On a sizzling Saturday afternoon in August, I went out to a scruffy field in Queens, just beyond the runways at JFK, to see my first cricket match. I got there about halfway through the 6 hour game, and found a broken lump of concrete to sit on near a slope of tangled bushes. Some very professional sounding announcers bantered and called the plays over the loudest PA system I've ever heard.

As a cheerful man sitting on a portable lawn chair explained the game to me, a couple of guys lugged a huge pot of curry between them, all the way out to the back of the field, where they leaned back on a little tuft of grass to enjoy the game. About a hundred spectators were there, cheering and drinking beer and calling out to each other in West Indian accents.

This is cricket, New York style.