailed in part by off-field incidents, including an investigation by the Cricket Board of India in 2013 for match-fixing in the Indian Premier League. (Singh denies wrongdoing.) He grew up looking up to the Indian team's stars and said he knows most of the players on the current team personally.
He lives in Houston, where the team trains, with his wife and two children. He earns about $200,000 a year from cricket. Growing up in Mumbai, he never imagined he'd play in the United States, but he says the U.S. has given him “the opportunity I craved back home.”
“I feel indebted to this country,” Singh said.
