Let's give the US an Appetite for Cricket

Liam Plunkett had been speaking to The New York Times in collaboration with The Athletic about his experience in bringing cricket to the US. Explaining that at first the initial idea was to just “play in the newly formed MLC and do some coaching” but once he arrived, he realised it would be much more than that.

Coaching in the US

“Two weeks in, I’m on my hands and knees throwing to five-year-olds”. Once Liam began to coach the youngsters, it inspired him to want to mentor the coaches, to coach the five-year-olds…! “I wanted to be fully involved. There are some good coaches here, but I thought as a whole it’s kind of lacking structure. In England, or in Australia, there’s probably 1,000 of me, whereas here there’s one or two of us who can do this, so it makes sense to get fully involved and try and grow it (cricket). And obviously for myself as well, it’s created an opportunity to have a full-time role doing that.”

Cricket Impact Group

Liam’s work with the cricket impact group as co-founder could prove to be influential because of their work in the live events game. They host “Creative events that energize fans, connect leaders, and elevate cricket in North America and the Caribbean” and they’re proving to do just that. Having completed an event just yesterday, in collaboration with MLB Europe and New York Yankees where Liam Plunkett taught Yankees legend Nick Swish cricket and vice versa!

Introduce Cricket to the Youth

The Athletic have labelled Liam as the ‘un-official ambassador’ of cricket in America. “I thought there’s a gap in the market, to build some sort of coaching structure here. We’re building some really cool stuff because we’re away from the MLC for five weeks, what else is going on in cricket? How can we bring eyes to that cricket market in North America”.

Plunkett emphasises how he knows that cricket will not compete with the nation’s main sports but just wanting to have some way to implement into schools so children can have fun with the sport and get to learn it. “We can put this into school, it can be a six-week course, one session per week for 30 minutes, have fun enjoy it, not very technical, just to give the kids an idea of what cricket is”.

2024 T20 World Cup

The moment in the 2024 T20 World Cup where USA knocked out giants Pakistan in the super over would have brought plenty of American eyes to the sport but Liam admits “I’m sure it had some sort of impact but to be brutally honest, and people might not like me saying this, I feel like the World Cup was big in New York, and then it was like… OK it’s gone”. “It’d be nice if a lot of people actually know what cricket is and get an appetite for it before the Olympics.”