If you look south from the Manhattan end of Brooklyn Bridge, you can just about imagine the cricket field that used to be beneath what is now the South Seaport – and, if you squint, pretend that the people making their way around the bars and clubs and restaurants are the descendants of the same New York crowd who attended a match here between a local team and a London XI in 1751. Modern-day Manhattan is built on cricket pitches, among other things. They are there under the streets, among the farms and tenements cleared to make way for skyscrapers. There’s another under Central Park, a third below the NYU Langone medical centre, where – in 1844 – Canada beat the USA by 23 runs in what is considered the first international fixture in all sport.
People have been dreaming of reviving American cricket ever since it died during the civil war, more than 160 years ago. It was killed by a shortage of pitches, kit and coaching, and by the rise of baseball, the great American pastime. Baseball had two advantages. It was easier to play – all you needed was a bat, a ball, four bases and a field – and if you were good at it, you could make a lot more money. Plenty of professional cricketers made the switch. The brothers George and Harry Wright, who had both played for St George’s Cricket Club in New York, where their father was groundsman, were founding members of the first pro baseball team, the Cincinnati Red Stockings. Both are in the Hall of Fame, and Harry is still known as the “father of the game”. Early proprietors such as AG Spalding, another ex-cricketer, sold baseball as the indigenous American sport. It was the patriotic choice. Cricket was inescapably English.
