Men’s National Cricket
The United States Men’s National Cricket Team
The United States national cricket team represents the country in international cricket events. The national team became an Associate Member of the International Cricket Council (ICC) in 1965. The team formerly operated by United States of America Cricket Association (USACA), is now taken over by USA Cricket.
The United States played its debut match at the 1979 ICC Champions Trophy in England. Since then, it has participated in almost all World Cup Qualifiers tournament, a one-day international tournament serving as a qualification tournament for the Cricket World Cup for teams without an automatic qualification.
The team won the 2004 ICC Six Nations Challenge, an international limited overs played in the UAE featuring six associate members Canada, Namibia, Netherlands, Scotland, the United Arab Emirates and the United States, which automatically qualified it to play the 2004 ICC Champions Trophy where it played its first two ODI matches.
In 2017, the ICC expelled the United States of America Cricket Association (USACA) due its poor governance and financing, which led to the team being overseen by the ICC Americas until a new governing body was approved. In January 2019, USA Cricket with fresh objectives and visions to develop cricket in America helping the team reclaim its associate membership.
ICC granted all its members a full International Twenty20 status in April 2018, meaning any T20s between USA and other ICC members are full T20 matches, meaning they fully recognized and recorded. The USA team played its first T20 game against UAE in March 2019 at the ICC Academy Ground in Dubai. Unfortunately for both teams the rain stopped played, and the match was abandoned.
.svg, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=64320595)
Current ICC Members by Membership status:
(Red) Full Members
(Dark Orange) Associate Members with ODI status
(Light Orange) Associate Members
(Dark Grey) Former or suspended Members
(Light Grey) Non-Members
Recently, the team failed to make it to the upcoming ICC World Cup Qualifier in June 2023, through which the top two teams in the tournament qualify for the ICC World Cup 2023.
The USA Cricket National Team ranked 18th on the Men’s ICC Rankings and appeared at the ICC Men's Cricket World Cup League 2 (WCL2), which sits one tier below the Super League that consists of mainly test-playing nations. The WCL2 tournament was between associate teams ranked 14th to 20th in the Men’s ICC rankings. The league spanned over a two-and-half-year cycle involving seven associate teams like Scotland, Oman, Namibia, the United States of America, the United Arab Emirates, Nepal, and Papua New Guinea, with each team playing 36 games.
A total of 126 matches were played between August 2019 to January 2022, with the top three teams in the standings qualifying for the ICC Men's Cricket World Cup Qualifier 2022. Scotland (first place), Oman (second place), and Namibia (third place) earned their spot at the World Cup Qualifier with top-three finishes. While, the bottom four teams: the USA (finished fourth), UAE (finished fifth), Nepal (finished sixth), and Papua New Guinea (finished seventh), dropped into the Men’s Cricket World Cup Qualifier Play-Off 2022, and were joined by the winners of the Challenge League A and B, played between the associate members ranked between 21st to 32nd. Canada qualified from League A, and Jersey from League B. These two teams met the bottom four teams from League 2. The six teams went head to head from which Nepal and Papua New Guinea qualified for the ICC World Cup qualifiers, while the USA team lost out.
A diagram that explains the qualification structure for the 2023 ICC Cricket World Cup.
The ICC World Cup happening in October-November 2023, will have a total of ten teams playing with the top eight teams from the Super League, including the hosts India, England, New Zealand, Australia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the West Indies automatically qualifying for the World Cup for finishing top eight in the MRF Tyres ICC ODI Team Rankings at the cut-off date of 30 September 2017, while the remaining teams will be decided through the qualifications matches.
Although the team's dream of qualifying for the 2023 World Cup may be crushed, it is likely to make a debut appearance in the 2024 T20 Worldcup. The ICC Board's decision to award automatic qualification for the co-hosts guarantees the USA and the West Indies a spot in the 2024 Cricket World Cup in which 20 teams participating in it for the first time.
Good Luck Team USA!
