'Drunken hooligans': America's cricket fears

Cricket in England is associated with gentle, sunny afternoons on village greens and the sound of leather on willow, but in the US there are fears it could lead to drunken "urinating" fans and other acts of "hooliganism".

The game is becoming "increasingly popular" in the US, said The Times, with plans for new stadiums in several states. But not everyone is thrilled at the prospect. "Cricket? Like in England? Why?" asked one sceptic on Facebook.

Major League Cricket begins

South Asian communities in America have long wanted to bring professional cricket to the US, said Tom Melville, author of "A History of Cricket in America", but at around 2% of the population, they struggled to get it to catch on.

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Eventually, a professional league was formed, using one converted baseball stadium in Dallas. This "energised the south Asian community all over the country", Melville told The Times.

The six-team Major League Cricket (MLC) competition began last year, the US is co-hosting this year’s T20 Cricket World Cup, and the sport is set to rejoin the Olympics at the 2028 Games, which will be held in Los Angeles.

Flying balls

Plans for major cricket stadiums have met some fierce resistance. When New York City proposed that Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx house a temporary 34,000-seat World Cup cricket stadium, a state representative opposed it, saying: "No. N-O. In caps, underlined, boldfaced, italicised. No." A stadium was found on Long Island.

In Sacramento, plans for a smaller cricket ground didn't sit well with resident Jennifer Chawla, who launched a petition. Explaining her visions of damaged cars and injured residents, she told The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) that "this is a flying ball that's hit by a bat". The ground went ahead anyway.

Cricket in the UK is not immune from bad behaviour. At Headingley in Leeds in 2022, "scenes of beer-fuelled drama broke out in the stands", reported the Daily Mail, with fans "seemingly fighting with security staff". And if you look through the history books, "it seems 'gentlemanly' conduct was in rather short supply", said Glasgow Live. In the Scottish city in the 1800s "battles would break out, depending on the results of the matches, between gangs of tooled up thugs known as 'keelies'".

A 'true gentleman's sport'

There is also stiff opposition to plans for future stadiums. At a village hall meeting in Oswego in Illinois, Dawn DeRosa, who lives near the site of a proposed 25,000-seat stadium, said there would be "strangers walking through our yards, urinating in our pond and throwing up in our flowerbeds", said The Times.

Tara McDade is unhappy about plans for a cricket stadium near her Northern Virginia home. Speaking to the WSJ, she admitted she doesn't know much about the sport: "You swing at a ball, I believe," she said. But after a town hall meeting, she was "freaking out a little bit" because "it's being shoved down our throats".

Sanjay Govil, a tech entrepreneur who owns MLC side Washington Freedom, assured those concerned that the game is "not one of these events where people get rowdy and start bashing each other", said the WSJ. Instead, it's a "true gentleman's sport", with "mass hooliganism" absolutely "non-existent".