The T10 route to making cricket big in America

America has long been thought of as the next big destination for cricket. It's a huge market, potentially, with a readymade audience of expat South Asians as well as people from other parts of the established cricket world including the Caribbean.

Now, it looks like people with the money and the enterprise are waking up to the possibilities. Lauderhill has hosted international games between West Indies and visiting teams, as well as Caribbean Premier League (CPL) matches. The inaugural season of Major League Cricket (MLC) was played recently in Dallas and Morrisville. Crucially, the USA will co-host the Men's T20 World Cup next year alongside the West Indies, with matches set to be played in Lauderhill, Morrisville, Dallas and New York.

As we write this, the US Masters T10 is on in Lauderhill, Florida, and the promoters of the tournament as well as prominent players who are a part of the action feel T10 could be just the right vehicle to get US audiences excited about the game.

"You want to take it up from the shortest format of the game and build it up in these younger nations, Robin Uthappa, captain of Atlanta Riders, said. "Especially when you're introducing the sport to them, the rules of the sport and what it entails… It's better to start off with the smallest version and then take it up the ranks, in that sense. You also give them time to adapt to each version and the growth is also periodical - they keep scaling [up] their game. You don't jump straight to Test cricket. You go through the ranks of T10, T20, 50-over [cricket], four-day cricket, then five-day cricket."

Aaron Finch of California Knights agrees. "I think it's a huge opportunity. I know a lot of the support is existing cricket fans," he said. "But I think the more you start to get new fans into the game, they see how exciting cricket is, particularly through T20 and T10, it's a market that is well and truly on the verge of being tapped.

"We know about the passion of the Asian community around the game, and a lot of expats here - they, I guess, drive the cricket side of it. The key is to get cricket to as many people as possible, making people realise how good the game is."

And if there is cricket around, there will be Bollywood presence around it, which just makes the whole show that much more exciting for fans. "Americans like the quick format of the sport and results right away. So I think T10 is just the right format," Suneil Shetty, who is at the US Masters T10, said. "America is the land of opportunity for any sport, and especially cricket now being looked at as a sport that the world wants to play, this is the right place to be."

From the point of view of the promoters, it wasn't a sudden realisation. There have been T10 events in Abu Dhabi - that has been the most prominent one, running since 2017 - and more recently in Zimbabwe, the Zim Afro T10. USA is the latest, and there are more around the corner.

"We have always been eyeing the American market and the American public to bring our brand of cricket here. And now that T10 has arrived, so extremely pleased that we can finally showcase the 90 minutes' packed-action game," Shaji Ul Mulk, founder and chairman of TTen Global, told the broadcasters before the start of the tournament. "It's more about getting the big names of cricket back into action. The masters are very significant for us, as part of our journey. Because TTen Global as a brand, we want to make sure that we invest not only in the current cricketers, [we have] the youth programmes, the player development, and the masters. The whole circle of the cricketing fraternity, basically.

"The first overseas T10, which is Zim Afro T10, has been way beyond what we expected for the first season. Now coming to the US. We will be going back to Abu Dhabi in November. Then in December, we do [the chapter] in Sri Lanka. And hopefully, in February we are in India. Then the whole cycle continues. Europe also we are looking at in between. So I think six to seven T10s in a year is what you can expect."

The biggest factor that is working, and will likely work, for people who want to bring more short-format cricket, possibly going the franchise route, to the USA is the South Asian community. Cricket obsessives, it's a community with spending power and a massive appetite for the game, especially if it involves players from the subcontinent.

"There are a lot of subcontinent-origin people here in the Americas. It's a very good sport to take to different parts of the world. It can become a global sport," Uthappa said. "Today we have only 15-16 countries playing the sport properly. It'll be nice to have 40-45 countries playing the sport, make it a global sport like football is. And certainly, America has the potential. Such a huge country, so many different weather conditions also. So this wicket in Florida will be very different to wickets in Texas or North Carolina, San Francisco, so you will be exposed to different conditions. So for the game of cricket, amazing it'll be."

And, at least going by Finch's stock-taking, the facilities are up there too, even if the ground dimensions aren't ideal.

"We were at Dallas [...] for a ground that a couple of months before, I think, didn't really exist as a cricket field, how well the wicket played, the outfield… that was all extraordinary," he said. "Morrisville - they were on the back foot from the start, the weather didn't help. And then you come here and you see the facilities, there's been a little bit of weather here, but there are so many good people doing good things to promote the game and make it as good as possible.

"I am really excited. I can't wait to continue to play this tournament, obviously, and then be back trying to grow the game in another part of the world."

The next step, possibly, will be to look beyond just big-ticket cricketers, past or current, and look at expanding the game around the country, working with local cricket talent.

"Cricket is played all over the world. It's new for USA but a lot of Asians stay here, so many people see cricket," Yusuf Pathan, Uthappa's team-mate, said. "So to grow cricket in America, they have to start in schools. People love cricket here."

The volume of attractive, short-format cricket in the USA is on the rise, and the T20 World Cup next year could well be the big leap that's required.