Nagpur: Till yesterday, Americans only were familiar with ' home run ' , today they are getting introduced to ' run ' as well. Thanks to the International Cricket Council (ICC) that has generated lot of interest about cricket among them by organising the T-20 World Cup.
Indian citizens living in New York know Virat Kohli but because of the World Cup, the American citizens are also eager to know about this great player. Indian citizens could been wearing Indian blue T-shirts in bars, restaurants and on the streets ahead of one of the high profile match between India and Pakistan to be played on Sunday.
Sneha Vaidya is originally from Nagpur and is studying at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania). Sneha herself is a cricket fanatic and is travelling six hours by car from Pittsburgh to New York to watch the India-Pakistan match. In a conversation with ' Lokmat Times ', Sneha said, " With the start of the T-20 World Cup, there is immense enthusiasm among the Indian citizens living in America about the India-Pakistan mega match. It is now common to see Indian citizens wearing Team India's T-shirts in bars, restaurants and on the streets."
Sneha says, " New York and New Jersey have a large population of Indians. Especially in New Jersey. A large number of Indians from New Jersey have reached New York for the India-Pakistan match."
Kohli is like Ronaldo and Messi
Not only Indians are crazy about Virat Kohli, but Americans are also eager to know about him. Indians explain to many Americans that just like Ronaldo and Messi are big names in football, Kohli is also a big name in cricket.
Not as popular as baseball yet
However, to make cricket popular, ICC jointly organised T-20 World Cup in America with West Indies and interest in this game has started to arise among the native Americans but despite this, cricket body will have to make a lot of efforts to come at par with baseball in terms of popularity. Baseball is the national game of America and this is just the beginning of the grand event of cricket.