The exciting Super Over victory in Dallas by the USA’s T20 World Cup rookies over the 2009 winners and 2022 finalists The biggest upset in the competition’s history occurred with Pakistan.
It was always going to take something significant to get Americans interested in cricket, and the USA’s incredible victory against long-standing rival Pakistan on Thursday supplied that catalyst.
The most significant upset in the competition’s history occurred when the Twenty20 World Cup rookies defeated the 2009 winners and 2022 finalists in a thrilling Super Over match in Dallas.
Although the triumph was widely celebrated in the cricket community, only a select group of ardent supporters of the relatively unknown sport in the USA saw it happen.
Just 7,000 people can watch the game at a repurposed minor-league baseball complex in the Grand Prairie suburb of Dallas, Texas, which is co-hosting the tournament with the United States.
The match was exclusively available on the cricket-focused Willow TV subscription channel and streaming service; it was not even televised on American television.
However, American sports fans rapidly learned about their team’s accomplishment on the internet and through social media.
For those who were unfamiliar with the sport, NPR public radio attempted to contextualize the victory.
“Team USA just beat Pakistan in Super Over, the baseball equivalent is extra innings,” they stated.
They went on, alluding to the North Carolina minor league baseball team, “To put this into an American sports context, Pakistan losing to the US is like the Boston Red Sox losing to the Durham Bulls.”
However, analogies were unnecessary outside of the USA. It was hailed as “one of the biggest upsets in cricket history” by the UK’s Times and as “stunned world cricket” by the Daily Telegraph in Australia. The International Cricket Council, which selected the USA and the West Indies as co-hosts of this tournament to support efforts to popularize the Twenty20 format in the USA, will be pleased with everything. Before the Caribbean region assumes exclusive control of the later stages, games in the group stage are also being held in Texas, Florida, and New York.