Lockerbie outlines plans for US-style IPL

T20 version of Cricket certainly suits Americans. As they find Test Cricket hilarious. After watching a few hours of a Test match with me one day, a couple of Americans began to snooze on the arm chairs. When they realized that they had both taken naps, they got up excused themselves and approached the Loo to freshen up trying not to offend me. By the way I had to pass by them when I had to attend to something near the gym, when I saw them laughing their way out of the Gents. They were holding their stomachs and boy were they having fun giggling at each other, throroughly amused. But I bet they did have a lot of fun laughing. At least I was satisfied that I invited them that day off we all had. I was happy that they did get that little bit of shut eye too, that probably gave them the sense of humour. When asked; They indicated that when the ball is being bowled at over 100 mph, that it was a waste to play so many defensive strokes, instead of launching those delveries over the ropes

Mr. Lockerbie & USACA are not going to be discouraged by all the pessimistic English posted so far. They will not budget huge investments. They will begin small and end up with beautiful cover drives to entice the American Spectator. Don't you guys worry about money. What these guys have is a fair will to make Major League Cricket happen in the States and let others around them make-a-the-money. After all whats wrong if more young poor kids make money playing professional cricket, and others around the game prosper & grow ? I'm gonna like this alternative to the looong boring tests and its the Americans who can take it to the optimum level of commercializing to enable higher employment, enjoyment and FUN. The Test playing countries and their fans appear to be kind of stuck up with their consevative attitude towards innovation, agility & joy that the new kids are threatening to introduce into our Lovely game of Cricket. They should be assured of what the US will only enhance

The scenario is playing out as only in USA. USACA can not fund their national cricket yet our CEO is talking big re IPL style. Is one of his jobs to get finance the cricket we now have? Where are the sponsors? The USACA is broke, with zero $$ avail for internal cricket. The zero communication from him (Mr. Lockerbie) to the USA cricket fits right in with the boards standards. Ok he is new on the job but, is Lockerbie positioning himself as now USACA's CEO - stage set, head of the USA IPL in 2 yrs? I am taking bets to the positive. It'a all about the money in the USA, cricket is secondary. The CEO promised to travel the USA to know the USA cricket, instead he is at Ashes to smooze the future. I(Iam not aware of his visit to any cricket league in the USA). Where is the love of the sport, for sport sake. That comes first. The players in the USA refuse to be only spectators.. A year or 2 will tell of Mr. Lockerbie's, (CEO sir) intent and true personal goals. CMFA

Cricket is a great game, what people need is time. Time to understand and take in what is going on, to learn the rules and see how the game works. Schools would be the first target, and would be the more likely scenario for the game to be a big hit in the U.S. The thing is, would players be keen to play 2 major Twenty/20 competitions in 1 year - let alone all the Twenty/20 Internationals that they play in a series. I think it would be a better idea to hold a Champions Trophy, or the Cricket World Cup as a one off to see how successful it is instead of investing in a huge Championship just to see it blow up the next year...

Let's step back a minute from all the opionizing and cheerleading. If you're going to start a pro cricket league in the USA there are some hard questions to be asked: 1) Is this just going to be a league that targets ex-pats? This is the easy route but will doom cricket to being an "underground" sport in America. Can't see how any investor would want to go into a multi-million dollar enterprise with a market of no more than 15 million fans. 2) If you're going to target mainstream Americans then you have to ask: How are you going to get people to pay to watch a game they know nothing about, care nothing about? And when they're in the stands how are they going to understand a game they've never seen before? And not just understand, but get excitied enough to come back. Details, please. 3) Where will you play? Are you going to ask the top players to play in some little minor league grounds like Lauderhill? Americans will think cricket is a third rate sport.

Hopefully this new league will rouse interest from the mainstream US, and shatter the "tea and crumpets" imagery that Americans traditionally associate with cricket. @Tasl33m, Major League Cricket is already a registered trademark, hopefully the USACA will either buy the name, or work with MLC to make this happen. You are absolutely right, it's the best (actually ONLY) name for Americans to identify with. @Smike88, good on you for taking the game to beyond traditional cricketing circles. All the best with that. :)

Speaking as an American, this is a perfect time to introduce Cricket to the USA. Baseball fanatics scoff at Cricket and Cricket enthusiasts scoff at Baseball. But the fact is this: They are the same people, obsessed with tradition, facts, stats, all-time greatest players lists, etc. There are natural born Americans who will handle the sport of Cricket with great care and respect. I live in Portland, OR, the home of Nike and Intel and the Southeast Asian community already has an established Cricket league here. The sport is becoming very visible. Also, with Baseball's woe's (steroid use) there are many Americans like myself who, after decades of obsessive fan behavior, have totally left the game. I can't even tell you who's in first place in their respective divisions. I have a four year old son who has never seen a baseball game and I am more likely to take him to one of the local Cricket matches instead. My Nike India ODI hat should arrive any day now. 20Twenty for the USA!

I think if the USACA are to make a world-class Twenty20 tournament in America then it can only be called one thing ... "Major League Cricket"! I can't wait!

I'd really love to see this work, just to see any form of cricket here in the States. I've been working hard to bring the game to people that I meet at college over the past two years, and everybody that I've introduced the game to have loved it. I've watched some of my baseball-playing friends go from being completely skeptical of "that game that sort of looks like baseball" to loving it and wanting to play again after they faced their first delivery. I have high hopes because the US is a melting pot of people, and the fact that people bring their cultural backgrounds with them only means that some of them have to rub off on others.

I went to a one and only soccer game in my life. The game lasted more than two hours and there was no score. I have not seen more boring sport than this. If American can watch that sure they can watch cricket. Go ahead, Mr. Lockerbie, wish you all the best.