Backyard barbecues with hot dogs and hamburgers with baseball on in the background. Sparklers, cherry bombs, fireworks galore. Stars and Stripes waving proudly on every front porch on our street. These are the images of Independence Day Americana embedded in my mind growing up in small town New Jersey three doors down from Evan Mason, whose family moved into our neighborhood when I was five years old in 1989.

Neither of us had ever heard of cricket then. Heck, neither of us had ever heard of Afghanistan nor the West Indies, let alone be able to find either the country or the geopgrahic region anywhere on a map. And yet 30 years later we found ourselves sitting in section Zb in the upper level of the South Stand at Headingley Carnegie, reunited on the 4th of July to watch a Cricket World Cup match in perhaps the ultimate antithesis of 4th of July symbolism. Yet, our experience perfectly embodied the spirit of independence that marks the day.

I’ve been watching and covering cricket for 14 years ever since discovering the sport when landing in Australia for a semester abroad that coincided with the start of the first Ashes Test in England in the seminal summer of 2005. But this was Evan’s first ever cricket experience and the day summed up three things: don’t stereotype Americans as close-minded; I’m still learning new things about cricket 14 years later; and finally CLR James’ existential question – what do they know of cricket who only cricket know? – continues to hold very true.

Growing up in New Jersey, our two main shared sporting interests were ice hockey and tennis. So it was no surprise that Evan’s main purpose for coming to England on a weeklong vacation was his desire to watch a match at Wimbledon.

However, we hadn’t seen each other in over a year and if he was flying seven hours across the Atlantic to get to England, what’s another two hours north on the train to come visit me where I spend my summers covering cricket? Initially, he had planned to just come for a few days of sightseeing until I casually asked, “Do you have any interest in watching a cricket match? The World Cup is on.” To my pleasant surprise, he actually said yes, something my brothers have never agreed to.

So set the wheels in motion for our visit to Headingley for Afghanistan v West Indies. I thought it would be a great introduction for Evan to cricket because A: both teams play a visually entertaining and aggressive brand of cricket; and B: it was one of the few matches that still had plenty of tickets available at the start of June, that too very reasonably priced with a gold section ticket coming in at just 40 GBP.

I’m pretty sure that Evan’s main views on Afghanistan before the day revolved around USA invading the country in search of Osama bin Laden. When we arrived outside the gates at Headingley though, we were greeted by a black market merchant hawking Afghanistan replica jersey knockoffs for 10 GBP and a throng of young Afghanistan fans looking like Hamid Hassan clones donning black, red, and green tricolor headbands and facepaint. Who wouldn’t get wrapped up in that? Evan quickly decided he would be cheering for Afghanistan and within minutes bought a tricolour scarf for 5 GBP, and then decided I should have one too.

As we got to the south stand, a World Cup cricketeer told us the best way to our seats would be to take the elevator to level four. Two other rowdy guys walked in with us to take the ride up from the concourse, leading to this exchange:

Me: Where are you guys from?

Fan: Zimbabwe!

Me: What are you guys doing here?! They didn’t even qualify for the World Cup!

Fan: Where are you guys from?

Me: USA!

Fan: What are YOU guys doing here?! They don’t even play cricket in America! I guess all of us just came here to drink beer all day!

After laughing quite hard with our new Zimbabwean friends on the way out of the elevator, the anthems were sung and play was soon underway. I had purposely bought seats as high up as possible in the south stand because the bird’s eye view of the field allows a newcomer to notice all the various field changes and alignments much easier than at field level or on TV when things are happening off camera. When I’ve taken other American friends to cricket for the first time, my general teaching strategy is based off how I learned cricket. Don’t tell people what cricket is. And especially don’t tell people that cricket is “just like baseball”. Let them observe and digest what’s happening at their own pace. If they have a question, they’ll ask.

“Why did West Indies choose to bat first?” Coming into the day, Evan’s knowledge of cricket was that it was always on the TVs of his favorite Indian restaurant and that I work in cricket media, but not much beyond that. I asked him, “Well, which would you want to do if you had a choice, bat first or second?” Evan’s response somewhat floored me with his precision. “I would always want to bat second because I would want to know exactly how many I need to score and at what pace I need to do it.” Evan sounded like a modern IPL captain. Not bad for an alleged novice.

Over the course of the innings, several topics came up from Evan. “Runs” are actually more like “points” in a basketball game because the same guy keeps taking “shot” after “shot” to accumulate a scoring marker, i.e. a four or a six is not like a home-run but instead more like a three-pointer. You get the ball each possession and can keep making three after three like Stephen Curry. If it was like a home-run, a batsman would walk off the field after hitting his first six and wouldn’t be seen again for another hour for his next turn at bat.

Another thing Evan noted which struck me as fascinating was that he was actually more intrigued by the defensive strokes than the fours and sixes. “I like that part of the strategy is having to simultaneously defend the stumps while also trying to attack and score points.” To Evan, there was more skill involved in keeping the ball out and also judging if you’re able to turn a single into a two with sharp running vs. just standing there and whacking the ball for six.

When asked what a typical score would be, I told Evan 300 is generally a good total in a 50-over match. Over the course of the first innings, Evan’s views on what to do at the coin toss started to change, especially when Jason Holder and Nicholas Pooran started to swing big in the final 10 overs to take West Indies to 311. “After watching West Indies, I think I’d rather bat first actually because now Afghanistan are under a lot of pressure to keep up a high scoring rate as soon as they begin batting.”

Early in the Afghanistan chase, I experienced my CLR James moment when Evan asked the ultimate unanswerable cricket question: “So who is winning right now?” My default in these situations is to point to the in-progress live betting lines, which in my view offer a fairly universal translation in any sport. When Gulbadin Naib fell to make it 5 for 1, I opened the ESPNcricinfo app and the Bet365 odds embedded in the running scorecard showed Afghanistan were 9/1 underdogs. Evan nodded in agreement, but after another over, his attention subsequently reverted back to the main scoreboard and replay screen.

“What’s that thing under the overs remaining that says DLS par score?” I hadn’t really bothered explaining the lbw law yet (sticking to the principle that he hadn’t asked a question about it since nobody had yet been dismissed lbw in the match) and yet Evan was apparently skipping past Intro to Cricket 101 straight to Masters Cricket 501. Duckworth-Lewis-Stern Method par score. Hmmm….

Me: “Well, it’s essentially a theoretical algorithm calculating what a team’s score should be based on how many guys they have left to bat and how many balls or overs are left remaining.”

Evan: “So this DLS algorithm can only be calculated once you know what the team batting first has scored, and it’s wound back based off that, not a general algorithm.”

Me: “Yes.”

Evan: “So if Afghanistan are 11 for 1 and the DLS par is showing 31, then West Indies are winning by 20 runs. Theoretically.”

Me: “Yeah.”

I didn’t even bother going into how DLS is used for rain interruptions to recalculate reduced overs targets and/or decide a winner if play can’t be restarted. In my head, I’ve always felt showing DLS par scores on a scoreboard on a perfectly sunny day is silly. I’ll find myself shaking my head at ICC officials who essentially cut down half a forest per cricket match to print out reams of DLS par score sheets when it’s a sunny 25C. But Evan was suddenly gripped by constant checks of the DLS par score.

Every four by Rahmat Shah and Ikram Alikhil closed Afghanistan’s DLS deficit and by the time the match was official at 101 for 1 after 20 overs, Afghanistan were ahead on DLS. Evan asked for an update on the bookmaker odds and by the time the score reached 132 for 1 in 25 overs, the line on Afghanistan had shrunk from 9/1 down to 3/2. Pairing up the oddsmakers line with DLS was confirmation to Evan that Afghanistan were “winning”. I’d always felt DLS was complex, but in a light bulb moment Evan demonstrated that it simplified so much. Of all the things Evan could have come across at a cricket match to pique his interest, the Duckworth-Lewis-Stern Method would have been near the bottom of the list of things I would have ever imagined drawing him in. But it happened.

Along the way of the chase came a pair of West Indies no balls. I once had cringed while watching an IPL match in 2013 during which NBA commissioner David Stern was interviewed on the sidelines. As a no ball happened, the commentator told Stern that it was like “a foul ball” in baseball and that the free hit is like “a redo”.

After being told you can’t be out off a no ball, Evan came up with his own non-baseball comparison. “So it’s like in the NFL where if the defense jumps offsides, they don’t blow the play dead. The offense can still continue the play, complete a pass or score a touchdown, but if there’s a fumble or an interception by the defense as a result of the play continuing after the flag, the penalty is enforced and the offense doesn’t lose the ball.”

Then the collapse came. Rahmat was caught in the ring. Ikram fell lbw to a sweep, and the leg before conundrum was made even easier to explain by the ensuing DRS review asked for by Ikram. The hawkeye ball-tracking on screen was something that Evan was very familiar with as a tennis fan. But crucially the video evidence was paired with the third umpire’s narration during the review. Evan particularly appreciated the third umpire dialogue being aired through the stadium loudspeakers while the DRS review was in progress and subsequently wondered aloud why the NFL does not air it’s conversations between replay officials to fans because he felt it would help diffuse any controversies and keep fans engaged.

Najibullah was then runout after a mixup with Asghar. Nabi followed by skying a catch to cover sweeper. In the space of three balls DLS went from 184 to 191 to 202 and Afghanistan went from being five runs ahead to eight behind. At the 40-over mark, there was a sensory overload of numbers on the scoreboard, but Evan summed it up brilliantly.

“Afghanistan are 220 for 5. It says West Indies were 200 for 4. But Afghanistan are losing because they’re behind the DLS par. That fifth guy getting out means they’re short of manpower for the rest of the match, which makes it harder even though they don’t have to score as many as West Indies did in the last 10 overs. I like that they show all of that on the scoreboard, the algorithm plus how many runs the team needs off of how many balls or overs, so you know where everything stands at all times.”

Two overs later, Samiullah Shinwari fell. With a 6:15 pm train to catch from Leeds to Manchester to then jump on an 8:15 pm train onward to London so he could watch Wimbledon in the morning, Evan decided it was time to head out. So came the burning question: would he ever want to come back and watch another match?

“I’d go back tomorrow if I could,” Evan said, without even seeing Fabian Allen’s catch for the final wicket. “For as long as this takes, it doesn’t feel that long. The pacing is a lot quicker than baseball. I’ve been to a lot of American sports but the cricket fans were a lot more engaged than they are there. Everyone was really pleasant. Even in the elevator, the different fans are nice. I was overwhelmed, but in a good way.”

Perhaps even more remarkable than the two of us being reunited at a cricket match on the 4th of July was that we were not the only Americans there. During a drinks break earlier in the day, several West Indies fans from the USA were interviewed on screen in Leeds, telling the astonished stadium host that every Sunday in the summer “there’s cricket in California, Michigan, Texas, Florida, New York, New Jersey, Indiana.”

But somehow even more astonishing was what we experienced on the train ride back from Leeds. Sitting behind us was another American accent talking cricket. After about 20 minutes or so, I turned around to ask if the man had gone to the match and he said yes. I asked if it was his first match and he laughed and said no.

Andrew Van Cleve, originally from San Francisco but now living in Philadelphia, claims to have attended more than 4000 sporting events in his life. If you don’t believe him, he keeps a fanatical running tally on a sports blog called, “The Ultimate Fan”, a quirky but clever diary of his own experiences traveling around the world to watch everything from minor league baseball to the Bundesliga to rugby to cricket and includes reviews and recommendations of which venues are the best to bring “your buddies”, “your wife/girlfriend”, or “your whole family with kids”.

He lists his first cricket experience as New Zealand v Canada in St. Lucia at the 2007 World Cup. He might be the only guy in the world who can claim that as his first match. “My wife wanted to travel to the Caribbean and I wanted to do something sports related while I was there,” said Van Cleve. “I wasn’t looking for cricket per se. It could have been any sport. But cricket just happened to be on.”

But that New Zealand v Canada match got him hooked. Later that summer he traveled to the Oval to watch India play England in the third Test at the Oval. Two summers later he came back to watch a 2009 Ashes Test at the same venue. Van Cleve has since watched England play West Indies in a Test in Barbados, another 2015 Ashes Test at Lord’s, and a 2017 Champions Trophy match between England and Bangladesh at the Oval.

Van Cleve was in Durham 24 hours earlier to watch England play New Zealand. He bolted out of Headingley at the same time as us because he wanted to catch Salford Red Devils play Huddersfield Giants in English Rugby Super League at 7:45 pm. Then came perhaps the most eye-opening Q & A exchange of the day.

Me: “So are you going to watch West Indies play India in Florida in August?”

Van Cleve: “I don’t know anything about that.”

Me: “You don’t know about the stadium in Fort Lauderdale. West Indies played Bangladesh there last summer. They played India in 2016. You don’t know anything about those games in Florida?”

Van Cleve: “No.”

Me: “Do you know the CPL? Caribbean Premier League?”

Van Cleve: “Of course.”

Me: “Do you know that the CPL played matches every year the last three years at the same stadium in Florida?”

Van Cleve: “Nope. Didn’t know. But it sounds like I should try to go watch a game there this summer now that I know there’s a cricket stadium in Florida.”

Except, there is no CPL in Florida this summer after fan turnout over the last three years kept trending downward, including a pathetic 700 fans to watch Jamaica Tallawahs v Barbados Tridents in the final match of the 2018 slate, that the league decided to pull the plug. Therein lies the agony and the ecstasy of cricket’s growth in America and beyond. Cricket has been marketed so poorly over the years, from telling people it’s too complicated to understand combined with limiting the number of teams in global competitions, that many Americans don’t even know what’s right under their noses on home soil.

But once they’re introduced to the game, sports lovers like Evan Mason and Andrew Van Cleve are quick to fall in love with cricket. Whether it’s cheering for Afghanistan, West Indies, New Zealand or Canada, they gave cricket a chance. It’s up to local and national administrators to give others like them a chance too.