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While the losses to England and the West Indies will mask the general sense of positivity around USA Cricket, all-rounder Harmeet Singh has already begun to look forward to the 2026 T20 World Cup.
By virtue of qualifying for the Super 8 stages of the tournament after beating Pakistan and Canada in the group stages, USA gained automatic qualification for the 2026 T20 World Cup which will be held in India and Sri Lanka.
Harmeet believes that for USA to improve their level and standard of cricket in the time between this and the next T20 World Cup, there will have to be a concerted effort to improve the level of infrastructure and training facilities on outdoor levels.
“For the whole group, we just need infrastructure to practise better, to train better,” Harmeet said. “We need the whole system in place. Trainers need to be able to work with us all year even if remotely. If you see England, Australia, all the destinations, they have incredible infrastructure in every state. Being indoors doesn’t help. We need a lot more outdoor set-ups, need good training facilities.
“Stadiums are coming up, but the short-term goal should be building a lot of infrastructure for guys to be able to train so that the whole grassroot [cricketers get to train better] and our bench strength also builds with that. Playing franchise cricket will help, but it will help four, five, six guys who might play, but to build a cricket-playing nation, we need a lot more infrastructure.”
While infrastructure is a given for the USA to improve, another key factor in increasing their level of cricket is to have more exposure against full-member nations. But with USA being an associate member, their lack of commercial appeal means that they often do not get the exposure that is needed for such big tournaments, which leads to the undermining performances that have been on display in the Super 8’s.
But Harmeet believes that the performance of their side in this past month has led to the game being spread to the non-asian diaspora as well, and that can only mean positive things for USA cricket on a larger scale, making it the right time to improve its facilities.
“The cricketing community is large, especially in Texas where I come from, or New Jersey as well,” Harmeet said. “Seattle has a big cricket community. The West Coast, the overall California area, everywhere, there is a lot of cricket going on. It’s just that we don’t have enough turf practice facilities everywhere. We just have kids practising in indoors.
“There’s a lot to learn and everybody has come a long way from where we started,” Harmeet said. “And then there’s a lot of confidence also in the team that we’ve battled against the best. And when we were at our best, we did push them to the line. So I think there’s so much to learn.
“The work starts now,” he added. “Not tomorrow, the work starts now in our heads. We need to think how we are going to be at the 2026 World Cup. And then from now to then, the journey needs to be from us personally putting in the work and then USA Cricket also providing us lots and lots of games and training opportunities. And then franchise cricket [for those who can]. And then putting that preparation into the 2026 World Cup and get the best result.”