HOUSTON (Fwrd Axis) – There’s no tea and crumpets at Moosa Cricket Stadium in Houston. No stuffy men in ties and caps insist that things must be done their way. Forget your notions of what you think cricket is. This is cricket in America.
The United States Men’s Cricket team is in the middle of a significant campaign, battling on two fronts. Today in Houston, it was for the 2023 One Day International (ODI) World Cup qualifying. Then in July, it’ll be a fight for the 2022 T20 World Cup.
The mood was high in Houston; the USA won the opening game of the series on Saturday. So they came into this match eager to continue that good form and beat Scotland again. The simple fact is they need to. The USA sits in fourth place, and to skip through to the final qualifier, they need to be third at worst.
It would be easy to say that where the USA is is disappointing. That ignores how bad things have been in American cricket for so long. It wasn’t that long ago that the USA was fighting for its life to not get relegated down to the fifth tier of international cricket.
Things are looking much better for the USA in the future, which is why USA Cricket is only looking forward. Despite fighting for a spot in the 2022 T20 World Cup and the 2023 ODI World Cup, the team is already through to the 2024 T20 World Cup, which they will co-host with the West Indies.
Moosa Cricket Stadium is hoping to be one of those venues. After two straight days of record, USA ODI crowds will have done themselves big favors.
Sunday’s game was a high scoring affair. Scotland set the USA 301 to win, and in the end, it was more than enough as the Americans could only manage 189 in reply.
The signs are there, and if the USA fails to finish in the top three, they’ll be one of the highest-ranked teams in the following stages anyway. This team may have qualified for 2024 automatically, but they’ve made it clear that they don’t want to wait two more years. They want to be at the next two world cups.
The series runs for the next two weeks, and tickets are available from USA Cricket.
