One of the more popular questions in junior-level quizzes goes something like this, "Where was the first-ever international cricket test played and between whom?" The answer: the game was played at the St. George's Cricket Club ground in the borough of Manhattan, New York City, between the United States and Canada way back in 1844. For the record, Canada won the game by a margin of 23 runs. At this point of time, it is unlikely, despite what Ashutosh Gowarikar (of Lagaan fame) would have you believe, that cricket was played on the Indian subcontinent, and Australia was little more than a collection of prisons.

But while the game has gone from strength to strength in most of the erstwhile British Empire, in the original colonies of the us it has been consumed by a maelstrom of locally-developed sports. But if Gary Hopkins has his way, cricket will be resurrected in the us. A Briton with a cheery disposition, Hopkins, who is based out of the north-eastern city of Philadelphia, is the chief executive of Project USA, the International Cricket Council's (ICC's) effort that was started six months ago to popularise cricket (again!) in the us.

Last summer, the rest of the world got a taste of this rebirth when the us cricket team, a motley crew of part-timers, qualified for the ICC Champions Trophy when they managed to win the ICC Six Nations Challenge that had been held in the UAE, a tournament held to promote the spread of cricket in non-traditional cricketing nations. Tied at the top with three wins, the US had managed to win this tournament on the basis of run rate and they were just 0.0276 runs ahead of Scotland.

Having played a major role in transforming soccer into a multi-million dollar industry in the United States, Hopkins is now entrusted with the job of doing an encore for cricket

But when facing stiffer competition, namely New Zealand and Australia, the Yanks wilted (by tremendous margins). However, the game has managed to find some roots in the country, egged on by a growing number of immigrants from the West Indies and the subcontinent. Now, every weekend in summer, thousands of cricket players all over the country make their way to makeshift grounds-in some instances counties have been considerate enough to earmark small grounds-to play the game.

And it is this that heartens Hopkins, because he played a tremendous role in popularising football, or, as the Americans would call it, soccer, in the land of the free. About 15 years ago, Hopkins was part of a group of executives that played a crucial role in the development of soccer in the US, as a precursor to the country's hosting of the 1994 World Cup. Some of the world's top teams from Europe and Latin America were brought to play competitive games in front of American audiences and this rubbed off on the national team. From a sport that only used to attract crowds of under 3,000 and measly sponsorship deals totalling less than $500,000 (Rs 2.2 crore), the us soccer team now plays to full stadia of 90,000 and generates several millions in revenue from sponsors. Today, it is a regular in the final stages of the soccer World Cup, and the women's team is regarded as one of the best in the world. It has even spawned a professional league-Major League Soccer.

Again, the first step involves taking some top-tier teams and bringing them stateside. Exhibition cricket has been big in the US for some time, very often involving current and some washed out cricket stars. But Hopkins' job is to labour to put together the bare bones that will allow the us to host its first-ever ICC-accredited tournament by September of this year, all envisaged under the ICC's euphemistically named 'Project USA'. After all, that is his brief, written originally by Jagmohan Dalmia, who was then the ICC chief.

Hopkins' work involves accompanying Andy Atkinson, ICC's pitch consultant, to select the ideal venue for the match. Going by indications, the venue is likely to be in the Governator's (Arnold Schwarzenegger's) backyard, under the glitzy lights of Los Angeles, and will feature India, Pakistan and England. Given that tinsel town, USA, is little more than a few hours' drive from the Bay Area where thousands of desi techies work, full houses will be more or less guaranteed. The emotional outbursts of a subcontinental cricket clash in the us would make for 'must-see' TV and be a lot more interesting than watching car chases.

And TV itself is gearing up to telecast, nay, webcast even more cricket, given the huge appetite driven by the nearly 1.8 million Indian-Americans (out of a total of 3 million cricket audience) in the us. During the 2003 World Cup, the webcasting of the matches was possibly one of the first examples of a commercially successful deployment of this rather overhyped medium; the reason being the large geographical spread of the audience across the country. And one of the companies pioneering this method of delivery is aptly named 'Willow TV' (cricket equipment is made from the wood of willow trees). Another company is Setanta, which saw revenues and viewership by South Asians in North America increase dramatically, exceeding all estimates, when they started showing matches involving India.

But the growth of the sport in the US depends on the success of the country itself. Cricket is felt by many to be a dull, boring sport. However, with new formats like 'Twenty20' cricket catching on in England and Australia, it might not be too long before international cricket will find a permanent home back where it all began. Who knows in a few years' time, American politicos will be chasing votes not from soccer moms, but cricket moms.