As coaches Sreeprakash Narayanan and Shaheer exhort their young wards, I watch the eager bunch of eight to 14-year-olds perform laps around the Lexington football practice field. There are other parents milling about the sidelines, checking their smartphones or talking to others like me. Some of them have played the game and follow it. Some are new to this – cricket in Lexington, MA – while others are transplants from places like New Jersey and California where business deals are conducted between gully and cover point, instead of a golf course. These young boys are part of the Massachusetts State Cricket League (MSCL), spread all across the state. Starting off as a motley crew a few years ago, it has now grown into a structured youth-building program with serious ambitions of making good at national level tournaments.

I remember one of the coaches telling me that one summer evening a few years back, he was “doing some cricket ball throw downs with his son and some friends at the local park. A few people gathered around and watched this game that they hadn’t seen before. They began asking questions about the rules of the game and then some of them asked if their kid could play as well. Next thing you know, they began dropping their kids off where we practiced and left and soon, we found ourselves running this program!” As I watched my nine-year-old don his gladiatorial garb of pads, arm-guard, thigh-guard, gloves and helmet for his turn at batting practice, the coach mused, “These kids will grow into leaders one day. We need to nurture and encourage them through the game of cricket. Cricket is the vehicle that will bring out their potential.”

Cricket is a game that is played on every street, backyard, nook and cranny in India. It is not the national sport (field hockey is), but is the national obsession. Cricket stars are bigger than Bollywood superstars and sell more detergent and soda than supermodels. But the game has not developed a big following in the US, despite the history (the first ever international cricket match was played between Canada and USA, in 1844, at the St. George’s Cricket Club in New York). Part of this may be due to the mostly chaotic and sometimes reprobate administration of the sport by the apex body, the United States of America Cricket Association (USACA), that has now been expelled by the International Cricket Conference (ICC), cricket’s world governing body in June 2017, when it failed to adopt a constitution that forced a number of requirements to improve governance and transparency.

But the game has always had a spirited following in the US among expatriates from the Indian subcontinent as well as the Caribbean Isles. Prize money tournaments in New York and New Jersey, and shadow leagues in Florida and the West Coast abound. The popularity has shown an upward trend with the advent of the abbreviated T20 format – twenty overs per side – that has mushroomed numerous tournaments. The Central Broward Regional Park in Lauderhill, Florida has hosted multiple international T20 matches to packed houses featuring India, the West Indies, New Zealand and Sri Lanka. It also hosts one leg of the hugely popular Caribbean Premier League every year. With the advent of multiple streaming options, live coverage of the game has become more democratized since the 2007 T20 World Cup. Now matches from as far away as Christchurch, New Zealand are routinely streamed live on ESPN3. These days, young fans grow up watching on screen the best of the best duke it out – from Sydney to Cape Town, from Colombo to Birmingham.

So, it was not very surprising to me when I picked up a conversation between two of the MSCL boys getting ready for their turns in the batting cage. They were comparing Hardik Pandya and Ben Stokes, two rising young stars from India and the UK, respectively, who also ply their trade in the immensely and globally popular Indian Premier League (IPL). As they shadow-practiced their defensive shots, they argued that even though Stokes was a better-established player, Pandya would command a bigger purse in the upcoming IPL auctions. The conversation was cut short as one of the coaches called them over for their turns. The coach used a bowling machine and relentlessly drilled them on the “forward press” or front-foot movement – an integral aspect of batting in cricket. There was a business-like air to proceedings and a sense of real purpose.

Last year, the boys from Massachusetts had decided to test the waters in inter-state competition by entering the National Youth Cricket League tournament, staged on various grounds in New Jersey and Connecticut. They were soundly thrashed by West Coast teams that were better-prepared and appeared to have more skill, strength and endurance. At the end of that day’s practice, coach Sree stressed to the boys: “We need all of you to run at least two miles a day and keep a healthy diet. Have at least 50g of protein every day.” The coaches impressed upon the kids the importance of fitness and strength conditioning to perform basic aspects of cricket such as running between the wickets and throwing the ball back after fielding. This year, they plan to field separate teams for the U-12 and U-14 categories in the national tournament that will be held on the West Coast in San Jose’s suburbs in June-July. But this time, their ambition is to return home with some silverware. To keep practicing during the harsh New England winter, they have rented out indoor gyms and training spaces and are keeping the training sessions intense and creative. Pick-up games have also been planned around the Greater Boston area, to get the boys match-ready.

My nine-year-old has been playing cricket with me in the backyard since he was about four. He learnt the game by watching it on television with me and then playing pick-up games with neighborhood boys on our regular trips to India to visit the grandparents. Since he started playing in the MSCL a couple of years ago, he tells me that he wants to keep wicket like Dhoni, bowl like Mitch Johnson, and field like Jadeja. He wants to play the cover drive like Kohli. He runs two miles a day, just as his coach told him to. He practices with dedication and passion. He loves the game and doesn’t think any other game is as much fun playing. When his coach works with him in the batting cage, he comes home and shadow bats the day’s drills in the privacy of his room. He wears his MSCL hat with great pride and is looking forward to playing in the national tournament this summer.

All this is very exciting to an immigrant like me, who, over the years, got used to explaining the game (and my obsession) to countless friends on countless occasions, only to leave them bemused and befuddled. Cricket is here to stay – in Lexington, in Massachusetts, in the USA. The search for the perfect cover drive is slowly coming to an end. The game is coming of age with our children. Play ball.