great dominions, they just want you to leave

I’ve always found it interesting that the United States plays baseball and gridiron whereas most of the rest of the world plays cricket and soccer. I had assumed (typical anti-Americanism, tut tut) that this was a reflection of some sort of pig-headed independent streak in the rebellious colony – that the Americans had rejected the ‘English’ sports in favour of their own inventions, just as they rejected the English political and social systems in favour of their own.

In that light this is very interesting: in fact, before World War I the United States was a cricket playing nation – until the British kicked them out of the international system because they weren’t part of the glorious empire. And so, cricket withered and all but died, and a bizarre and extremely confusing game better suited to compact urban spaces, which had evolved from a variant of cricket, became the national ‘bat and ball’ game of the United States.

If even Holland can field a team in the world cup, could the United States one day return to being a serious cricket-playing nation? And how might (sporting) history have been different if they’d kept playing (perhaps then the Americans might have won a ‘world series’ with more than one nation participating)?

But then again, perhaps the world is a more interesting place with unique regional sports being played.