The Twenty20 World Cup is heading to the USA as cricket sets its sight on the North American market, with New Zealand among the sides predicted to play matches there within two years.
Sydney's Daily Telegraph reports that Australia and other leading teams could be playing matches in the States within 12-18 months and plans are afoot for the 2024 T20 World Cup to be played there.
Cricket Australia chief executive James Sutherland wants the Australian team to play in the USA and the Telegraph said New Zealand and the West Indies are other teams keen to join the stateside venture. The paper also reports that moves are afoot to get cricket into the US college sports system, targeting both male and female players.
"If we continue to make good progress we would [hope to] see a World Twenty20 in the USA in the next rights cycle," the ICC's head of global development Tim Anderson told News Corp.
"We think that'd be a great concept. Other sports have done that, not just football, but rugby are doing that with major events as well so we see that as a medium term goal.
"In the shorter term, our full members are keen to play some big cricket in the USA. I think that'd be a fantastic way to take cricket to a new heartland."
A quarter of the 90,000 international fans who travelled to Australia's for this year's World Cup are said to come from the US and the ICC estimates more than 10 million ex-pats from cricket nations live in America.
Shane Warne's All Star played an exhibition series in New York, Houston and Los Angeles last month.
Former Aussie opener Matthew Hayden, who played in that series, said: "There's a market that's dedicated to watching cricket there. I wouldn't wait 10 years. I wouldn't wait 10 minutes. I'd just be doing it."
