The fruits have ripened, and they are rich and sweet: a $30 million, 34,000-seat cricket stadium is being erected on the grounds of a public park in Long Island, New York this month, where it will host the United States’ first T20 World Cup cricket series. It is a moment that has been slowly and carefully cultivated despite the city’s apathy. For decades, local cricketers have used trash cans in lieu of wickets, padded fields flat with jute mats, and stubbornly harvested the case for cricket pitches and more park space.
But the culmination of their efforts is not the main pull of the event, at least not by sheer numbers. Most eyes are trained on a single cricket match, a proxy war—between India and Pakistan. This is the first time the men in green and blue will go head to head on American soil. While tickets for other matches—Sri Lanka versus Canada, South Africa versus Pakistan—have sold slowly, the waitlist for this particular event was oversubscribed almost immediately, a reported 200 times and over 3,000,000 applications.
Why bring something so oversized to such a small stadium, knowing how many people would want to see it? This is one bitter-fruit sentiment I’ve heard from multiple friends and strangers, none of whom seem to have managed a ticket for the India-Pakistan match. In fact, no one seems to know anyone who has got hold of a ticket through the lottery waitlist to the event happening down the street, a 45-minute Long Island Railroad trip from the city, a 20-minute drive from Indian and Pakistani enclaves in east Queens.
What remains are tickets that have migrated to all-inclusive tour packages that sell in the thousands for hotel rooms, transport, and prime seating. Others have gone to marketplaces like StubHub, where, as of 1 May, India-Pakistan tickets started at $1,400 and went up to $70,000; Sri Lanka versus Scotland began at $35. There are rumours of corruption and large-scale ticket scalping. One fan tells me she refuses to be denied a seat — she is ready to sit outside the stadium and listen to the cheers.
The darker side of it
These are the fun sorts of rumours, where the hijinks are reminisced on years later. But there are other, more noxious theories that have emerged, ones that are damning when relations between the two countries have started to wilt on matters like Kashmir. Some wonder if the crowd will consist mostly of Indian-origin fans, who have scale and relative wealth on their side. After all, it is certainly not the job of the International Cricket Council (ICC) to ensure the audience is democratically chosen or equal in nationality or to check that chants of “India-India” don’t drown out “Pakistan-Pakistan.” And what if their cheers tip over into chants of “Jai Shri Ram?”
If so, it will be a far cry from the vision established by New York cricketers, which is built on leaving behind old nationalisms. A vision primarily led by West Indian immigrants who picked up the sport after other generations of Americans lost interest in it, just as the Caribbean region was also developing its post-independence identity. One that was created alongside those who had similarly imported a love for cricket, including South Asians. Games were played after work and on weekend mornings. Cricketers crossed ethnic and class silos. The main opponent was American apathy.
A decade ago, it was these very cricketers who led a renovation of the Bronx’s Van Cortlandt Park, establishing it as the largest cricket park in the US. In 2023, Van Cortlandt was trotted out as a possible venue to host the World Cup games. After months of back-and-forth, the proposal was rejected. The reasons cited included potential damage to the environment and legal hurdles, and a quieter worry—a blockbuster event would take away several months of cricket playing from its ardent local fans.
Certainly, many of these fans will come to the matches. The most committed might even spring for tickets for the India-Pakistan match. And not simply for the love of the sport, the importance of the event, the DJs and cocktail bars that will be scattered about the stadium, and the sour drama of everyone’s favourite line-up. They will also be joined by those who may have less investment in their vision and in what happens after the match; members of South Asian communities in the U.S. who may not have as much patience for the slow-growing nature of secularism and cross-border solidarity. With flourishing numbers of Indian and Pakistani immigrants in the country, some may not even have as much of a need for it.
After a month, the circular stadium in Long Island will be taken down. The pitch of flat, hard Bermuda grass currently growing in Florida, will migrate and be modularised for other T20 cricket pitches. The land will return, once again, to its previous state. That is a cricket pitch, played on by a smattering of local residents trying to push the sport forward in the only ex-British colony that doesn’t seem to care for wickets, bats, or tea time.
The ICC has promised to invest resources and build training stadiums in Eisenhower Park. If these resources are built, they will be the only physical memorial that an event happened. Otherwise, what will remain will be in people’s memories; how the winners and losers behaved, and if they remembered that they have been playing the same game all along.
Meghna Rao is a writer and editor from New York. She tweets @meghn_a. Views are personal.
(Edited by Humra Laeeq)