Cricket's trying to crack America! Again! Read our helpful 2024 T20 World Cup explainer to know all!
It's 2024. Do you know where your T20 World Cup is?
Yuvraj Singh is too cool for socks at an event at the Miami Grand Prix where they got him to pose with a bunch of sports trophies - among them the T20 World Cup one. Sweet synergy, Batman! • Clive Rose/Getty Images
Yessiree Bob! Grab your cowboy hat and put on those Bart Simpson underpants, because cricket is coming stateside, baby. Having taken note of how football used the springboard of USA '94 to become one of the most widely played sports in that country, cricket's powerbrokers have opted to do the same a whole 30 years later, which is pretty on-brand.
Well, not the entire tournament. We might have got a bit overexcited when referring to it as the 2024 T20 World Cup in the USA! USA! USA! (and the Caribbean). In reality, it's more like the 2024 T20 World Cup in the Caribbean (and a little itty bit of the USA). But they are genuinely playing games on American soil.
As a matter of fact, there are several. Three grounds, in New York, Texas and Florida, will stage 16 games over the course of the tournament - although the semi-finals and final will be held in the West Indies.
Let's be optimistic. The game's biggest superstar, Virat Kohli, has spent a career picking fights with people in many corners of the world, which the US as a nation should find familiar. England are big fans of freedom, as long as it's for their batters (and no one else more generally). And the Namibia team are known as "the Eagles", which is the only kind of wildlife Americans will refrain from immediately shooting and mounting on a wall. Don't tell us there's no potential.
Let me preface this answer by reminding you that New York is both the name of the city and the state. So yes, Nassau County on Long Island in the state of New York is hosting eight games. Eisenhower Park, location of a 34,000-seater pop-up stadium, will be the venue for three India matches - including their group game against Pakistan on June 9.
Pretty much. Call it the Field of Dreams approach (without the ghosts playing baseball).
They certainly will for the India vs Pakistan game, which is approaching a sellout - even with some tickets costing up to US$300 a pop. Whether Canada vs Ireland is quite such a draw remains to be seen.
Oh yes, this T20 World Cup is all about being bigger, better and more calorific than ever before. There will be 20 teams involved in the 2024 edition, including nine Associate nations - and T20 World Cup debuts for Canada, Uganda and the co-hosts, USA.
That's exactly what we're saying. Also, call them left-arm wristspinners, not that other word we used to use to describe those bowlers.
That used to be the system, true. But this expanded format will see all the teams thrown in together like some big, bare-bottomed hippy commune that subsists on peace, love and sweet, sweet broadcasting cashola. From four groups of five, the top two in each group will progress to the Super 8s (which actually consists of two groups of four). From there, the top two qualify for the semi-finals. Capisce?
If that happens again, the Wall Street bull will shed real tears, and future tournaments will likely be rejigged to align with that most fundamental value of modern cricket: maximum amount of India airtime.
We hear you. The World Cup is the pinnacle (outside of the IPL) and where cricket makes all its TV rights money (outside of the IPL). But oh look, India have once again been drawn in the same group as Pakistan - crazy how it keeps happening! - who they always beat at ICC events, alongside Ireland, Canada and USA. What could possibly go wrong?
Ah, see. You're back to thinking about the IPL. No such frivolities in international T20 - at least until the BCCI politely asks all the other boards to implement the rule, if they wouldn't mind, thank you ever so much. But this T20 World Cup will, for the first time, feature a stop clock to help keep games moving.
Yeah, sort of. Actually, it would be fun if they played that tune in the stadium as fielding teams got close to the cut-off.
You've been watching too much franchise T20.
Fair point.
One more thing: look out for the mad start times. Some games begin as early as 10.30am local, and others as late as 8.30pm local. Why? So that South Asian viewers can tune in before they go to work, or after they return. Don't ever act like the game's stewards don't care about you. Unless you live in another time zone, in which case, hahaha, have fun.
Alan Gardner is a deputy editor and Andrew Fidel Fernando is a senior writer at ESPNcricinfo