A day to believe that cricket is not just an american dream game
In 2015, Saurabh Netravalkar relocated to the US. At 23, he had come to terms with a challenging situation. It was not going to be his career to play cricket.
In an interview from the previous year, Netravalkar stated, “It was a very emotional call.” “To study, I packed everything and relocated to the US. I never thought I’d be able to return to cricket. Not even my cricket shoes were with me.”
Ten years later, at the pinnacle of his career, Netravalkar is assigned to bowl the Super Over against Pakistan, giving USA cricket its greatest-ever victory.
“It’s a humbling feeling that life has given me a second chance to pursue what I love doing,” Netravalkar stated. “And I feel that bliss as soon as I walk onto the pitch to play competitive cricket.”
Netravalkar was happy as he bowled. Mohammad Amir, the 2009 T20 World Cup winner and a veteran of over 100 international matches for Pakistan, lost his calm in a nine-ball over that went for eighteen ten minutes earlier. Nevertheless, Netravalkar, who has been employed full-time at Oracle Cloud Infrastructure for eight years, maintained his composure. The match ended with a dot, four, comprehensive, and wicket.
Netravalkar’s roles as a professional cricketer at USA Cricket and a Principal Member of the Technical Staff at Oracle are still listed in his Twitter bio. Now is the moment to switch those.
This outcome confirmed many people’s prior knowledge. The difficulty is realising cricket’s enormous potential in this nation.
These realities were apparent when Netravalkar successfully sealed the victory. An unprecedented victory was greeted with an equal measure of relief and joy.
The United States deserved their victory. If they hadn’t overstepped the mark, the response would not have been congratulations and better luck the next time, but rather a side of excellent professionals devastated at the chance they’d wasted. Pakistan’s innings began with eight overs, and after that, they were 40 for 3. The USA were 104 for 1 with seven overs remaining, needing only 56 to win.
Pakistan came back both times, but rather than being a day dedicated to Netravalkar alone, it demonstrated the quality of US cricket and the players that sit just underneath the big names.
This was an Anderson-less triumph, despite all the hoopla surrounding parachuted players like Corey Anderson, who switched countries following a fruitful international career with New Zealand. He only made one over throughout the game, which resulted in six runs.
Instead, the unsung heroes were players like Nitish Kumar, Nosthush Kenjige, and captain Monank Patel, who scored 50 runs off of 38 balls.
Born in Alabama but raised in Karnataka, Kenjige finished his opening match of the competition with a 3 for 30 score. In 2015, he returned to the United States and found employment as a medical technician. Upon resolving to requalify for the US cricket team, he would work from 9 to 5 and then drive to an indoor facility from 6 to 10 to finish the 800 hours of coaching required to demonstrate to the ICC that an individual had “a commitment to the local community.” This is a collection of players living out their adult dreams, if not their childhood ones, rather than a team of people mumbling the national anthem while sporting a new emblem on their chest.
That background pertains to Nitish, who was born in Canada and played for them as a 16-year-old in the 2011 ODI World Cup before moving to another country in 2020.
While World Cups allow people to live out their ambitions, they also will enable them to live out their horrors. And Nitish was feeling the latter with one ball remaining in the USA’s innings.
With 49 needed from 35 balls, as he reached the crease at No. 5, he went without a boundary for a torturous 10, not out of 13. He forced a Super Over by chipping a low full toss over mid-off and to the boundary off the last ball of the innings. And he made the incredible catch at long-off, which almost assured their victory, three balls later. Thankfully, he will remember this day positively rather than terribly for the rest of his life.
But with all the excitement and hysteria, there was also a reminder of American cricket’s difficulties. Five days prior, Aaron Jones, who once again dazzled here with 35 off 25 before taking on the pivotal role at-bat in the Super Over, enthralled the crowd with an inning of a lifetime.
This Thursday afternoon, the fist pumps accompanying every boundary on Saturday night were again present. Still, this time, instead of energizing the loving home crowd, they were defiant in the face of a stadium that Pakistani supporters primarily occupied.
“We were aware that the audience was not behind us,” Captain Patel remarked following the game. “Pakistan had more support from the crowd, and I thought it would backfire on them…they’ll be under more pressure.”
Rather than trying to expand awareness, the main goal of this World Cup in the USA is to capitalize on the current level of enthusiasm. A stance with merits in practical application but limitations in broad strokes.
For example, Willow is the broadcaster for the World Cup in North America. If you’re already a cricket fan, this channel is like gold dust because it features practically every match worldwide. However, if you’re already a fan, you will only have the chance to swipe across it when unintentionally flipping through the stations. It won’t even be noticeable to you.
America is a winning nation. However, most Americans must know that America’s cricket team currently has one. They have the resources and talent to manage the game’s short term through Major League Cricket and the national team. Furthermore, there are expanding diasporas with the sincere desire and drive to take care of things in the long run, like the 5,500-strong Nepali community that flocked to the middle of Texas to witness their match versus the Netherlands.
American cricket must expand the game, not simply seize this opportunity to do so since, if they do it well, this is only the beginning of a fairytale.
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