A missed opportunity

In the Wall Street Journal Richard Lord looks at the age-old question of whether cricket can take off in America. He says an opportunity was missed for the sport to showcase itself during the recent Twenty20 series in Florida, where the poor track resulted in tiny totals.

Unfortunately, the series itself, which was drawn 1-1, was far from ideal. Despite the groundsman's best efforts, the all-important pitch was low and slow, making it hard for batsmen to time their shots and resulting in exceptionally low scores and the more or less total absence of the sort of baseball-style slugging that was supposed to sell Twenty20 to the wider American public.

Then there were the two teams themselves. Neither is the most eye-catching in international cricket and, worse, neither country has a sizable diaspora in the U.S., let alone in Florida. An India-Pakistan match-up fought in New York or Los Angeles, or a West Indies contest held in Florida, would have drawn bigger crowds.