In Dallas, “One of the Biggest Shocks in Cricket History”
Team USA took down Pakistan in the T20 Cricket World Cup
Should we call it the Miracle on Grass?
Yesterday, in Dallas, Team USA beat Pakistan in group play at the T20 World Cup. Pakistan won this tournament in 2009 and were runners up in the 2022 edition. Pakistan is one of international cricket’s juggernauts: think Argentina or Italy in soccer. The BBC called Team USA’s win, “one of the biggest shocks in cricket history.”
The U.S. had never even qualified for the tournament before, gaining entry as a co-host country of this year’s tournament. T20 is a slightly abbreviated version of cricket, one that tournament organizers hope might gain popularity Stateside. But growing the game still has a long, long way to go: despite featuring games in Dallas, New York, and Miami, the knockout games of the tournament will be played in Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, and the Barbados; they can draw more fans in those locales.
And yet, two games into the tournament, and Team USA is 2-0. They beat Canada in the opener, and now have taken down Pakistan. They’ll face India—the Brazil to Pakistan’s Argentina—next Wednesday in New York, and it seems like the Red-White-and-Blue are in prime position to advance to the knockout round.
Against Pakistan, Team USA stormed to an early lead, only to see that advantage begin to dwindle. We won’t get into all the nitty gritty details of how cricket works here—though we do go into more detail in Religion of Sports: The Book…out now!—but just know that Team USA needed a great performance from their bowler (think the equivalent of a pitcher in baseball).
This is where the story gets really good.
You can imagine the movie. Crunch time. Our scrappy American underdogs against the dominant Pakistani side. In comes Saurabh Netravalkar for the USA. It’s up to him to stop Pakistan.
Netravalkar is tall. Lanky. Born in Mumbai, he came up through the Indian cricket system. But with a quirky lefthanded delivery, Netravalkar was constantly overlooked. And besides, there were bigger things than cricket in his life. He went to get his master’s degree in computer science from Cornell in 2015, and since graduation, has worked at Oracle. He’s been there ever since, and now, he’s a principal software engineer.
Netravalkar never gave up on cricket, though, playing on weekends and after work. He found his way onto Team USA, and teammates would sometimes find him coding on the bus between games.
Yesterday, Netravalkar allowed only 13 runs. Team USA was able to win—in overtime. As ESPN’s cricket writer asked moments after the match, “Is this what will push cricket into the mainstream in the States?”
India awaits.
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