Six of 20 participating teams are represented by Indian Diaspora

After the hosts USA defeated Canada in the opening game of the T20 World Cup in Dallas last weekend, Indian Diaspora continues to hold the limelight in this marquee event. In the second game on the same venue, it was the European challenger, the Netherlands beat Nepal by six wickets, focus continued on players of the Indian origin.

The USA-Canada match saw several players of South Asian origin in action. The second game, too, saw players of Indian origin playing a crucial role in the win for the Dutch.

Though Cricket is a game of British origin, it has, like field hockey, come to be known as a game of the South Asian Diaspora. Six of the 20 teams competing in the first ever T20 World Cup being held on the US soil have players of South Asian descent.

While the USA team is led by Monank Patel, it has several other p[layers of South Asian descent. They include Shayan Jahangir, Jessy Singh, Ali Khan, Nitish Kumar, Saurabh Netravalkar, Nisarg Patel. Harmeet Singh, and Milind Kumar. Contrary to belief that cricket is a new game to the American continent, there has been a long history of this “gentleman game” being played in the continent even before the “Test” cricket was introduced. A three-day match played in New York had seen visiting Canada triumph by 23 runs in 1844. Incidentally the first Test match between Australia and England dates back to 1877, 33 years after the first recorded international game in North America. Canada is also led by a player of South Asian origin. He is Saad Bin Jaffer who is credited with taking the wicket of Pakistan’s star batsman Babar Azam. Other players of Canadian team of South Asian origin include Ravinder Pal Singh, Harsh Thakker, Dilpreet Singh, Navneet Dhaliwal, Pargat Singh, Junaid Siddiqui, Kaleem Sana and Shreyas Movva. They dominated the high scoring opening game of the tournament, giving the nearly filled Stadium a good return for its money.

Good work by players of South Asian Diaspora continued in the second game at Dallas where Vikramjit Singh, while playing for the Netherlands, knocked off 22 runs of the Nepalese attack to help his team win the opener. Teja Nidamanura is another player of Indian origin the Dutch team.

Brief Scores of that game are Nepal 106 (19.2 overs) (Rohit Paudel 35, Karan KC 17, Gulshan Jha 14, Logan van Beek 3/18, Tim Pringle 3/20 and Paul van Meckeren 2/19). The Netherlands 109/4 in 18.4 overs( Max O’ Dowd 54 not out, Vikramjit Singh 22, Sybrand Engelbrecht 14, Dipendra Singh Airee 1/6.Sompal Kami 1/18, Abinash 1/29).

Other than the US, Canada and the Netherland teams, players of South Asian descent are also represented on New Zealand, Oman, and Uganda.

While Rachin Ravindra and leg spinner Ish Sodhi are donning Kiwi colors in the T20 World Cup, four players are in the Oman squad. They are Jatinder Singh, Prajapati Kashayap, Pratik Athawale and Sunny Shrivastav.

Uganda, representing Africa along with South Africa, also has three players of Indian origin in its ranks. They are Ronek Patel, Dinesh Nakarani and Alpesh Ramajani.

Former Indian star allrounder Yuvraj Singh is one of the brand ambassadors of the T20 World Cup 2024.

(Prabhjot Singh is currently in New York covering the T20 World Cup. He is a senior journalist who has the rare felicity of covering sports and political news with equal aplomb. He can be reached at prabhjot416@gmail.com)