“Ladies and gentlemen! Westbury is the next stop, change at Westbury for the Cricket World Cup!” After all these years, New York hosted its first game of big-time cricket on Monday, when South Africa beat Sri Lanka by six wickets at the brand new Nassau County ground on Long Island.
It is a scaffold palace of a pop-up stadium, 30 miles outside Manhattan. A crowd of 12,500 locals travelled out on the Long Island Rail Road to watch, and were rewarded with a beautiful day for a game. The sun was out, the sky was blue, the drop-in pitch tricky and quick, and batting was hellishly difficult.
