From King to Massiah � 100 years of the ICC and cricket in the USA

Cricket in the USA has recently been thrust back into the spotlight thanks to a bizarre decision to include the USA, ranked 22nd by the ICC amongst non-test playing nations, in the eight team qualifying tournament for the 2010 World Twenty20, set to be held in the UAE later this year.

With the ICC now keen to capitalise on what they think is the interest in cricket in the USA, it is perhaps worth remembering that they have not always treated American cricket well. In a three part series, we will look at a history of the ICC's dealings with cricket in the USA.

Part 2 � In the wilderness/Membership at last

In the years following the first world war, the main international contact was between Philadelphia and Bermuda. But Philadelphian cricket was in decline, with many clubs folding, including Belmont, home club of Bart King.

The occasional visit from touring English sides only served to bring to light the decline in cricket standards. The problem of Philadelphia's previous dominance showed in these tours, as the teams rarely played outside of the city, with perhaps just one match in New York. Chicago, by now the dominant city in US cricket, was ignored by the tourists.

Cricket continued to develop in California, thanks in no small part to C Aubrey Smith, former England Test captain and now Hollywood actor. Smith founded the Hollywood Cricket Club, which still exists to this day, and attracted various other actors of the era, including Basil Rathbone, Laurence Olivier, Cary Grant, Errol Flynn and Boris Karloff, who was a wicket-keeper for the team. One can only imagine the horror of coming out to bat and finding Frankenstein's monster behind the stumps!

Visits from Test playing nations became almost non-existent, the only exception being a tour by Australia in 1932 � essentially a glorified honeymoon for Don Bradman � which included a memorable meeting between the Don and Babe Ruth at Yankee Stadium. That tour didn't include any matches against the USA national side, and between 1912 and the resumption of regular matches against Canada in 1963, the national side played just once � a nine wicket defeat against Canada in Toronto in 1952.

Pakistan were the next Test playing nation to visit in 1958, the same year cricket was first televised in the country � a match between Hollywood CC and Corinthians. The following year, President Dwight D Eisenhower attended a Test match in Karachi, giving cricket some much-needed publicity.

Immigrants from South Asia and the West Indies helped cricket begin a resurgence around this time, and the USA Cricket Association was formed in 1961, with the matches against Canada resuming two years later.

And then the ICC came back on the scene.

In 1965 the Imperial Cricket Conference became the International Cricket Conference. New rules were implemented that allowed membership from outside what was now the Commonwealth. The USA were the first non-commonwealth country to join, becoming one of the first three associate members, along with Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and Fiji.

A tour to England soon followed in 1968, where the USA played against minor counties and the second XI's of the first-class counties, but for a long time the ICC seemed to not know what to do with these new-fangled associate sides � a situation some might say hasn't changed! In the first nine years of the 1970s, the USA's international action was almost entirely against Canada.

An attempt to start a regular series against Bermuda along the same lines as the one against Canada was made, but only three matches were played before the concept was abandoned. Ireland toured in 1973, with the USA winning their three-day international (pictured right) by 42 runs.

Towards the end of the decade, former Bermuda and Scotland international Alma Hunt proposed a new one-day competition for the associates, and the first one took place in England in 1979, acting as a qualifying competition for that year's World Cup. The USA had a poor tournament, their only wins coming against Israel and Wales. Canada and Sri Lanka qualified for the World Cup.

The USA did go on to play in every ICC Trophy until 2005, though they have never qualified for the World Cup. Their best performance was in 1986, when they just missed out on the semi-finals on run rate, and they finished seventh in 2001 � more on that in part three.

In 1998, the USA began to play in the West Indies domestic one-day competition. They had a bad time in the tournament, losing all three matches heavily. Their coach at the time could no doubt sympathise with them about having to face big-hitting West Indians, as he was Malcolm Nash, the bowler Gary Sobers famously hit for six sixes in an over.

They bounded back to beat Barbados in 2000 � the same year that the Americas Championship began. The USA were third in that tournament, but won the second one in Argentina two years later.

The same old problems of failing to develop the game amongst the local non-immigrant population were still evident though. It wasn't as if it wasn't possible to do this, as shown by a commendable initiative in Los Angeles � the Compton Cricket Club � that aimed to take kids away from gang culture by teaching them cricket. That club was founded in 1997, but it seems that the USACA has never had anything to do with them. Similar projects around the country could no doubt help raise the profile of cricket amongst American youth.

In 2004, a series of events began that catapulted the USA back into the minds of the ICC. We shall take a look at these in the third and final part of our article.