Australian cricket legend Ricky Ponting has suggested that administrators consider dropping the word ‘cricket’ and rebranding the sport as ‘T20’ to attract a wider audience in the United States. With the USA emerging as a key market in the International Cricket Council’s (ICC) global expansion plans, Ponting believes the traditional name could create the wrong impression among new fans.
According to Ricky Ponting, people unfamiliar with cricket often associate the sport with lengthy five-day Test matches rather than the fast-paced nature of T20 cricket. He believes promoting the shortest format could make the game easier for American audiences to understand and enjoy.
Speaking to The Athletic, Ricky Ponting admitted that he remains a traditionalist and played far more Test cricket than T20 cricket during his career. However, he would support a rebranding strategy if it helped introduce the sport to a completely new generation. “If I was bringing it here wholly and solely to sell and promote the game, I wouldn’t call it cricket. It’d just be rebranded as T20 only,” Ponting said.
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He added that young American audiences could relate to T20 cricket more easily if it was compared with baseball, particularly because of the number of sixes scored in the format.
“I would compare it to baseball as much as I could and give kids that chance to understand you’re hitting 15 sixes per game in a game of T20 cricket, but you are hitting less than one home run a game in the game of baseball,” he added.
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The ICC has made the US a major focus of its cricket expansion strategy. The successful 2024 T20 World Cup, the growth of Major League Cricket, and preparations for cricket at the LA 2028 Olympics have all helped increase the sport’s visibility in America. Ponting is also directly involved in the US cricket landscape as a coach of Major League Cricket franchise Washington Freedom.
