Ditch cricket, call it T20 to win over USA: Ricky Ponting

Australian great Ricky Ponting has proposed a radical change in the way cricket is marketed in the United States, saying the sport should be promoted simply as “T20” rather than cricket.

Despite co-hosting the 2024 T20 World Cup and stunning Pakistan in the group stage to reach the Super 8s, the US still has a long way to go before cricket becomes a mainstream sport. Major League Cricket gave the game a professional platform, but cricket continues to compete for attention with baseball, American football and basketball.

Ponting believes that the very word “cricket” could turn off young Americans who have grown up with other sports and associate cricket with the traditional five-day format.

“If I brought it here entirely and solely to sell and promote the game, I wouldn’t call it cricket. It would just be renamed T20 (Twenty20 cricket). Leave the cricket thing aside. As soon as young people hear cricket in parts of the world where they’re not educated about the game, they think it’s not a game,” Ponting told The Athletic.

The former Australia captain suggested using baseball to explain T20 to an American audience, highlighting the number of sixes that can be hit in the game compared to the relatively low number of home runs in baseball.

“I would liken it to baseball as much as I can and give the kids a chance to understand that in a game of T20 cricket you hit 15 sixes a game but in a game of baseball you hit less than one home run,” he said.

PONTING DOESN’T WANT TESTS, ODI IN USA

Ponting doesn’t think there’s much value in trying to promote Test or ODI cricket in the US while the sport is still trying to establish itself.

“Not in a market like this where you’re trying to get a sport to emerge and break through. I’m not worried about that at all. I love the game of Test cricket. I’ve played a lot more Test cricket than T20, but now I’m working a lot on the T20 game,” he said.

Major League Cricket, which began in 2023, currently features six city franchises in a six-week tournament held in California and Texas. While not all teams have dedicated home venues, the league has attracted several high-profile investors, including Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen and India’s Ambani family.

The MLC is expected to expand to eight teams in the coming years and has also attracted established international players, with Australian star Steve Smith among those who have appeared in the competition.

Ponting, who is the head coach of the Washington Freedom, has been involved with the MLC since its early stages. However, he admitted that the growth of cricket in the US has been slower than he had hoped.

“One of the reasons I got involved with MLC in the beginning was because I wanted to be here in the US and be part of the growth, and it’s just a little bit slower than I would have liked. I don’t think they’ve been active enough to get out there and promote it at a grassroots level,” Ponting said.

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Issued by:

Saurabh Kumar

Published on:

05 Sep 2026 15:13 IST