Short formats helping America revisit cricket dream

On Sunday, Aug. 27, the final match in the inaugural US Masters T10 cricket tournament was played at the Central Broward Stadium, in Lauderhill, Florida.

Ten overs per side does not seem very long for a cricket match to develop the ebbs and flows generated by longer formats. Some players may not be able to contribute very much to the outcome. Bowlers, for example, are only allowed two overs each. Conversely, every ball is vital toward the outcome.

Promotion of the format occurred in the UAE in December 2017. Approved by the Emirates Cricket Board and sanctioned by the International Cricket Council, the competition is titled as the T10 league or Abu Dhabi T10.

Its founder and chair, Shaji UI Mulk, is an India-born UAE billionaire businessman. The tournament was launched and is owned by T Ten Sports Management, which is also behind the US Masters event. Other T10 tournaments have sprung up in the Caribbean, Sri Lanka, Kenya, and Zimbabwe.

The US Masters T10 followed on from the inaugural US T20 Major League Cricket. This comprised 19 matches and six franchise teams, namely MI New York, Texas Super Kings, Los Angeles Knight Riders, Seattle Orcas, San Francisco Unicorns, and Washington Freedom.

Although each name carries that of a city, the matches were played at only two locations, Grand Prairie, near Dallas, Texas and Morrisville, North Carolina. The former is a converted ex-baseball stadium on which $20 million has been spent to redevelop it just in time for the opening match. It has 7,200 seats, double the capacity at Morrisville.

This is hardly ideal if the league’s ambitions to be in the top three best global T20 tournaments are to be realised. A new stadium is planned to be built in each city where a franchise