Cricket is one of the oldest sports played in the USA, but the history of the sport in the country has been far from continuous.

The author William Byrd II was also a planter and slave owner in Virginia. An entry in his controversial diary from 1709 holds a place of significance in cricket’s history: “I rose at 6am & Colonel Ludwell, Nat Harrison, Mr. Edwards & myself played cricket, and I won a bit.”

This is the first known mention of cricket in the USA. The Dutch settlers in New Amsterdam in Manhattan Island had played something in 1656 that involved hitting a ball – but there is no evidence of that being cricket.

The MCC wrote the first Laws of Cricket in 1744. When Benjamin Franklin returned from England a decade after that, he brought with him a copy of the Laws. By then, a New York XI and a London XI had played the first recorded match in the country.

Not every cricket match, however, was played as per the Laws of cricket. The Americans invented a variation, with 30 fielders and three innings, that would finish inside a day, with a bat like a spoon and a shorter but wider wicket.

They called this game ‘wicket’. There is evidence of George Washington having played ‘wicket’ in 1778.

The USA had become independent by 1776. Despite discarding most things British, they remained loyal to cricket. By the turn of the century, there were about five thousand cricketers in Philadelphia and New York alone.

In 1844, the USA became part of history by hosting Canada at the St George’s Cricket Club (now in Manhattan). Canada won the first ever international cricket match by 23 runs in front of a crowd of at least 5,000.

USA and Canada still play for the KA Auty Cup. Now approaching two centuries, it is the longest-running international rivalry in any sport.

By 1844, travel had become easier than it had been a century before. In 1859, a group of English cricketers toured North America – the first English cricket squad to tour anywhere in the world.

This squad consisted some of the strongest names in contemporary English cricket – John Wisden, HH Stephenson, George Parr, William Caffyn, Robert Carpenter, John Lillywhite. More English teams came in 1868 and 1873. The second featured WG Grace.

Cricket has a rival

By then, however, cricket had found competition in the USA – and that intensified during the Civil War. To pass time, the soldiers wanted to play a sport. They realised that while cricket lasted all day, even beyond, and demanded a surface that needed to be prepared with care, baseball would be done with in a couple of hours and could be played anywhere.

The popularity of baseball did not go away with the Civil War. A person who played a key role in this period was Harry Wright, a bowler and coach at the St George’s Club of New York and the Union Cricket Club of Cincinnati. Wright also played baseball, and the Cincinnati Red Stockings signed him up after the Civil War. He can be credited for taking cricket’s strategies and techniques to baseball.

In 1869, the Red Stockings went unbeaten for 57 matches. The professionals began to shift from cricket. As the best players moved, the fans drifted away. Cricket was left far behind, restricted to the amateurs.

But the amateurs of Philadelphia formed a very strong team by recruiting from clubs like Germantown, Merion, Belmont, and, of course, locals. Later, Australian Test cricketer ‘Ranji’ Hordern also played for them.

One star of the side was George Patterson, whose 271, in 1894, is still the highest first-class score by an Associate Nations cricketer.

The team, sometimes playing as Philadelphia, sometimes the Gentlemen of Philadelphia, won 29 first-class matches and lost 45, but that included three tours of England and one of Jamaica.

Philadelphia also hosted the Halifax Cup between 1890 to 1926. In the 1910s, a century before The Hundred, they had 10-ball overs in a country that still refuses to accept the metric system.

But even the Philadelphians ran out of steam after the First World War. By then, baseball had found Babe Ruth, and the American elite had discovered tennis and golf.

The greatest American cricketer of all time

The rise and fall of Philadelphian cricket coincided with that of Bart King, not merely the greatest American cricketer, but among the greatest cricketers in history.

In all recorded matches, King made over 16,000 runs at 33, and King was not a specialist batter but a bowling all-rounder. He bowled very fast, and took his 415 first-class wickets (42 percent of his team’s) at 15.65. In all matches, he claimed two thousand wickets at 10.67.

King is usually credited with bringing the ‘swerve’ – now known as swing bowling – to cricket. Like most American cricketers of that period, he also played baseball. As a pitcher, he knew how to use a breeze to move the ball in the air.

Once he could replicate this with a straight arm and perfected the length, he was devastating, particularly with his famous ‘angler’ – the ball that swerved into the right-hander. We now call it the in-swinger.

The Australians of 1893 toured the USA on their way back from an Ashes tour. King made 36 and took seven wickets, and Philadelphia won by an innings. They beat the Australians again, in 1896 and 1912. King took 17 wickets in these two matches.

Across three tours of England, in 1897, 1903, and 1908, King claimed 223 wickets, averaging 24, 16, and 12. Against Sussex in 1897, he bowled 10 batters in a 13-wicket match haul. Against Surrey in 1903, he made 98 and 113 not out, and took six wickets.

Don Bradman called him “America’s greatest cricketing son”. Plum Warner said “at the top of his power and speed, [he] was at least the equal of the greatest of them all.”

Fight for survival

C Aubrey Smith had led England before embarking upon an impressive acting career in Hollywood. In 1932, he founded the Hollywood Cricket Club. Apart from Smith and Boris Karloff, the HCC members included, at various points, PG Wodehouse, Cary Grant, Errol Flynn, and Laurence Olivier. The club played a key role in the spread of cricket in the west coast.

In the same year, Arthur Mailey organised a tour of Australian cricketers to North America. The squad included Don Bradman, billed as the ‘Babe Ruth of Cricket’ in promotions: the two legends also met during this tour.

In 1965, the USA Cricket Association was founded and accepted by the ICC as Associate Member. But cricket failed to regain relevance in the USA until much later, when expatriates and their children began to take up the game. The subsequent spread has been slow yet steady.

In 2004, the USA won the ICC Six Nationals Challenge and played in the ICC Champions Trophy. In 2006, they finished 11th out of 16 teams at the Under-19 World Cup.

From 2010, Lauderhill in Florida began to host Twenty20 Internationals. The venue continues to host international cricket, often as part of a touring side’s visit to the West Indies.

In 2015, the USA hosted the Cricket All-Stars, between two teams led by Sachin Tendulkar and Shane Warne, and featuring an ensemble cast of cricketers.

Due to the geographical proximity, the West Indies provided the American cricketers access to top-level cricket. Ali Khan, Geetika Kodali, Hayden Walsh Jr, Snigdha Paul, Steven Taylor, and Isani Vaghela have all played at the CPL or the 6ixty.

The USA and the West Indies will co-host the 2024 T20 World Cup as well. Whether it will provide cricket with the same boost as football did after the 1994 FIFA World Cup is to be seen.

Last month, the USA played at the World Cup Qualifier. They returned without a win, but qualification for the tournament made them one of the top 18 sides in the world in men’s ODIs.

Now, the sport that had once been pushed to amaeteur-only confines is set to return as a professional league.