EAST MEADOW, N.Y. (AP) — A towering stadium boasting 34,000 seats and a precisely trimmed field of soft Kentucky bluegrass is rising in a suburban New York park that will host one of the world's top cricket tournaments next month.
But on a recent Saturday morning, on the other side of Long Island’s Eisenhower Park, budding young cricketers were already busy batting, bowling and fielding on a makeshift pitch.
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A sign advertises the Cricket World Cup matches in East Meadow, N.Y., Wednesday, May 8, 2024. As the U.S. prepares to host its first Cricket World Cup across three states next month, a temporary stadium is rising in the NYC suburbs where the English sport has found fertile ground among waves of Caribbean and South Asian immigration. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Work continues on a temporary stadium being constructed for the Cricket World Cup in East Meadow, N.Y., Wednesday, May 8, 2024. As the U.S. prepares to host its first Cricket World Cup across three states next month, a temporary stadium is rising in the NYC suburbs where the English sport has found fertile ground among waves of Caribbean and South Asian immigration. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Work continues on a temporary stadium being constructed for the Cricket World Cup in East Meadow, N.Y., Wednesday, May 8, 2024. As the U.S. prepares to host its first Cricket World Cup across three states next month, a temporary stadium is rising in the NYC suburbs where the English sport has found fertile ground among waves of Caribbean and South Asian immigration. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Work continues on a temporary stadium being constructed for the Cricket World Cup in East Meadow, N.Y., Wednesday, May 8, 2024. As the U.S. prepares to host its first Cricket World Cup across three states next month, a temporary stadium is rising in the NYC suburbs where the English sport has found fertile ground among waves of Caribbean and South Asian immigration. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Parmanand Sarju, founder of the Long Island Youth Cricket Academy, demonstrates proper ball handling technique for bowling to Akash Khargie during practice at Eisenhower Park in East Meadow, N.Y. on Saturday, May 11, 2024. A temporary stadium for next month's T20 Cricket World Cup -- the first major international cricket competition the U.S. is hosting -- is being built atop another ball field in the park where Sarju's academy began more than a decade ago. (AP Photo/Phil Marcelo)
Akash Khargie, 8, left, learns proper bat holding and wicket position in front of the stumps as Ekam Hunjan, 10, waits his turn during a practice at Eisenhower Park in East Meadow, N.Y. on Saturday, May 11, 2024. A temporary stadium for next month's T20 Cricket World Cup -- the first major international cricket competition the U.S. is hosting -- is being built atop another ball field in the park where the Long Island Youth Cricket Academy began more than a decade ago. (AP Photo/Phil Marcelo)
Junior Coach Jay Sarju, 16, assists Samraj Goel, 7, with his leg pad in preparation to bat during practice at Eisenhower Park in East Meadow, N.Y. on Saturday, May 11, 2024. A temporary stadium for next month's T20 Cricket World Cup -- the first major international cricket competition the U.S. is hosting -- is being built atop another ball field in the park where the Long Island Youth Cricket Academy began more than a decade ago. (AP Photo/Phil Marcelo)
Parmanand Sarju, founder of the Long Island Youth Cricket Academy, instructs players during practice at Eisenhower Park in East Meadow, N.Y. on Saturday, May 11, 2024. " A temporary stadium for next month's T20 Cricket World Cup -- the first major international cricket competition the U.S. is hosting -- is being built atop another ball field in the park where Sarju's academy began more than a decade ago. (AP Photo/Phil Marcelo)
The T20 World Cup will be the first major international cricket competition in the U.S., but the centuries-old English game has been flourishing in the far-flung corners of metro New York for years, fueled by steady waves of South Asian and Caribbean immigration. Each spring, parks from the Bronx and Queens to Long Island and New Jersey come alive with recreational leagues hosting weekend competitions.
American cricket organizers hope the June competition will take the sport's popularity to the next level, providing the kind of lasting boost across generations and cultures that soccer enjoyed when the U.S. hosted its first FIFA World Cup in 1994. On Wednesday, retired Olympic sprinter Usain Bolt, an honorary ambassador of the T20 World Cup, visited the nearly complete Eisenhower stadium, along with members of the U.S. cricket squad and former New York football and basketball greats.
Parmanand Sarju, founder of the Long Island Youth Cricket Academy that hosted Saturday’s practice, said he's “beyond joyful” to see the new stadium rising atop the ball field where his youth academy began, a sign of how far things have come.
“When we started more than a decade ago, there was no understanding of cricket, at least at the youth level,” said the Merrick resident, who started the academy to teach his two American-born children the sport he grew up playing in Guyana in South America. “Now they’re building a stadium here.”
The sport originally took root in the outer boroughs of New York City but has gradually spread as immigrant families, like generations before, moved to the suburbs, transforming communities, said Ahmad Chohan, a Pakistan native who is the president of the New York Police Department’s cricket club, which also plays in Eisenhower as part of a statewide league with roughly 70 teams.
The World Cup, he said, is a “historic moment."
Cricket is the second most-viewed sport in the world after soccer — India star Virat Kohli has 268 million Instagram followers — but it is only played by more than 200,000 Americans nationwide across more than 400 local leagues, according to USA Cricket, which oversees the men’s national cricket team.
Major League Cricket launched last year in the U.S. with six professional T20 teams, including a New York franchise that, for now, plays some games at a Dallas-area stadium also hosting World Cup matches.
Venu Pisike, the chairman of USA Cricket, believes the T20 World Cup — the first time the U.S. has competed in the tournament — will mark a turning point.
The sport is among those slated for the 2028 summer Olympics in Los Angeles — its first appearance at the games in more than a century, he noted. The International Cricket Council, the sport’s governing body, has also committed to growing the U.S. market.
“Cricket is predominantly viewed as an expat sport, but things will look very different in the next 10, 20 years,” said Pisike. “Americans will definitely change their mindset and approach in terms of developing cricket.”
Both the Los Angeles games and the upcoming World Cup, which the U.S. is co-hosting with the West Indies, will feature a modern variant of the game known as “Twenty20” that lasts around three hours and is highlighted by aggressive batters swinging away for homerun-like “sixes.” It’s considered more approachable to casual fans than traditional formats, which can last one to five days when batters typically take a more cautious approach. Twenty20 is the format used in the hugely popular Indian Premier League.
Eisenhower Park will host half the games played in the U.S., including a headlining clash of cricket titans Pakistan and India on June 9.
Other matches in the 55-game, 20-nation tournament that kicks off June 1 will be played on existing cricket fields in Texas and Florida. Later rounds take place in Antigua, Trinidad and other Caribbean nations, with the final in Barbados on June 29.
Cricket has a long history in the U.S. and New York, in particular.
The sport was played by American troops during the Revolutionary War, and the first international match was held in Manhattan between the city’s St. George’s Cricket Club and Canada in 1844, according to Stephen Holroyd, a Philadelphia-area cricket historian.
As late as 1855, New York newspapers were still devoting more coverage to cricket than baseball, but the sport remained stubbornly insular, with British-only cricket clubs hindering its growth just as baseball was taking off, he said.
By the end of World War I, cricket had largely disappeared — until immigrants from India and other former British colonies helped revive it roughly half a century later.
Anubhav Chopra, a co-founder of the Long Island Premier League, a nearly 15-year-old men’s league that plays in another local park, is among the more than 700,000 Indian Americans in the New York City area — by far the largest community of its kind in the country.
The Babylon resident has never been to a professional cricket match but has tried to share his love for the game he played growing up in New Delhi with his three American children, including his 9-year-old son who takes cricket lessons.
Chopra bought tickets to all nine games taking place at Eisenhower and is taking his wife, kids and grandparents to the June 3 match between Sri Lanka and South Africa.
“For me, cricket is life,” he said. “This as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
The dense latticework of metal rods and wood sheets that make up Eisenhower’s modular stadium will come down soon after the cup games end, but the cricket field will remain, minus the rectangular surface in the middle known as the pitch.
Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman said what’s left lays a “world-class” foundation for local cricket teams — and perhaps a future home for a professional team.
Follow Philip Marcelo at twitter.com/philmarcelo.
A sign advertises the Cricket World Cup matches in East Meadow, N.Y., Wednesday, May 8, 2024. As the U.S. prepares to host its first Cricket World Cup across three states next month, a temporary stadium is rising in the NYC suburbs where the English sport has found fertile ground among waves of Caribbean and South Asian immigration. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Work continues on a temporary stadium being constructed for the Cricket World Cup in East Meadow, N.Y., Wednesday, May 8, 2024. As the U.S. prepares to host its first Cricket World Cup across three states next month, a temporary stadium is rising in the NYC suburbs where the English sport has found fertile ground among waves of Caribbean and South Asian immigration. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Work continues on a temporary stadium being constructed for the Cricket World Cup in East Meadow, N.Y., Wednesday, May 8, 2024. As the U.S. prepares to host its first Cricket World Cup across three states next month, a temporary stadium is rising in the NYC suburbs where the English sport has found fertile ground among waves of Caribbean and South Asian immigration. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Work continues on a temporary stadium being constructed for the Cricket World Cup in East Meadow, N.Y., Wednesday, May 8, 2024. As the U.S. prepares to host its first Cricket World Cup across three states next month, a temporary stadium is rising in the NYC suburbs where the English sport has found fertile ground among waves of Caribbean and South Asian immigration. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Parmanand Sarju, founder of the Long Island Youth Cricket Academy, demonstrates proper ball handling technique for bowling to Akash Khargie during practice at Eisenhower Park in East Meadow, N.Y. on Saturday, May 11, 2024. A temporary stadium for next month's T20 Cricket World Cup -- the first major international cricket competition the U.S. is hosting -- is being built atop another ball field in the park where Sarju's academy began more than a decade ago. (AP Photo/Phil Marcelo)
Akash Khargie, 8, left, learns proper bat holding and wicket position in front of the stumps as Ekam Hunjan, 10, waits his turn during a practice at Eisenhower Park in East Meadow, N.Y. on Saturday, May 11, 2024. A temporary stadium for next month's T20 Cricket World Cup -- the first major international cricket competition the U.S. is hosting -- is being built atop another ball field in the park where the Long Island Youth Cricket Academy began more than a decade ago. (AP Photo/Phil Marcelo)
Junior Coach Jay Sarju, 16, assists Samraj Goel, 7, with his leg pad in preparation to bat during practice at Eisenhower Park in East Meadow, N.Y. on Saturday, May 11, 2024. A temporary stadium for next month's T20 Cricket World Cup -- the first major international cricket competition the U.S. is hosting -- is being built atop another ball field in the park where the Long Island Youth Cricket Academy began more than a decade ago. (AP Photo/Phil Marcelo)
Parmanand Sarju, founder of the Long Island Youth Cricket Academy, instructs players during practice at Eisenhower Park in East Meadow, N.Y. on Saturday, May 11, 2024. " A temporary stadium for next month's T20 Cricket World Cup -- the first major international cricket competition the U.S. is hosting -- is being built atop another ball field in the park where Sarju's academy began more than a decade ago. (AP Photo/Phil Marcelo)
LAS VEGAS (AP) — A Nevada jury decided Thursday that a man should serve life in state prison with no chance of parole for breaking into a room at a Las Vegas Strip hotel-casino and killing two Vietnamese tour leaders in 2018.
Julius Damiano Deangilo Trotter, 37, was spared a death sentence by the same state court jury that found him guilty on Tuesday of murder, burglary and robbery in the stabbings of Sang Boi Nghia and Khoung Ba Le Nguyen at the Circus Circus hotel.
Defense attorney Lisa Rasmussen said afterward that Trotter and his legal team appreciated the jury decision, but that Trotter will appeal his conviction and sentence “as a normal part of the criminal justice system.”
“I think everyone is grateful that Mr. Trotter was given a life sentence," Rasmussen told The Associated Press. “The jury took the death penalty off the table themselves.”
Jurors issued their decision after testimony from Trotter, his relatives and family members of Nghia and Nguyen, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported. Trotter was seen mouthing “thank you” to the jury after the verdict was read, the newspaper reported. Clark County District Court Judge Michelle Leavitt scheduled Trotter's sentencing Jan. 15. He remains jailed in Las Vegas.
Trotter told jurors on Wednesday that he wanted to be “a positive impact on the people around me, as far as my family, my kids, my mother, my brother and sisters, and so on.”
Nghia, 38, was a mother of three who operated a tour business with her husband in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Nguyen, 30, was one of her employees. Their bodies were found after they did not show up for a tour group trip.
Police said hotel employees later determined the room lock didn’t secure properly, and said it appeared Trotter found it unlocked while walking the hotel hallway and trying door handles.
Trotter was arrested about a week after the killings with his girlfriend, Itaska Dean, following a police chase in Chino, California.
Rasmussen acknowledged that Trotter had a prior criminal record — he was serving five years’ probation at the time of the killings after a felony conviction for resisting a police officer with a weapon. But the attorney said Trotter also had the support of a loving family.
Dean pleaded guilty in California to evading arrest. She was not charged with a crime in the slayings of Nghia and Nguyen, and testified during Trotter's trial.
Trotter also testified, denying he killed Nghia and Nguyen. But police and prosecutors said he was found with items belonging to Nghia and Nguyen including a purse, wallets, a cellphone, jewelry and Vietnamese cash.
The last person put to death in Nevada prison was Daryl Mack in April 2006, for a 1988 rape and murder in Reno. Mack asked for his lethal injection to be carried out.
Bong Le, mother of a stabbing victim Khuong Nguyen, reacts to the guilty verdict in defendant Julius Trotter's murder trial, Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2024, at the Regional Justice Center in Las Vegas. Comforting Le is Hung Quang Nguyen, husband of a stabbing victim Sang Nghia, second left, and Tuan Trinh. At rear is interpreter Jimmy Tong Nguyen. ( (K.M. Cannon/Las Vegas Review-Journal via AP)
Defendant Julius Trotter, a previously convicted felon who is charged with breaking into a room at a Las Vegas Strip hotel-casino and robbing and killing two Vietnamese tour leaders in June 2018, waits in the courtroom for the verdict in his murder trial, Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2024, at the Regional Justice Center in Las Vegas. (K.M. Cannon/Las Vegas Review-Journal via AP)