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Cricket is one of the only three games which is played in over 120 countries all over the world, the other two being football and hockey. Though more than a quarter world likes cricket, still it is the most popular sport in very few regions e.g South Asia, West Indies, Australia & South Africa. There are still many part of the world where cricket isn't popular, one of these part is North America (excluding Carribean). A lot of reasons can be identified for this.

Firstly, Americans have the tendency to develop their own culture and they prefer it not to adopt from anyone. This also implies in sports. They have invented their own versions of two sports. Rugby and Cricket. They changed the sport of Rugby into American Football and changed Cricket into a sport Baseball. Now, the American people prefer to play these sports instead of Cricket. Even football isn't much popular in USA. American Football, Baseball & Basketball take the lead.

Secondly, the length of the cricket match disturbs many people. A usual T20 cricket match lasts for 4 hours, an ODI for 8 hours and a Test match for 5 DAYS!. So people in North America prefer sport which are less time consuming. As games like American Football get over in less than 2 hours, they get along with that sport.

Thirdly, Cricket is usually popular in those countries where there was strong British influence, such as Pakistan, India, Australia etc. The British didn't had very strong influence in this part of the world, thats why their culture of cricket didn't took roots in this area. Though British had influence in Canada, but the climate as well as the influence of American culture, drove away the spirit of cricket, thats why the Canadian cricket team never came in the leading teams.

South Asians are the only community in which cricket is popular in North America. If we take a look at national cricket teams of USA and Canada, we would see that most of the players are of East Indian ethnicity. This is because of the popularity of cricket in South Asia.

Another reason for the underdevelopment of cricket in this part of the world is the lack of media attention given to this sport. The American media tends to focus on American sports such as Baseball while the Canadian media usually focuses on Ice Hockey. This lack of exposure given to cricket results in its unpopularity. There are hardly any cricket clubs in North America and schools don't have the sport of cricket. Because of this there is also a lack of cricket grounds. Cricket equipment is also difficult to find

So as the trend has been developed in this part of the world, it is very difficult to change it. American people are deeply obsessed with their local sports like American Football, Baseball & Basket ball. That explains the reason for the unpopularity of cricket in North America.

Learn more about this author, Comrade Shoaib Nagi.
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