Howzat?! Has cricket finally cracked America?

So, has the T20 World Cup in America worked? In Dallas? Yes. In New York? Maybe. And in Florida? Well, it’s raining.

Despite the bells and whistles that surrounded cricket being played in the Big Apple, Dallas is actually the home of cricket in the United States – and it showed, all four fixtures played at the Grand Prairie Stadium being wonderful events with fantastic atmospheres.

The opening night between the USA and Canada was a remarkable evening, with New York-born Aaron Jones playing the innings of a lifetime to give America a fantastic victory in front of a raucous crowd.

It was the start that the competition, and American cricket, needed. In the week leading up to the tournament, fears over ticket sales and the weather had rumbled on. Such was the concern about empty stands that, four days before the opening fixture, USA Cricket announced an “exclusive ticketing opportunity” where members could buy up to six tickets at 25 per cent off, having previously claimed the match was a sellout. Clearly, this had not been the case.

But while the fears were hypothetical, the success of the evening was tangible and set the tone for the games that have followed.

Thanks to the large Nepalese diaspora in Dallas, Nepal’s fixture against the Netherlands produced arguably the best atmosphere of the tournament, as the 5,500-strong Nepalese crowd sang and danced their way through the match, even if it ended in a six-wicket defeat for their countrymen.

Nepal’s following has become a storyline of the tournament. The fastest-growing Asian population in the United States, Nepalese-Americans have been travelling from far and wide to support their country in their first World Cup since 2014.

“Dallas was crazy,” said cricket broadcaster Andrew Leonard, who two days out from the Netherlands match hosted a fan event attended by a thousand people. “It just stops you in your tracks that down there in Texas we had about a thousand people coming in… I spoke to people who’d come from, I think, over 35 of the 50 states.”

The crowning glory of the Dallas leg, however, was the United States victory over Pakistan. One of the biggest upsets in the history of cricket, it was decided by a Super Over that was edged by the USA in dramatic circumstances. One of America’s many heroes on the day was Saurabh Netravalkar. A former India Under-19 player, Netravalkar moved to the US to study and didn’t even take his bowling boots after giving up on his dream of being a professional cricketer. He is still a full-time software engineer at Oracle.

But while the Dallas leg was an unqualified success, the same can’t be said for the rest of the country. Florida has seen record rainfall: the opening fixture between Nepal and Sri Lanka was a washout, as was yesterday’s game between the US and Ireland. There is a very real possibility that all four matches scheduled to be played in Ft Lauderdale will be abandoned without a ball being bowled.

The amount of rainfall is unprecedented and weather warnings have been sent to the population of Florida for three days in a row, with rumours of a state of emergency being announced by the mayor bouncing around broadcast crews on site, but it is nevertheless the time of year where rain does fall in these parts. Upon entry to the ground, you are greeted by a sign announcing that hurricane season is here, running from 1 June to 30 November.

Which takes us to New York. The 34,000-seater, $30m stadium was constructed in the space of eight months and is already in the process of being dismantled after hosting eight matches in the space of 10 days.

Across those eight matches, the highest score was just 137 as the quality of the pitch dominated conversation. No other ground in the world has hosted eight or more T20 internationals and not seen a score above 140.

The pitches, which are drop-ins and had been made in Adelaide before being shipped to America, had not seen any cricket played on them before launch as would often be the case to be able to test the surfaces and allow them to “bed-in”.

After the first two matches, concerns over player safety were raised as the ball behaved erratically, forcing the ICC to release a statement accepting that the wickets had not played as hoped. Although the pitches did become better over the course of the week, matches were nevertheless low-scoring affairs throughout. It was a change to the norm of seeing sixes flying everywhere and many ended up enjoying the contests. But as a marketing tool to the US population, it is unlikely to have been what the ICC had in mind.

The eternal question with this World Cup is whether it will be the catalyst that sees cricket crack America. An important point to be made is that cricket will never be baseball here and never intends to be. And if anything, this World Cup isn’t about expanding cricket’s fanbase in America, but merely harnessing what already exists.

For many cricket websites and broadcasters, the USA ranks highly in terms of eyeballs because of the 4.5-million-strong south Asian diaspora in the country. The challenge is how you engage that fanbase in a country that’s the size of a continent.

With the creation of Major League Cricket in 2023, which has investment from some of the deepest pockets in the world, the sport has the money to look after the short term. And in growing south Asian communities, they have the genuine interest and passion to look after it in the long term. The challenge is using the money not just to put on a show but to build a strong grassroots system over the next 10 years that will look after the sport for decades more to come.

It is an enviable starting point from which to attempt to grow a sport. Money and passion. The next 20 years will tell us whether it is enough.