LONDON -- Welcome to the big leagues America. We've admired your consideration of soccer, your open-mindedness about some of the rugbys, your provision of the world's greatest arena for the darts. We never really thought cricket was one for you though.
By jove, you've proven us wrong. What transpired on Thursday might just have been your finest sporting hour that most of the nation was entirely unaware of. Beating Pakistan, at the T20 Cricket World Cup, in Dallas? That's like the Miracle on Ice but the US weren't even wearing skates. If you need further context, the USA beating Pakistan at a major cricket tournament is rather like Pakistan beating the USA at the football World Cup. Honestly, in any kind of football you care to name.
A thoroughly merited win it was. The US bowlers gave their batters a real chance against the 2009 champions, Alabama-born Nostush Kenjige taking three wickets while the two for Saurabh Netravalkar, who moved to the USA to study for his Masters in Computer Engineering, came at an impressive economy rate. Oh right, we need to explain what that means.
First things first: The basics of cricket
For those of you who don't particularly understand cricket, which, in America, is more or less everybody, well, where to begin? Perhaps with a comparison to infuriate fans of two bat and ball sports in one. Imagine baseball but you're holding the bat differently and everyone is very particular about the shape of the arm of the other person throwing bowling the ball at you. When you hit the ball, rather than running around a diamond, you're going to want to run back and forth along a 22 yard pitch. And you see those three stumps of wood, with two smaller bits of wood sitting between them? That's the wicket. Don't let the ball hit that. Or, ideally, hit you, especially if you're in the way of the wicket. Cricket balls are hard and then there's LBW (that stands for "Leg Before Wicket"). Oh god, you're never going to get that. Pretend I didn't bring it up.
When you've hit the ball, run to the other wicket, 22 yards away, passing your team mate who'll take the next shot, taking care to get back into the safe zone (AKA the crease) before the other team have thrown the ball at the wickets. You're going to be doing that a lot. In a T20 match like the one the U.S. just won, a decent score might run beyond 150 runs. If you want to speed up the run process, try hitting the ball beyond the boundary rope that marks the end of the field (in baseball there's a wall, in cricket there's a rope, just accept it and move on). Do that with the ball hitting the turf beforehand and you can help yourself to four runs. Clear the rope on a fly and that's six for you.
You've got 10 outs (also known as wickets) to play with before you have to stop batting. Your opponent can get you out by, to grossly simplify, bowling the ball against the wickets, hitting your body with a ball that would otherwise have hit the wicket, catching your shot before it bounces, hitting the wickets when you're out of your crease and a few other instances that, honestly, aren't going to come up sufficiently frequently to be worth mentioning. Once you've had a go at batting, the other team gets to too. Refusing to let them do so? That's just not cricket.
Then there is time. In the past, cricket matches -- which in their longest form comprise two innings for each team -- could simply last as long as was needed for one team to get their 20 wickets and win the game, or until the other team had to go home and a draw was declared. In 1939 the last timeless Test match was played, since then the longest form of the top level game has run over five days. Modern attention spans being what they are, in 1971 cricket experimented with games that could be completed in a day.
In 2003 that process was streamlined further with the introduction of Twenty20 cricket, the razzmatazzy, fast-paced cousin of the traditional game. Think more fours and sixes, ad breaks masquerading as strategic timeouts, players referred to by their nicknames. It's the sort perfectly suited for more fast-paced sporting occasions, including the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, where cricket makes its return after 124 years of exile. Each team would have 20 overs (a collection of six deliveries faced) to score as many runs as they can. The team with the most runs wins. Simple.
Need more details? You probably do. We haven't even started on the nebulous spirit of cricket in which this game must be played. Centuries-old sports that are deeply embedded in your nation's culture don't lend themselves to punchy explanations across a couple of paragraphs. Watch that Bluey episode about cricket. That should help. As with all the best games, cricket is deceptively simple to follow if you simply watch along but brings with it a lifetime of devilish intricacies for those who dive in.
So what happened on Thursday?
The USA began the match by winning the coin toss (oh jeez, there's another thing I forgot to explain) and asking Pakistan to be the team that batted first. Against a lineup full of big-name stars -- Mohamed Rizwan and Babar Azam are ranked the third and fourth best batters in men's T20 cricket -- the US were excellent, sprightly in the field and direct with their bowling. Pakistan, finalists in the last World Cup, were limited to a below par 159.
The US target is well within the reach of the best international sides and for most of the innings it seemed captain Monank Patel had judged the chase of 160 runs just about right. Pakistan's bowlers, however, slowed down the US advance such that it took a four off the last ball by Nitish Kumar to send the match to something called a Super Over. Because what would a sporting occasion in the USA be without overtime?
In a fashion all too familiar for cricket lovers around the world, Pakistan then proceeded to lose its cool in the biggest moments. Three wides (woops, another thing forgotten, when the bowler delivers a ball out of reach of the batsman) by Amir, misfielding by his teammates and a thunderously hit four by Jones gave the USA an impressive 18 runs from the six balls that made up the Super Over. Their visitors were rarely within touching distance and when Shadab Khan failed to hit Netravalkar's final ball for six (remember, the most high value shot in cricket), the USA were screaming with a shocked jubilance that wasn't shared by a crowd of mostly Pakistan supporters.
"We knew that we don't have support from the crowd," Patel said. "Pakistan had more support from the crowd and I thought it would backfire on them…they'll be under more pressure."
If you are one of those to whom the extremely patiently explained preceding paragraphs still seemed utterly incomprehensible, a brief precis. America won, beating one of cricket's biggest nations in a tournament match for the first time in their history.
Now what for U.S.A. cricket?
This could be the start of something very funny for cricket in America, which is involved in hosting this T20 World Cup with the West Indies. After all, Thursday's match wasn't even the first win of the tournament for the Stars and Stripes, who smashed 197 against Canada at the Grand Prairie Stadium to emerge victorious in the latest skirmish of the longest running rivalry in international cricket. Two games, two wins. The USA might now end up with more victories at a home T20 World Cup than this summer's home Copa America, the major event for another American team chasing validation from its counterparts from around the world.
It would be perhaps the greatest shock in the sport's history if the USA were to beat India, the sport's economic and cultural juggernaut, in New York on Wednesday, but they might not need a win there to achieve something remarkable. Beat Ireland in Lauderhill, Fla., two days later and Patel's side would be extremely well-placed to reach the Super Eight, the round where cricket's best nations face off against each other. It is not unimaginable that the US might do exactly that, they beat full Test member (one of the good teams) Ireland at that very ground in December 2021 and have clearly been growing in quality over recent years, evidenced by two wins against Bangladesh (another good team) last month.
Could this be the start of a beautiful love affair? One can but dream. CBS Sports' first cricket correspondent -- summers at Lords, winters in Antigua and Australia -- where do I sign up?
