NEW YORK — At 7:45 a.m. on a Sunday morning, the clip clap of flipflops can be heard echoing down the long and virtually empty underground tunnel underneath the concourse of Grand Central station in Midtown Manhattan, which takes commuters to all the Long Island Rail Road trains.
It's a group of Indian cricket fans, mostly in 2023 ODI World Cup jerseys, running down the tunnel trying to figure out where platforms 201 and 304 are.
Barring a few intimidating NYPD police officers and three Metropolitan Transport Authority officials, there are no commuters in the tunnel except those heading towards the village of Westbury on Long Island, in the south-eastern part of New York state.
For these fans — and, as I soon find out when I board the 8:13 a.m. train headed towards Westbury, many others — June 9 is a big day. Because for the first time, India and Pakistan are playing each other in an international match on American shores.
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This is the marquee match of the 2024 T20 Cricket World Cup, as far as many fans are concerned, and the showdown between India and Pakistan is the fixture that the International Cricket Council (ICC), the host broadcasters and all its stakeholders drew a big fat red circle around when putting together the tournament schedule. Because nothing gets the fans going like an India-Pakistan game.
These two teams have not played each other in a bilateral series since 2013 on account of political tensions between their respective governments, and since then the ICC — and later, taking a cue, the Asian Cricket Council — have drawn India and Pakistan in the same first-round pool in all major tournaments, with hopes of a second blockbuster match in the second round, and, potentially, a hat-trick of games should the arch-rivals meet in the knockouts.
Opportunistic, of course, but that is how the sports business works. However, the ground reality is something else. The ICC and its stakeholders are intent on expanding cricket, but the fact is that the sport still has a long way to go achieve its "American Dream." And that's because the biggest game in world cricket failed to catch light in New York on Sunday, outside the expat diaspora.
The immigration officer at JFK Airport was unaware there was a cricket World Cup happening in the state. Ditto for the cab driver, hotel receptionist and cashier I met while in New York. Some of my own relatives, Americans but with a deep connection to India, and all passionate sports fans — their basketball team, the Boston Celtics, are in the NBA Finals — weren't aware that there was a cricket World Cup going on in the next state over.
College buddies, both Indians and Pakistanis whom I roomed with from 2000-2003, weren't at the big game because of steep ticket prices. My first college room-mate, from Karachi and now based in New York city, can't wrap his head around the fact that tickets are upwards of $1000.
An even older friend, a boarding school classmate from Bangladesh who I've known since 1992, now lives on Long Island and wasn't aware that there’s a cricket venue 10 minutes from where he lives. Sameer drives past Eisenhower Park five times a week, and recently when a relative told him that he'd be in town to catch a game at the Nassau County Cricket Stadium in Westbury, Sameer thought he'd heard it all wrong.
"I laughed and said 'Hey, I think you mean Nassau in the Bahamas’ .. right?” chuckles Sameer over the phone when I tell him I'm in his neighborhood covering a cricket World Cup.
Even the number of golf bags seen slung over shoulders these past two weekend mornings, as early as 6:30 am, outweighed the number of Team India and Pakistan green jerseys worn by cricket fans headed to Westbury.
But that did not stop the expat India and Pakistan cricket fans from showing up for the big match, nor the south Asian students in New York. A Gujarati immigrant and his son, born and raised in Connecticut and with little more than a passing interest in cricket, met a Bengali couple and immediately struck up a conversation about what a big deal this match is for them.
Another elderly man who made the trip from Houston to New York says it is his first live international match.
An American woman on the commuter rail from Grand Central station to Westbury is on her phone, telling the person on the other end about the number of India and Pakistan jerseys she’s seen and how its "pretty cool" that a big match is happening nearby.
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At the Jamaica stop, on platform 7 waiting for the Ronkonkoma connection, two groups of Indians meet each other. Four of the seven are wearing team Team India jerseys and after an initial tentative smile, they begin talking. It turns out both groups have made the trip from India — specifically from Mumbai and Ahmedabad, as part of a wider chance to visit relatives during the summer. They're confident of an Indian win, but the common sentiment is that the match should be worth it, full on entertaining, given how far these fans have travelled.
A few moments later, a louder and larger group of Pakistanis skip down the stairs to platform 7 and immediately the tension is palpable. Over the next 20-odd minutes on the train ride, and then on the shuttle bus from the Westbury station to Eisenhower Park, the banter between Indians and Pakistanis underlines the spectacle that this match is, but also how isolated the event is.
The 34,000-seater temporary stadium in Westbury — it will be demolished once the New York leg of the T20 World Cup is over — has not been anywhere near sold out, except for today's match. Tickets have been priced high, which has turned off many. I know of some who have flown in from the UK and India and paid over $2000 for their tickets, but that is a very small sample size.
Heck, 20 years ago, had this same situation played out, I'd have been in a tizzy trying to figure out how to get to Long Island from my job in Boston just to get a glimpse of my favorite Indian cricketers. I totally get the allure of a World Cup match in New York, but the truth is that this is a very, very small window that the ICC has targeted.
The match — another low-scorer in which batting was difficult and the bowlers dominated — gave the fans plenty of entertainment, and the dominant blue jerseys that made the majority of a crowd of 34,028 at Eisenhower Park got what they came for as India won by six runs.
The ICC — which a few days ago put out a statement acknowledging the challenges of preparing proper wickets in New York, as well as the fact that the drop-in Westbury surface is undercooked — silently breathed a sigh of relief. But one cannot shake the feeling that logistically, organizing tournaments of this magnitude is currently out of depth for those concerned. On Sunday, over 34,000 fans showed up. They might do so a second time, if another India-Pakistan match is held. But a third, given the exorbitant cost and travel time needed to make it here? Unlikely.
So yes, cricket has finally come to America in the form of one of the biggest sporting events in the world. But it has not caught the attention of US fans, and it is far from being a success so far, even with the 2028 LA Olympics on the not too distant horizon.
Of course, that could still change in the coming days, especially if the USA can follow up their shock win over Pakistan earlier in this tournament to claim an even more seismic cricketing scalp when they face India themselves on June 12. But both things seem unlikely.
And maybe that’s just how it was supposed to be after all, given how cricket revolves, financially at least, on the India-Pakistan fan base.
