The discussion with Mark Greenslade and Beth Simpson, authors of "An American Cricket Odyssey: A Journey into the Soul of Cricket in the United States," delves into the intricate tapestry of cricket's evolution in America. They illuminate the experiences and narratives that shaped their writing, drawing on extensive travels across the United States. Central to their conversation is the notion that cricket, often perceived as a sport for immigrants, is increasingly resonating with a broader American audience, highlighting its potential to foster community and social connection. The authors also examine the challenges the sport's administration faces in the U.S., emphasizing the need for strategic coherence and grassroots engagement to build a sustainable future for cricket. Through their insights, they invite listeners to explore the rich yet often overlooked history of cricket in America, suggesting that the sport can reflect and enrich the nation's cultural fabric.

Links

An American Cricket Odyssey: A Journey into the Soul of the Cricket in the United States: Amazon.co.uk: Mark Greenslade, Beth Simpson: 9781836801672: Books

An American Cricket Odyssey

Hello and welcome to the Last Wicket.

For this episode, we have two special guests joining us from London, two English authors who are cricket fans and have traveled across the US multiple times to write on American cricket.

Join us, Mark Greensclade and Beth Simpson.

They have written the book An American Cricket Odyssey.

We'll be chatting with them about their journey, how they came about the book and what they think about US cricket.

Let's jump in.

Hi, Mark and Beth, thank you so much for joining me at the Last Wicket.

I am excited to talk about your cricket book, but before we get into that, I wanted to let know about you guys.

I had a chance of reading a little bit about you guys before, but definitely I want our listeners to know your background as well.

Well, so we.

We actually first met on a sports team, cricket and football team in Bristol in the west of England.

Late 90s, I think.

Yeah, mid-90s, about 95.

I was working as a journalist then.

I'm still working as a journalist now.

You?

I was helping to run a nightclub.

I was doing some programming, sometimes some computer programming, and also, yeah, helping to run this cricket club.

So it was called the Eastern Cowboys.

So it was a kind of a new cricket club.

New sports club, actually, really, that had a social ethos and community outreach was a big part of that clubs and still is a big part of that club's ethos and, and philosophy.

So it's not just playing the sport, it's also really trying to reach out into the community in Bristol.

So inner city Bristol is.

It's obviously very multicultural, but at that time, I think it's fair to say there was like, you know, you'd have the kind of white British and then Pakistani and Afghanistani communities.

They all kept themselves to themselves a little bit now, and.

And West Indian, actually.

Now it's very much a flourishing multicultural environment.

But then it was a little bit, as I say, just, just, you know, it's just way kind of evolution goes really over time.

Right.

It was just that kind of inflection point.

And so we were very active in trying to bring new members from.

From different parts of the wider community.

Yeah, and what I find fascinating is your, you know, you were managing a nightclub, you were in the software a little bit.

I know your background in journalism, but how did that transpire into a book?

Like, did you ever think you would write one?

Or was it just, you know, these experiences that we love.

Course, we'll dive deeper into that.

Made you think, hey, there's something here.

So one thing which the cowboys and cowgirls have always.

We've always been quite adventurous in terms of what we're doing, in terms of.

In terms of touring around the world, in terms of our projects.

And the football team had gone to play in Mexico.

They had the cricket team.

It was you who set the tour up.

And part of this involved playing a game, game or two against the Compton Homies and Pops.

And that was an experience that changed all of our lives, I think, really.

And it kind of set me thinking, well, this is an incredible story.

I mean, I wrote about it anyway, when we did the tour and I thought, well, there have.

There have to be more stories about cricket in America.

So that really set off the.

The.

The germ of the idea for the book.

It was.

I don't know if you want.

Yeah, just to add a little bit more color.

I mean, the.

As.

As Beth says, the.

The football team, a side of the Eastern Cowboys, as they were then put together this tour to.

To Southern Mexico to place called Chiapas to play against a.

To play football in communities associated with the Zapatistas, who were like a, I suppose, a political group that were trying to maintain autonomy over their homelands in relation to the attempts by big business to, you know, extract minerals, extract this, that and the other, you know.

So, you know, it was.

That was kind of an extension of this community outreach.

You know, it was a solidarity project.

And so just as in Bristol itself, we were doing community outreach, it was also then went to an international dimension, initially in Europe, and then this was like the first intercontinental kind of project, I suppose.

But as the secretary of the cricket club and you know, like, you know, like with most kind of sports clubs and.

Or associations in general, there's always only five people who do anything, and then everybody else participates.

Right.

So I was obviously those five.

And I kind of felt a sense of jealousy because I could see how enthusiastic and.

And impacted the.

The folks who had gone on that tour to Chiapas, which included Beth.

And when they returned, it was like, we've got to do something.

And then the Compton Homies and Pops were actually touring the uk.

They visited Belfast, where they were introduced to a guy called Jerry Adams, who was head of Sinn, which is a major political party in.

In Northern Ireland.

And also this club, the Compton Homeboys and Pops, went to the House of Lords in London and also played a cricket match at Windsor Castle.

So they had like this crazy story.

And I just felt quite a lot of resonance with, with what they were trying to do.

And yeah, reached out to.

To.

It was very, in the very early days of kind of the Internet really.

It was like the BBC website was still, you know, you would have a modem, you'd go, you get the page, you know, and it would render very slowly.

But, you know, I got the name and somehow I got an email address.

And yeah, we.

I reached out to them and immediately, like within a day got.

Got an email response back from an extraordinary woman called Katie Haber, who was one of the two, let's say, like, you know, how to say, arch architects of that particular project, along with a homeless activist called Ted Hayes.

And KT immediately started, you know, saying, yes, come on over whenever.

And.

And so that precipitated like a year of fundraising because not everybody in the club could actually afford to go out to California.

So we had to do a year of fundraising to make sure that everybody could go know.

So that was like, you know, on a monthly basis we'd be having concerts and, and doing pub quizzes and all sorts of things just to raise funds, you know, or extra funds above and beyond the usual subscriptions and stuff.

The BBC joined us and made documentary about it.

So it was a very.

It was a memorable experience.

Certain what I find fascinating with everything that you mentioned is it started with, you know, a club which was focused on community outreach, you know, just being locally involved and, you know, that's what I hear all the time today, that everybody around me, they want to help their neighbors, they want to be involved in the community.

And, and that's obviously a very important thing, you know, to be involved in community.

But the fact that that took you to all these political organizations in there in completely different parts of the world, that's such a unique experience.

And yeah, I mean, I'm jealous, but.

But the other aspect that fascinated me and you kind of touched on it was this was all like at the beginning of the Internet or, you know, some.

I'm sure there were people you talked to who weren't even on the Internet at that point, and you still manage to find all these connections and make all these connections.

So it really is quite fascinating.

And I think for a lot of young people who've never lived without the Internet, it's a way, it's a great story in terms of, hey, if you want to get somewhere, if you want to meet people, there are always ways not Finding an email or a Twitter handle or something is not the end of the world.

I mean, this was at the inflection point, you know, just as Internet was, was becoming a thing, email was becoming a thing, but also mobile phones were becoming a thing, but they weren't enough of a thing to be very efficient or to have much of a, you know, much of a reach, you know.

Yeah.

I think I would say one thing just kind of following on from what you just said is that the, the.

This sports club, Eastern Cowboys, you know, very much has a punk ethos.

And what that really means is just do it, you know, don't wait for my permission.

Don't sit around complaining because you haven't got A or B or C. Just do it, you know, and you don't need a lot of money, you don't need sophisticated communication platforms or whatever.

If you have the intent and you, you have a group who, who are like, just go and do it.

Yeah, Love it.

Absolutely love it.

I wish.

Sorry, but go ahead.

I was going to say that was the spirit of doing this.

This book, American Cricket Odyssey, was the same thing.

It's like, well, yeah, let's just do it.

I mean, you know, our first trip, I just seem to remember we.

It was very much fly by the seat of our pants, really.

We didn't.

We only had a few contacts around the country and it was.

Well, I remember the first trip we flew into Washington, D.C. it was like, where do you start?

You know, and we just said, okay, let's just go straight to the capital.

And we went to the Library of Congress just because we were like in semi tourist mode and went, and they have a big dictionary there.

We, we did chose a random word and it was fortuitous.

What we didn't anticipate was that it would take so long to get published.

So it has been fortuitous but also an exercise in patience.

So, yeah, I'm sure, I'm sure.

But yeah, now that the mantra about to just do it, that that's something we all can take inspiration from.

I really like that.

Let's get into the book a little bit.

And I love the way you started in the introduction, and I'm paraphrasing here.

You guys mentioned America is an inspiring, beautiful, astounding, profoundly moving country idea that appears to our higher purpose as human beings, but it's also deeply flawed at Times spiteful and cruel.

As is cricket.

You mentioned your association with cricket, your community.

But what was your association with America when you, when you thought of this trip?

Was it just that contact with Katie or did you have any other cultural or any other, you know, family, anything like that with America?

Well, we really.

I just hold contact with Compton homies and Pops and Ted and Katie really.

Yeah, neither had any family.

That was the first time we'd ever been to the States.

Obviously consumed a lot of US culture, particularly in the context of music and film, etc.

Followed U.

S Politics just because it has a impact outside of the United States.

But yeah, very little, you know, you know, direct contact with the US Both in terms of like people out there, but also the, the different cities and the, the, the architecture of those cities, how they're laid out, you know, because it's a, it's a massive country and the logistics of getting around are quite intimidating.

We didn't have sat nav,.

Right.

Doesn't drive.

So we only had one driver.

So we had one driver and a navigator.

We, I remember on that first trip we bought this huge mat of the United States, you know, like road atlas, actual paper.

And that was what we used to navigate around.

So, you know, so the.

But fortunately at the time we were both like single.

Our lives were simpler, you know, I've got a couple of kids and that's got its own thing going on.

So, so, you know, so, so we did have time to, to not be efficient, if you see what I mean, and drift around and, and that helps for finding, uncovering stories in a non linear way, you know, because it's, it's like the obvious thing is just to do a dry history.

But we were much more interested in narratives ultimately.

And yeah, and also how those narratives reflect the changing nature of United States.

That to me is a fascinating thing.

Like Mark was saying, there have been histories of United States cricket before, but they tend to be quite dry.

And this happened then, and this happened then.

We were more in, much more interested in, and getting into the underneath of what is a, you know, a subculture as you know, but subculture that certainly most people in the United States have no idea, they have no idea about it.

And people outside the United States, I mean even cricket fans, you know, in Europe, so many people said to me, well, you know, I might be interested in this book, but I didn't know they played it in the United States.

So it's getting, it was all about really getting to grips with this, this subculture which isn't visible still.

Yeah, subculture within, obviously, the wider culture, but also using this subculture from the edge as a means to.

As a mirror of the wider culture.

You know, how the experience of these communities playing cricket, this kind of marginal sport in some respects, and, and, and how that could help us maybe analyze the wider culture from a slight, from a slightly different angle, you know, and, and maybe tease out some, Some interesting points or, or thoughts, I guess, observations.

Yeah, yeah, I, I couldn't agree more because as a cricket nerd, I have.

Obviously I knew a lot about American cricket.

A. I mean, not as much as the book has taught me, but, but a lot compared to the average cricket fan.

And I had heard, you know, I'd heard about Bart King, for example, and his accomplishments, but it was, to Beth's point, it was very much, hey, he did this and he went on this tour and he averaged this much and he took this many wickets.

It was less about how it all came together.

And that's really what I enjoyed about this book, that it, you know, it really tied to the politics of the people, the beliefs of people.

And yeah, it, you know, in today's world, like, I feel like that is so important.

You absolutely cannot separate the sport from their feelings, their politics, their.

Their beliefs, their principles.

So.

And unfortunately, we see sport and politics mingle more and more every day.

So why just had the World Cup?

I mean, right.

A lot of fallout happening in FIFA.

Right now, but anyway, yeah, yeah, no, absolutely in FIFA.

I feel ICC is the same way with all the influence with BCCI right now.

So, yeah, the politics of it is really hard to ignore and it was really fun to read that aspect of it, especially as an American who's lived here 15 plus years and follows politics pretty carefully.

I really had a great time.

You mentioned it took a while for this book to publish.

Did it change your position of cricket in America in terms of, hey, this was a great experiment of understanding the history or how these, you know, small clubs are surviving even today to, hey, this could be something big, like maybe not in five years or 10 years, but maybe, you know, in the longer term there's big potential for cricket in the US I think when we, when.

So people are already talking about it and I think when we started we were thinking, well, you know, let's see what happens in the next 20 years.

There'd been the World cup in 94 and there'd been this growth in, you know, U.S. soccer.

Whether this same can thing could happen to cricket, but it's, it's taken a lot longer and still is some.

Yeah, I, I think, yeah, there are many reasons why it hasn't quite taken off yet.

The potential, I think is still there, but I think a lot of it is held back by, you know, just appalling, appalling administration.

Yeah, I mean that was very clear or very evident right from, you know, a very first research trip that the, the administration of the game was an issue.

The relationship between the US Cricket association or whatever and the ICC was an issue.

The lack of consistency from the ICC's perspective, you know, because I don't think they escape criticism in this whole narrative was an issue.

But also the disconnect to the grassroots game.

You know, there was, you know, quite clear appetite at the grassroots level to, to play, lots of people wanting to come together to play.

Because cricket at a club level is a fantastic social glue, you know, and you build over the courses of seasons and seasons, you know, you build real, real long lasting friendships, you know, and people do look out for each other, you know, I mean, us is, is a difficult place to live for many people, you know, if you're not quite there, you know, and, and so joining any kind of association, any kind of group, collective endeavor, but cricket, more than possibly quite a few others is, is a very, very social game.

I mean, you know, I've played a lot of cricket and, and I love the idea that you, you wake up in the morning, you have your breakfast, you get to the ground by 11 or something and then, you know, the game's over by seven or eight and then you hang out until midnight and then because it's summer, you may even hang out till three or four in the morning, you know, and this is like week in, week out, maybe even two, you know, Saturday and Sunday, when you just aggregate that, that's a lot of time with people you like, you know, I mean, you may not like everybody in the team, but you know, most of your teammates you, you like, you know, and Then you got to get to know the other, you know, teams over time and it's, it's just a very social game.

You know, at the club level, you know, you, you, you know, sometimes you get the, the tension between the, you know, those members who want to be very play hardball cricket, you know, competitive cricket as opposed to social cricket.

So it all depends how, how many, you know, the size of your club really and also what kind of league opportunities you have, whether you can have the A team, B team model, you know, and, and stuff like that.

But you know, I, I, I grew up playing cricket in a village team and it was multi generational, which is another aspect about cricket that's unique and, and just kind of talking about this kind of community cohesion that I think it, it can engender and it was very clear to, to us in that those first trips that there was this disconnect at the administrative level to the grassroots level, you know, and, and unfortunately that has probably persisted even today.

And I think one aspect to that is not getting it that to grow a sport big in the United States you have to have equal effort and resources put into the women's game as well as the men's game, you know, at this kind of grassroots, stimulating the grassroots from the top down perspective, you know, because you're not going to get to that federal funding level and all the scholarships and universities unless you have ticked all the boxes and been, you know, walked the walk as well as talk the talk.

And that is a 20 year process of getting the women's game to a vibrant state at a much bigger scale.

And that's probably, in my opinion if I'm looking back now, like the probably a missed a bit missed opportunity, you know, rather than very just consistently keeping your head down to it to, and executing on that aspect.

Because if you've got a much more vibrant women's game, that would open a lot more doors actually.

So it's rather than going for the blue ribbon kind of big, you know, like let's get the World cup to, to the U.S. you know.

So yeah, yeah, I think it's, it's,.

It's very interesting if you make that point.

A couple of years ago I was talking to Peter De La Pena who's writer for, for Formerly or US Correspondent.

Yeah, we know Peter very well.

I see.

And he also made a very similar point.

He said the way to change the game is to include it in, you know, college sports.

Like that is the biggest step that you can do to one, get scholarships, get Non, you know, non Indians, Caribbean folks, non Pakistanis, like, involved in the game because there's a scholarship, quality scholarship at, at stake.

People will be interested, people will start noticing.

And, and it was just, you know, very interesting thought in terms of.

Yeah, the, the aspect of.

I also compared to soccer a little bit because, you know, we look at U.S. soccer and obviously the, the men's team is, you know, let's call them mediocre.

No offense to them, but, but, you know, from a world stage, they are in the 20s in the rankings.

But the women's team is actually fantastic.

They've been top three for a long time.

And so the amount of talent, athletic talent in the US Is actually quite staggering.

And I think that's really.

I agree with you that it is a missed opportunity because a lot of the, Whether it's softball players, whether it's other people who are, who are just athletic and haven't tried cricket.

Yeah, they just.

There's a lot of chance for women to grow in the sport.

So I, I do hope that at some point, you know, there's that step where it gets included in ncaa, which is the college league, and that truly would be a game changer.

But for that to happen, there needs to be.

Yeah, I mean, there's been a perennial, A perennial theme of our, of, you know, the book of our research has been the lack of money, basically, and the lack of investment.

There is.

It's a constant problem.

Well, it is a problem.

It's also an excuse.

You know, I think strategic coherence over long term doesn't rely upon money.

It relies upon strategic coherence over the long term.

So it requires those in leadership positions to have a clear vision of what the program is and to keep to that vision, but that it was never part of that vision, you know, having.

Trying to bring the women's game up, not, you know, not necessarily per se to an equal footing in the sense of the numbers participating and, and whatever.

But just get.

Making sure that it's vibrant and growing and, and, and because that opens the doors, you know, but.

Yeah, and it certainly opens the doors in terms of all kind of sponsorship.

Just, just opens another realm, you know, possibilities, you know, so.

And also getting kind of women active in the administration, because that's been another theme.

Right.

You know, it's like sports administration is a peculiar.

Because it's, It's.

There's not that many professionals actually.

You know, I mean, you know, it tends to get dominated by, particularly as a.

Sports kind of emerging, I suppose, by enthusiastic Amateurs quite often successful in business life or in other spheres of life, which is obviously great.

They get bring a lot of skills, you know, but sports administration does require another skill set as well as diplomacy required.

I think a little bit of out of the box thinking.

So.

Yeah, I mean, I think it's another obvious, you know, obviously we're not saying anything new when there's issues with administration, but.

Yeah, yeah.

And I think I also, you know, looking at history of baseball in the United States, it's also a very interesting comparison because all the things that you've mentioned, not just, just now, but even at the beginning of the podcast, you talked about community outreach.

One of the reasons baseball became so popular is the community was involved and you know, local shopkeepers and local stores would sponsor teams and, and that's how people got involved and it became a sport for the summer and you know, you took your kids, you took your family out there and became what it is today.

So yeah, just the opportunities for women, the obviously better administration is probably a very simple way to put it, but.

But also just that community aspect.

Will.

Will is key to growing the sport.

But I do want to turn back to the book a little bit.

I know we started going on a tangent, but the book itself, I know you've written about major league cricket, which I actually did not know that would registered way before it actually happened and.

Yeah, so tell us a little bit about.

Or tell the listeners a little bit about that aspect of it.

Obviously now people know about major league cricket and minor league cricket that's happening today.

But.

Yeah, how did, if you can tell us the history of that.

You mean the first attempt to get major leagues so.

Well, there have been a number of attempts from the early part of this century.

And then the following year we met in New York, fellow called Bernard Cameron.

I don't know if you're familiar with that name at all.

He was in the.

From the book.

He was a.

One of these cricket entrepreneurs, I suppose you could call in his big idea.

Again.

He'd worked in.

He'd worked on Wall Street, I think, and also he had worked in the music industry, I think.

And his idea was to set up a major league along the lines of.

I think his idea was to have it modeled kind of on the English county system so you'd have a.

A New York State team and a Florida team, so on and so forth.

And he talked, you know, he had a lot of big talk about what he was going to do and how he was going to convince the ICC to back his project as being the.

The legitimate governing body in the US Instead of Usaka.

And I think they did.

I think they did one tournament, I think, in Florida, and that was it.

There was never a league season.

It never got off the ground.

So we had to wait another, what was it, 17 years for Bachelor of proper major league to happen.

Of course, as you know, that wouldn't have happened at all without investment from some of the major franchises in the ipl.

A kind of reverse colonialism, if you like, which I think is fascinating in a lot of ways.

Similar 100 right now.

No, but there's so many.

You know, it was.

One of the chapters is called Dreamers and Schemers because we met so many these individuals who wanted to.

Part of it, part of it was kind of this idea of giving something back, I suppose.

But also there was a kind of.

There was an understanding.

Well, you know, if cricket's going to become big, then, you know, there can be a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, isn't there?

And I want to be in there, you know, dipping my hand in the pot of gold.

So these individuals weren't entirely being entirely altruistic, I think.

Yeah.

There's also an element of having an investment in terms of their own identity.

You know, they couldn't really leave cricket alone because if they, if they, you know, either walked away from cricket or just didn't try to do something, they make a noise, so to speak, they.

They.

In some respects, they would feel kind of less inside, you know, So I think there was an internal kind of dynamic as well, as, well as, like some of the incentives externally.

I, I must admit I enjoyed meeting all these schemas and visionaries and Dreamers because they're just great characters, you know, they're great characters out of life and, and specifically out of that U.S. environment, you know, people trying to make it.

Trying to, you know, we've not necessarily much, they think maybe, maybe didn't come from much, but they're just trying to make it.

Trying to do something they want, you know, and trying to hold on to something possibly.

But I, I did like those characters, you know, but, yeah, none of them managed to.

To really kind of break out, you know, and partly going back to Bernard, you know, he didn't get the support from the icc, you know, even, you know, and.

And so, you know, and then that would have been required, you Know and the ICC have been up and down.

I did mention allude to it earlier that they, they've.

I mean I guess to be fair to them, they've had to deal with a changing landscape and a quite a right volatile landscape.

But I do believe that they should been more like straight.

Yeah.

Especially considering like the size of the US market, a country which is so sports crazy.

You know, there's always somebody, some sport or the other, everybody's playing and, and yeah, considering that and the potential revenue because at the end of the day like yes, administration has to think about making the sport profitable and there's a lot of potential from that standpoint.

So yeah, it definitely feels like a missed opportunity from, from that standpoint.

And one other chapter that I really enjoyed was in the Heartlands and you know that, that piece.

I would love for you both to talk about that as well because I do think today it still feels like cricket is the sport that a bunch of immigrants play.

And you know that that's not entirely true.

There's obviously a lot of locals who are interested.

Peter Dellapena we talked about is a great example because he's an American of Italian descent and he's made a living out of cricket.

So.

So yeah, I would love to.

For you to expand on that chapter as well.

Yeah, I mean some of the most fascinating, most fascinating stories we found amongst a long research period while those, as you said, those individuals who maybe don't come from traditional cricketing heritage backgrounds who just became.

Just got the bug really.

I mean Peter is a classic example of one, but also people like Erica Rendler for example, who had not played the sport at all until her late 20s when she tried out for it and then ended up on the US national team for a decade, which is.

Extraordinary story and I mean the mayor of Broward county in Florida and some members of their administration is a very good example, you know that I know they were fulfilling their professional duties but they, they really got into cricket and that's really why that count that that stadium exists.

You know, Broward county stadium exists.

It's really the, the efforts of, you know, one of a better expression Native Americans.

I mean it's all like everybody's immigrant really, you know, apart from traditional Native American municipalities.

Yeah, I mean I, I do Again, going back to missed opportunities, I mean empowering people such who.

Who really understand U S Culture from.

From the kind of inside out a bit more would.

Would have been a good idea.

You know, because the ones we've, we've been whether It's Peter Delapana, the mayor of Broward County, Morristown.

Right.

There's another Nate Hayes, very much involved in what's going on in Morris.

Back to the Comptonies and Pops.

I mean this is a team or was a team of, of, you know, there's kind of Hispanic Americans, Americans, you know, like from, from.

Purely from la, you know, literally never played cricket before in their lives.

And, and that team had a unique character and unique spirit, you know, and a new, unique take on the game and also a, a unique appreciation for the game.

Actually.

They, they really came to deeply appreciate cricket as a sport and what it gave them because for a lot of those kids in that or young adults and even the older adults, some of the, the pops who, you know, ex homeless people, it really made an impact on their lives, you know, and that, that was, that probably is the, the only truly American team that has ever existed.

Even now, like where everybody in the team is just like American, you know, whatever that means, you know, including the one token white Jewish guy.

Kind of.

Like, you know, so, so, you know, but the spirit of that team is absolutely unique.

And, and I, I think, you know, I was pretty annoyed that the, the U.S. administration didn't, Cricket administration didn't understand that because they knew about it, you know, but they didn't really understand, you know, the what from a vision, perspective, what that team could represent, you know, and how that could just be like a wildfire in inner city communities across the states, you know, because cricket in that context was much more than just about the sport, you know, because it was, you know, the ethos and the spirit of cricket was really bringing something to those guys, you know, and, and, and so it's about values and I suppose really that's, if you really think about it, like what are the values of the, the U. S. Cricket administration is really trying to impart, you know, I don't think they're nearly strong enough on one level.

I mean it's, everybody has their own opinions.

It's just my opinion and observation.

But you know, I think if there was like a, yeah, deeper value set, I think that, you know, you would have thought, oh wow, this is a team that we should get behind, you know.

Oh yeah, we really do need women cricket because otherwise it's just got the imbalance, we're never going to get to that next level.

So, you know, it's, I guess there's a degree of superficiality really in terms of what the vision is or could.

Be just remember, called the other person.

I was trying to name, I was trying to remember Jamie Harrison who's again across him Mayank.

I mean his, his story was incredible really.

You know, a 40 something white American teacher who just happened to stumble across cricket when he was on a school trip, I think visiting a Civil war site and then start, set up, set up a cricket team in his school and then that out of that developed sending cricket sets to other schools in the local area and then on a national scale, which is extraordinary.

And you know, his, his contribution shouldn't be forgotten either.

So yeah, those individuals who came from non cricketing backgrounds, you know, some of the most memorable encounters we had in terms of the research came from, from, came from them really.

And yeah, I mean in some ways their stories are more, you know, more.

Well, there's lessons to learn.

Yeah.

You know, and, and you know, one of the lessons to learn is, is.

You.

Engagement at a community level with people who, who are serving that community in a professional capacity within the administrative context.

Whether it's a mayor, whether it's a teacher, you know, and whether it's somebody who just run is, is the parks warden, you know, who runs all the sports parks in, in that, in that, in that region, you know, so I'm working with them closely, you know, so that you can get the quality of pitch that you need because obviously cricket to get higher and higher, you need good quality pitches and that is, has been a running issue of, of getting to the, to those international quality pitches that you can play, you know, the high level cricket on, but also at the local level to, to just improve the, the facilities, you know, on a year by year basis, continual progression and even as simple things like you know, the toilet facilities, that kind of thing.

Nobody wants to talk about it because it's kind of, you know, whatever, but it's just those like the simple stuff just.

Yeah.

Just to make it a better experience for people.

Yeah, no, I could not agree more.

As a recreational cricketer myself, I have gone to one too many grounds where there's either no toilet facilities or one of those porta potties which are in disgusting state.

So and then when we end up spending six to eight hours there, so, you know, it's not a, it's not a small short game anyways.

So that way it is, it is something that really is part of the basics.

I'm glad you touched on stadiums and pitches because that was one other thing I was thinking of.

It's obviously tempting to see those and I'm not saying it's a negative.

They were like, hey, I heard this happened.

I know you're a cricket fan, tell me about this.

And, and it was great to like see people organically just hear the news and get interested.

But at the same time it's also important to realize that they spent millions of dollars on a New York or New Jersey stadium, which, you know, was probably less than ideal.

Rather than improving existing facilities or facilities where cricket is actually played.

You know, so that it goes down to the grassroots that we were talking about.

And, and you talked about the pitch, the pitch at that stadium was.

Yeah, it was just a terrible one to say the least.

Yeah, yeah.

So I think that that infrastructure.

Yeah, it's not as if they didn't have the advanced notice.

Right.

You know, it was, they had more than enough notice to, to, Yeah, I mean that was well a scandal in my opinion.

It just beggars belief.

They spent how much money on building a stadium really just one game for India and when they could have built something that or, you know, improved existing facilities and puts me back into New York cricket.

Yeah.

Legacy.

Yeah, no, absolutely, absolutely I agree with that.

And I think that is where maybe it goes back to long term vision and administration.

I, I, I, it's, it's really hard to pinpoint to one thing that went wrong there.

But, but it definitely is, you know, feels like, hey now the, now the Knight Riders have a team in LA and they want to put their name on a stadium.

So now they've built one.

It's, which is great if they maintain it and if it, you know, something that continues to give back to cricket.

But if it's something that's, hey, we've made our mark in cricket and moved on and not maintained over time, then we're back at where we were, you know, the missed opportunity kind of just go continues on.

I have to say I'm not optimistic.

I don't know how you feel Mayank,.

But well, I would Push back against that really.

I mean, if you look at the, the long term, a trend, the trend is always actually in that direction.

You know, it's always, you know, more participation, more cricket being played, probably higher level of cricket being played, a wider distribution of, of game, you know, geographically being played.

So I do think the underlying trend is absolutely in the right direction still.

I don't think any process is perfect, so you have to make exceptions.

Trying to get the attention on the sport in the wider US cultural context.

I think a bit more creativity, a bit more out of the box thinking there, you know, getting influences.

If you look at this, there's this kind of phenomena in the football sense or soccer sense with this team from the UK called Wrexham, which seems to have attract a lot of some, some celebrity focus.

So I don't really actually understand like why they picked Reynolds, isn't it?

Ryan Reynolds, isn't it?

Right, right, exactly.

So, and I, I do know what was that actor, he was in Boogie Nights.

Mark Wahlberg.

That's right.

He's interested in cricket.

So, you know, you want to get like somebody like that, you know, some rando in the wider cultural context somehow like brings some of their friends and then it tries to make a thing out of one of the major league cricket teams, you know.

So I think just that kind of out of the box thinking because obviously sports is, is very much entertainment in the United States and you do need to embrace that side of things and influences are kind of important, I guess, to, to get that crossover interesting in the soccer thing.

Jay Z, the, the music entrepreneur, entrepreneur, musician, he, he, he runs now a very successful agency for football players, soccer players in Europe, you know, so, so he, he got into football and then started something.

So that's how you get these kind of weird crossovers.

Do you know what I mean?

Again, bringing like people like prop, you know, coming from the wider American culture, I suppose to, to get interested.

But picking your squad early, having your game Plans, you know, like your, your plan A solid and then your plan B's and C's for tactical situations or whatever in place.

Keeping it simple, making sure those players are physically prepared.

You know, they've been following their own programs because to be a play at high level in the United States, you know, there's a lot of, a lot more autonomy is required on the part of the player than for, you know, if I look at the England cricket team, for example, which are going through their own issues at the moment, you know, they get all these support systems around them.

You know, they've got psychologists, you know, physiotherapists, they've got nutritionists.

You know, they, they, they don't, you know, they pretty much don't do anything apart from play cricket.

And they got, you know, some a degree of financial security anymore while they're playing.

That, that's kind of more limited.

So it does require more autonomy on the part of the player.

And, and, and, but that's a liaison thing, in my opinion, you know, that if I'm the coach, then I would need a liaison officer who's going to be chasing up all the players, making sure they're keeping with their programs, getting all the metrics about their physiology and stuff like this.

So to, you know, so, so all the ducks do need to line up to, to make that team well prepared.

So, because, and then they may meddle, you know, and that would be great.

Yeah.

I don't know what the conditions of the pitches will be.

So that's, that's an open question.

Well, you know, if they're bad, it may normalize things a little bit, but you don't actually want them to be bad.

You want them to be.

Well, the night riders would be able to sort out a decent groundsman to come over in India, surely.

That's, that's what I was going to say.

Like they have the money, they have the budget to do this.

Right.

Yeah.

At this point, I mean, to bet's point, I, in general, I agree with Mark's point about, yes, there's more and more investments.

It's, it's.

As much as I am skeptical of IPL owners coming in, I do know that they are here for the long, longer term.

So that's, in that sense, it is a good thing that we have that backing.

It's a good thing that the titans of, you know, the tech industry, who have a lot of money at hand are backing some of the, you know, franchises on the West Coast.

So a lot of positives from that standpoint, it doesn't feel like it's a league, you know, to the past where it could fizzle out in a couple of years.

They definitely have the backing to last a decade or so.

But yeah, I think it's really looking at the local interaction.

We all talked about community already, like making sure Morristown is obviously a good example where you know, the locals were really involved.

And so like we have to fine tune those little things, even if it means in the short term slightly lesser revenue and build that interest going forward.

Yeah, and Morris feels a great example of, of building templates.

You know, you, you want these kind of cookie cutter templates of like, you know, even just the design of the pitch, you know, like, you know, you don't need to get engage another set of archetype architects for the next project.

You know, it's like gets, you know, get some, have a template mindset and make it easier to, to, you know, to develop kind of more grounds,.

You know, on the grounds front.

One thing that comes to mind, I was talking to an Australian cricket administrator who's actually worked in the US previously and his, he wrote a really interesting blog post about how stadiums need to be thought of as ecosystems where there's like everything around them.

Where there's, you know, stores, there's daycare, there's all these things so that people are actually hanging out there, it's their place to go get coffee.

And that makes stadiums way more profitable and, and you know, sustainable in, in the long term.

And at the same time it involves the, you know, non interested people to be like, oh, here's a free cricket class, let me check it out.

And you know, that's another aspect of getting the locals involved.

I mean that's one, that's where Morrisville is, has its advantage.

I mean it's a small community everywhere you can get anywhere really, you know, 10 minute drive.

That's where its benefit is really is.

Are there other communities like that around.

The U.S. well, well, I'm sure there are, you know.

Yeah, I was gonna say that I can think of like baseball having that set up.

Like the Chicago Cubs is right in the middle of the city.

The stadium is, you know, I mean I go there it's a 10 minute train ride.

It's.

Everything is super easy.

Atlanta Braves is another stadium that they've recently created.

The Chicago cup obviously has been around for 100 plus years, but the new Brave stadium and everything they've created around it is very much that ecosystem.

Do I see it in cricket?

Not yet.

Hopefully that that changes.

Yeah.

I'm not sure if the National Baseball association would be interested in having a strategic deal, the US National Cricket association, you know, because there is obviously if they became a growth partner, that would open an awful lot of doors.

I think anyone wants to have a partnership with USA Cricket at the moment, quite frankly, who can blame them?

Yeah.

Well, Mark and Beth, thank you so much for all your time and you've given us almost an hour here.

We've really enjoyed, I've really enjoyed reading the book.

Not finished it yet, but I certainly will.

It was great chatting with you both, not just on the book, your journey of writing it and how you brought out the beautiful stories of all the people and then of course just cricket in America.

So, yeah, it's, it's been an absolute blast talking to you.

Thank you so much for.

There it is.

American cricket odyssey.

Yeah, we'll be coming to the States in October to do some promotional kind of events so maybe we can get to the Chicago area and, and do an in real life event somewhere.

That would be a lot of fun.

I think.

The book's available on, on various platforms, specifically Amazon.

So if there's any listeners out there fancy reading it themselves, they kind of take advantage of that.

But yeah, and then we, we are thinking of a second edition after the, the Olympics.

So, so, you know, it's, it's not a, a done project, it's an ongoing project, you know, and, and I think other things could spin out of this, particularly around the Compton Hobies and Pops.

We've spoken about maybe a screenplay or something.

But, you know, so, but thank you so much for the opportunity to, to talk to you and your listeners and, and yeah, we really enjoyed it.

Yeah, thank you for having us and yeah, yeah, and thank you for all your listeners as well.

Thank you.

Absolutely.

No, we, we do hope that second edition does come about and you mentioned it's, it could be a work in progress.

Hopefully that's what we can, that's what we can say about US Cricket.

So hopefully we will, yeah, we'll get a chance to bring you back on the podcast and talk a lot more.

And yeah, I'm excited to see, hear more details about your US Tour.

I would love to be part of that.

And for any listeners interested, I will definitely link the book in the show notes.

I already got my Kindle copy, but I do need to get I'm more of a hard, hard copy guy, so I'm going to get my copy once it's available in the US So thank you so much again for all your time.

And yeah, thanks for jumping on.

Thank you.

Bye bye bye.