Key events
GOOD NEWS: It has stopped raining. We’ll have the toss in a few minutes and are going to start at 11am – 4pm here in blighty.
So many intriguing aspects to this match. First of all the location – the ICC clearly want to bowl over the American’s and cement cricket in the states – a largely untapped market but an increasingly interested one since the Major League Cricket tournament was established a couple of years ago. They’ve just pulled off the big coup of snaring Pat Cummins’ presence for the next four years, the Australian men’s Test captain has signed a deal with the San Francisco Unicorns up until 2027.
And yet, the stadium that Cricket’s top brass have spent millions constructing in Long Island’s Eisenhower Park isn’t there to stay as a lasting and usable memento, it’s being taken down in a few weeks’ time. Grumbling about that aside – some won’t be sad to see it go, at least not the teams who have had to bat on the drop in wicket. The pitches used have been unpredictable and seem to have more spice than a scotch bonnet heavy jambalaya. Low scores and bruised batters have been the story of the surfaces so far, with the ICC announcing they are ‘looking into’ the issue.
Oh. OK. It is currently raining at Nassau Stadium. The toss is confirmed to be delayed. I think it’s a steady drizzle and isn’t too bad. In fact there’s an umpire inspection in a few minutes.
Preamble
James Wallace
Hello and welcome to the Big One. Sunday in the Big Apple. NYC. The City that never sleeps. New Yoik, New Yoik. It’s India v Pakistan – the fieriest rivalry in the game – in one of the greatest cities on earth (ok ok, about 1.5 hours down the road from Manhattan but you know, it is famously quite cramped there).
Our man on the ground, Andy Bull, has written this fantastic scene setter.
Most locals do not even know the match is happening, but the few who do are not talking about much else. It seems just about everyone who is anyone in the Pakistani- and Indian-American communities is going to be there and everyone else wants to know how they can join them.
Pretty much everyone I see asks me for a ticket,” said the USA Cricket chairman, Venu Pisike. The USA’s opening bowler Ali Khan, meanwhile, sighed: “Oh, man, don’t even go there. I’ve had to stop replying to the requests. I don’t even mess with the tickets for that match, it’s crazy.”
Never mind the actual match, you cannot get into the viewing party being hosted by the New York Mets at Citi Field. They’re expecting 27,000 along to watch the game on the big screen, while another 5,000 or so are due at a similar event a few miles from Eisenhower Park in Cedar Creek Park. That is before you start adding on all the people following the game in restaurants, bars and corner stores around the city.
The little town of Westbury has no idea what’s about to hit it. “We don’t know what to expect,” said the county executive, Bruce Blakeman, “but we’re told it’s going to be like the Super Bowl on steroids.”
A hundred extra police patrols have been laid on in the district and 300 local officers will be on duty at the ground, plus an undisclosed number of reinforcements from Suffolk County, the state police and FBI. They have got snipers on the nearby rooftops, SWAT teams on every gate, flatbed trucks blocking every route into the venue and a team of 50 officers monitoring “every inch of the venue” on cameras from a remote location.”
Play will begin in a little over 30 minutes, I’ll bring you news of the teams and toss any second. This should be quite the spectacle. Yeh – I’m talkin’ to you.
