Cricket Australia eyes USA matches

Genuine international contests may return to the United States if the Cricket Australia chief executive James Sutherland has anything to do with it.

Following on from the notable crowds drawn by the Twenty20 All-Star matches concocted by Sachin Tendulkar and Shane Warne, Sutherland has proposed the scheduling of limited-overs triangular series among leading nations in the USA, a concept flirted with more than a decade ago but more recently ignored by teams protective of television rights.

In the week of the inaugural day-night Test match, Sutherland spoke boldly of USA as "potentially a great asset for cricket" and pointed out that it was Australia's third biggest overseas television market behind India and England, ahead of the likes of Pakistan, South Africa and New Zealand.

"I'd love to do it one day with the shorter forms of our game," Sutherland told News Limited. "It would be a great thing to play a triangular series with say England and India or South Africa and Pakistan. We can really nurture the US market and get their people engaged. We're talking about our third biggest overseas television market.

"When we sell our rights overseas, India is the biggest, England is the second biggest and then North America third in terms of dollars they spend. There's huge potential. There are more players in America than there are in New Zealand. During the World Cup we had 90,000 visitors to Australia and New Zealand and a quarter of them came from North America. A lot of it is born out of South Asian expats. This market is potentially a great asset for cricket."

Numerous attempts have been made to build regular cricket fixtures in North America, but most have floundered after a few years. The first day of the day-night Test in Adelaide drew a crowd of 47441, and Sutherland has clearly been encouraged to think more bullishly about where to take the game in the future. "This Test in Adelaide is a great example of what we're trying to do," he said.

"It's got a Melbourne Spring carnival type atmosphere about it. It's a major event which brings people to the cricket. I think this is a game changer. It's all about the fans and making cricket accessible. When people are working and kids are at school, it's hard to sell Test cricket on a Thursday or a Friday. Moving it to the evening makes a big difference.

"Right now kids have multiple choices in terms of what sports to play and computer games etc. We're competing for people's leisure time. Our focus is very much about giving fans a proposition to come to our games or watch us on TV. We want cricket to be a priority in their lives. We need to make sure the at-match experience is great because it's such a good sport to watch on TV. We're all about inspiring the next generation of players and fans."