Sixty years ago the vanguard of Pax Americana waded and crawled through pink swells on to Omaha beach, and Britannia’s 300-year rule of the waves was emphatically over. Since then Gaul, Germania, Iberia and a host of others have bent their knee to the new overlords. Judea and Persia still fret and mutiny, but otherwise all is quiet on the Western front.
Britain, too, bowed stiffly as it handed over the keys of the castle; but there was a condescending hint of a smile. After all, the Yanks might have sunshine and that Monroe girl, but as long as England was England it would have a cracking film industry, world-class British-built sports cars, and cricket.
Given the reverberations of June 6 this year, it seemed somehow spiteful of the American Professional Cricket (APC) organisation to announce its birth this week. Once again the Americans have landed, and we should expect a very long occupation.
Of course this is not a surprise: American participation in cricket has been the holy grail of Commonwealth administrators for decades as they eyed the torrents of money that slosh from coast to coast in that enormous country. But now that they’re here, with their chewing-gum and jazz music and condensed milk, things seem to be moving a little too quickly.
Certainly American professional cricket has a long way to go. Eight franchised teams, sure to be staffed at first by good Indian club players and middle-aged West Indian sloggers, will hold few terrors for Ricky Ponting or Graeme Smith. But it is a start, and given American money and organisation, that might be all that is needed.
The International Cricket Council would do well to suspend its usual snobbery about cricketing evangelising done by expatriates. Until now the tacit understanding has been that unless the game is played by indigenous inhabitants, it hasn’t really taken hold.
But with 1,7-million non-resident Indians in the United States, if only 5% play cricket, you’re looking at a playing population vastly larger than that of Zimbabwe and Kenya combined. Add expatriates from all the other Test-playing nations, and the American pool of players and supporters threatens to eclipse that of New Zealand.
One would be stereotyping to suggest that Indians adore cricket by virtue of being Indian, but it also can’t hurt the developing game that there are, according to the American Association of Software and Service Companies, 200 000 Indian millionaires living in the United States. Just imagine what Ali Bacher could do with a phone and a Rolodex containing those 200 000 names.
Being paid $60 000 for a three-month season (the proposed deal for APC recruits) doesn’t ensure success: this week the home team lost by 104 runs to Canada in a three-day game in Fort Lauderdale, Aussie-born spinner John Davison taking 17 wickets in the match for the best first-class figures in almost 50 years.
But each franchise is to field five international imports (that is, foreigners other than expats, understand?) and for that kind of money, and with nothing more than 20-over games mooted, one might soon see Brian Lara batting opposite a bifocal-wearing technician from Silicon Valley.
Too bad for Nicky Boje and Herschelle Gibbs that they can’t spend the winter playing in Los Angeles: going west looks far less like an implicit admission of guilt than does hovering just out of the reach of the New Delhi police. The King Commission of Inquiry? Yeah, wasn’t that when they tried to find out who shot Dr King outside his motel room?
Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies.