Final Up to date:
Ricky Ponting needs ICC directors to ‘not name it cricket’ to be able to promote the game within the USA.
PBKS head coach Ricky Ponting (Image Credit score: Sportzpics)
Australian legend Ricky Ponting needs directors to cease calling the game cricket and as an alternative label it ‘T20’ to put it on the market within the USA market, which is on the centre of the Worldwide Cricket Council (ICC)’s growth plans. Ponting stated the phrase cricket makes rising markets just like the States affiliate it with the ‘lengthy, drawn-out’ Assessments, as an alternative of the extra fashionable, enjoyable 20-over format.
Talking in an interview with The Athletic, Ponting admitted he was a traditionalist who performed Check cricket much more than T20s, however would haven’t any drawback with such a rebrand to hook a brand new viewers.
“If I used to be bringing it right here wholly and solely to promote and promote the sport, I wouldn’t name it cricket,” Ponting begins. “It’d simply be rebranded as T20 solely. Go away the cricket factor apart. As quickly as younger individuals hear cricket in elements of the world the place they’re not introduced up on the sport, they give it some thought being an extended, drawn-out, five-day sport, and it’s not that.”
“I might evaluate it to baseball as a lot as I may and provides children that likelihood to grasp you’re hitting 15 sixes per sport in a sport of T20 cricket, however you’re hitting lower than one dwelling run a sport within the sport of baseball.”
The ICC has been pushing to get the US viewers on board the cricket prepare. American market is the most important on the earth for sports activities, but it surely’s largely focused on baseball, American soccer, basketball, and more and more, soccer.
Cricket continues to be performed largely by Asian, European, and African expats, however the ICC has tried to alter that by internet hosting a profitable 2024 T20 World Cup within the nation, selling the Main League Cricket competitors (the place Ponting is a coach on the Washington Freedom), and serving to develop grounds for the LA 2028 Olympics.
Fast Solutions
Ask News18Ricky Ponting suggests rebranding the game as ‘T20’ as an alternative of ‘cricket’ to enchantment to the USA market, which regularly associates ‘cricket’ with lengthy, drawn-out Check matches relatively than the sooner 20-over format.
Ask News18September 04, 2026, 21:00 IST
Learn Extra
