USA vow to play 'fearless cricket' in World Cup debut

The USA make their debut in the T20 World Cup against Canada on Saturday and vice-captain Aaron Jones says they are determined to play a 'fearless' brand of cricket.

USA Cricket (Image Source: Google)

Ambassadors

Jones was born in New York but raised in Barbados, who he represented earlier in his career, before moving back to the USA to be part of the team.

He acknowledges that the team has the added responsibility of being ambassadors for the sport when they play games in Texas, Florida and New York.

"Obviously, what you do on the field is very important, but I also do think that off the field stuff is very important as well, especially being a country that don't really know much about cricket," he said.

"We want to get the fans up; we want to get a lot more support from the American born and raised people and I think we could only do that by playing good on the field and obviously interacting with the fans or the growing fans off the field as well," added Jones.

Curiously, the first ever international cricket match was played between the USA and Canada in 1844 in New York and there were a multitude of clubs, particularly in Philadelphia and New York.

But baseball soon replaced cricket as the favoured summer sport with cricket virtually disappearing apart from in a few hold-outs.

However in recent years, the growing communities from South Asia and the Caribbean have led a revival with competitive amateur leagues now well-established and last year a new T20 pro league, Major League Cricket (MLC) was launched.

The Grand Prairie ground, a converted minor-league baseball park, was opened last year while the cricket venue in Lauderhill, near Fort Lauderdale in South Florida, has already hosted a number of international games.

The venue in Long Island, which will host the big India v Pakistan clash, is a 34,000 temporary stadium which will be dismantled after the tournament, although the cricket field itself will remain.

Jones, who made his debut for the USA in 2018, says the change in the past few years has been remarkable to be part of.

"I think that we are on the up right now as it relates to the amount of cricket we play, as it relates to the infrastructure, different fields, a lot more access to turf wickets which is very important for us.

"Definitely some quality players (have come into) the country over the last couple of years which obviously improves the competition. So right now, I think that things are only up and we just want to keep growing from here," he said.