Cricket Globalisation - an American grass roots view

'Beyond The Test World' is grateful to 'Cricket World' web site for allowing reproduction of this intelligent insight into globalisation by American cricket author and grass roots worker, Tom Melville.

"Not too long ago I was introducing cricket to a group of Americans at a local festival, something I'd been doing in my area for years. Like the hundreds of other visitors I'd worked with at events like this, the Americans here, men and women of all ages, none of whom knew the first thing about cricket, immediately took to the game with that characteristically American vim and impulsive excitement.

About half way through our little pick-up game a dapper, athletic looking young manstrolled onto the ground asking if we'd let him into the game, which we were more than happy to do. I never asked him, but I could tell by his accent he was from a cricket playing country, and from his technique that he was an accomplished player.

As the game went along, however, I began to notice a perceptible change of spirit among the Americans. Their enthusiasm and excitement suddendly began to cool, smiles and shouts began to disappear. Eventually I began to overhear mutterings of "stupid game" and "something only the British could think up."

Only later did I discover this sudden change of attitude had been brought on by your expert visitor, who throughout the game had been gently, but persistently criticising everyone for their over-Americanised spirit of play, all the while reminding them "real" cricket's only played in a mood of somber attention for days on end.

Not unexpectedly these Americans who'd started their cricket with so much excited anticipation went away with an attitude of scorn and ridicule, and are probably lost to the game forever.

I couldn't help but think back to this incident as I see the proliferation of cricket teams recently criss-crossing North America all in the name of "globalization." With the announcement of every new touring team coming to the states in the name of "promotion" I'd find myself hoping that here, at last, something's going to be done to raise the game's visibility among Americans. And, like the "expert" who unintentionally soured such promising enthusiasm among my American cricket novices, I see culturally insensitve organizers, moguls and pundits scupper every one of these hopes.

Over time I've become convinced all these undertakings in the name of cricket "promotion" amount to little more than self-congratulatory counter attacks on America's sporting dominance, that seem to be saying nothing more than "OK you Americans, with all your million dollar, over-hyped, in-bred sports, look at us, we're running cricket right here under your noses, what do you think of that?"

I suppose criticism like this is a little unfair, at least here in the States, where 99% of all the cricket's played by expatriates, who look on their cricket like a vicar's daughter in a college fraternity, someone whose honor has to be watched over and defended, in this case against the incursions of crass American commercialism and that objectionable " winning-is-everything" attitude.

With an outlook like this you're not really "promoting" cricket to Americans here, but trying to entice them away from the unsavory aspects of their sporting culture, making them believe they're playing the "thinking man's baseball" in the role of some make-believe Englishman. And I suppose you'll always find the odd-ball American who'll take up the game in this spirit, but not many.

Ted Haynes and his vision of using cricket as the means of pulling some Los Angeles street kids up by their boot straps is a noble, admirable undertaking, and I wish him well. But you can be sure no mainstream Americans will ever take up cricket or any other sport on a motive of moral reform.

Criticism of a different kind is in order for those in the vanguard of globalization, namely the ICC. If we go on the assumption the ICC is a multinational organization (which it is) and that sport is the most culturally sensitive of commodities (which it certainly is), the course cricket should follow becomes pretty cut and dry. Like any multinational corporation planning to take its product into a foreign market the ICC has to thoroughly research local tastes, trends and interests, working closely with locals who know the market, getting a sense of what Americans like and don't like about cricket, and then, and only then, modifying and tailoring cricket strictly according to local tastes.

Needless to say neither the ICC nor any other promoter has followed this path, preferringto repeatedly and persistently drop down into American laps some straight-up, transplanted English, West Indian or Australian cricket, a "take it or leave it" attitude much like the British auto industry which, year after year, stubbornly brought to market cars it felt consumers should like rather what they do like.

Little surprise then that every ODI ever staged in America has, for the purposes of attracting American interest, turned up DOA (dead on arrival).

"But America has its baseball," we always hear, " Cricket has no chance of making headway against this great American institution!" On the contrary. I've always looked on baseball as the greatest promise of cricket's success in America. Here you've got a ready made bat and ball orientated sports culture all laid out for you.

What you have to do is put cricket forward as an extension of baseball, not something opposed to it, a wonderful, amazing different type of bat and ball excitement, one with its own Sammy Sosas and Mark McGwires. If anyone doubts this next time an American asks you for a thumbnail explanation of cricket just say "Cricket? Imagine baseball with no foul territory, no balls and strikes and where you can get six runs with a swing of the bat" and see the rise you get out of him.

Throughout its history cricket's been immeasurably enriched by its different cultural adaptations, "calypso cricket" of the West Indies with its pulsating vibration, the "orientalmystery" of Indian cricket with its subtle persistence. Why is the cricket world unaccepting of the prospect for some "good ol' country hard ball cricket" American style?

In my book, "The Tented Field: A History of Cricket in America." I concluded cricket failed in America because it's never established an American character, a claim that's been generally shrugged off as so much academic talk. It's a truth, however, that will haunt even the most self assured cricket promoter. It will follow him, pester him, stare him in the face at every twist and turn, and anyone who ignores the lessons of 150 years in their schemes to bring cricket to America will be doomed to travel down a long and weary road of disappointment and frustration.