Back in 2021, the US was named as joint-hosts of this edition of cricket's Twenty20 (T20) World Cup, the shortest format of the international game. A total of 16 out of 55 matches at the 20-team tournament will be hosted in the US, split across venues in Florida, New York and Texas. The home team face Canada in the tournament opener on June 2. The rest of the matches, including the June 29 final, will be played at grounds in the West Indies, a more storied cricket nation.

The advent of T20 cricket has opened up new commercial horizons for the sport, with the US seen as the latest frontier to conquer. Paraag Marathe, chair of USA Cricket, said the International Cricket Council, the sport's global governing body, "identified the USA as a strategic market for growth that will benefit cricket around the world" and allow progress in the domestic game.

That has already seen dramatic growth in recent times, thanks to Major League Cricket (MLC), a T20 franchise based on the wildly successful Indian Premier League (IPL). Investors in MLC include Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Adobe executive Shantanu Narayan, who both have........

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