Would you be surprised to learn that Abraham Lincoln reportedly watched a cricket match in 1859? The sport was popular in the first half of the 19th century, but was overtaken by baseball after the Civil War. Baseball was easier to play on makeshift fields and didn’t require the fancy uniform that we associate with upper class Britons.
But outside of the U.S., cricket is the second most-watched sport after soccer.
When the U.S. national cricket team defeated Pakistan on June 6 at the T20 World Cup, cricket promoters hoped the win would give a boost to the sport that’s so popular across the Caribbean, southeast Asia, and of course, Britain.
As these population groups are a growing part of the U.S. population, it’s reasonable to assume cricket may catch on in a big way. The Asian Indian population became the nation’s largest Asian population group in 2020, growing by more than 50 percent to 4,397,737 between 2010 and 2020. (Census Bureau, September 2023). In Bedford, for example, the Asian population is 19.5 percent of the town’s total population of 14,394 (source: census.gov Quick Facts).
Here’s an article from The Conversation, written by four academics with an interest in sports management, journalism, and mass communications.
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