Srinivasan: T20 perfect for US market

CO-FOUNDER of the American Cricket Enterprises (ACE) Vijay Srinivasan, said T20 cricket is the perfect format to enter the American market and with the formation of Major League Cricket (MLC) international stars, including West Indians, could make the league an attractive product.

Srinivasan, in an interview with Newsday on Monday, said he is excited about the opportunity to run a T20 league in the US.

“T20 cricket is the perfect format for this market. Like you said it is in the three and a half-hour range. It’s very similar to other professional sports in the US in terms of length. There is an enormous amount of action relative to some other sports that happen in that sort of window of time.”

Matches in basketball, baseball and American football all take between two and four hours to complete.

Srinivasan believes that T20 cricket will provide an exciting atmosphere. “It is a perfect vehicle to advertise the sport. It offers the perfect environment for a family to come out, enjoy an evening in a family atmosphere and just see a tremendous amount of action. That’s our hope - to sort of use the T20 format as a vehicle to create a massively entertaining family atmosphere for the sport…I believe it is tremendous value for the time you spend and the money you spend in watching a professional sport. I honestly can’t think of anything more entertaining than a game of T20 on a Friday evening with the family.”

MLC, set to bowl off in 2022, got a boost as the Knight Riders Group is willing to invest in the league.

On December 1, a joint media release by Major League Cricket and Knight Riders said, “The long-term strategic partnership will include financial investment and significant expertise to help ACE develop and launch Major League Cricket in the USA. As one of the most successful brands in T20 cricket globally, the Knight Riders are excited about the potential for professional T20 cricket in the United States.”

Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan is one of the owners of the Knight Riders Group. The Knight Riders own the Trinbago Knight Riders in the Hero Caribbean Premier League and Kolkata Knight Riders in the Indian Premier League. The Knight Riders will also own one of the six franchises in MLC, expected to be based in Los Angeles.

Addressing the importance of international players featuring in MLC, Srinivasan said it is about finding a balance.

“One of the key goals of Major League Cricket is to advance the quality of cricket in the US. So the goal is to find opportunities for the best players that are based in the US and combine them with the best international talent that could participate in the event.”

He said West Indies players can play a role. “I think those are some of the best players in the world and I think the US audiences expect to see the best stars here playing in a US-based competition. We will love to have the best players in the world wherever they come from and certainly a number of Caribbean players are in the top tier of international cricket.”

Plans are in place to convert the AirHogs Baseball Stadium in Grand Prairie, Texas into a cricket venue. Srinivasan, who was born in India, said the demographics in Texas could help create a hub for cricket in the US.

“Dallas and the Texas region has seen a huge growth in expats that follow the sport of cricket over the last ten to 15 years if you just look at how the demographics are evolving in Texas.”

Srinivasan said amateur cricket leagues in that state are thriving because of the population. He said Dallas and Houston are diverse cities.

Currently, approximately 1.5 million Asians live in Texas. According to the Texas Demographics Centre there could be close to six million Asians in the state by 2050, with a large percentage of those people coming from cricket-crazy India.

Several cricketers with West Indian heritage have been instrumental in US cricket over the past decade with Xavier Marshall (Jamaican born/former West Indies player), Steven Taylor (Jamaican parents) and Hayden Walsh Jnr (Antiguan father) among others featuring.

In 2019, Walsh decided to play for West Indies after representing the US for years.

Marshall played for West Indies in the early stages of his career, but is now playing for the US.