In my recent linked post about the US team’s loss to England, I wrote:

I’m hoping this is the start of America’s love affair with cricket.

Rishabh Sharma, writing for India Today:

For the unversed, this may sound unbelievable. [...] But the gentleman's game has a long history in the US. Long before baseball claimed the American sports landscape, cricket was a prominent and popular game, embraced by a diverse array of players across the young nation.

Of course cricket was once popular in America, it was a British colony. It was shortsighted of me not to consider that.

For the British colonists who settled in North America, cricket was a pastime. By the mid-1700s, cricket had spread to other territories, with matches being reported in Virginia and Pennsylvania.

After 1783, when the American Revolution ended, the interest in all things British waned in America. But cricket continued to thrive and by the mid-1800s, the sport was being played in 22 states.

At one point, cricket was more popular than baseball, and The Philadelphia Cricket Club, established in 1854, is still around today.

Why did cricket lose out to baseball? As you might suspect:

The Civil War also saw a cultural shift in American sports as baseball began to be seen as a more American sport compared to cricket, which had a strong British association. The post-war period was a time of growing American nationalism, and baseball fit well into this cultural shift.

But, cricket is having a resurgence today, driven, ironically, by immigrants from former British colonies where cricket remained popular. There’s now a six-team Major League Cricket league, and the USA Cricket organization.

I guess what I should have said was I’m hoping this is a restart of America’s love affair with cricket.