John Norton, a retired police officer from Long Island, sat in a folding chair and watched his grandson’s Little League game in East Meadow on Wednesday. The quiet spot is less than a mile from where one of the biggest sporting events in the world would take place in a few days, but Mr. Norton, like many people in the area, was only vaguely aware of the details.
“I saw the stadium from the street,” Mr. Norton said. “I don’t know the first thing about cricket, but I guess it’s going to be pretty crazy over there.”
The stadium he saw — the Nassau County International Cricket Stadium — seemed to have popped up almost overnight. Now it sits on one edge of the 930-acre Eisenhower Park, a massive — if temporary — cricket stadium that was built in sections, like a giant erector set, over the last 100 days. It will host eight matches of the Men’s T20 World Cup, an international cricket tournament expected to draw the attention of hundreds of millions of viewers worldwide, even if most people in New York seem barely aware of its existence.
Matches will also be held in six Caribbean nations along with Dallas and Lauderhill, Fla. The event officially opens on Saturday in Dallas, where the United States plays Canada. The stadium in East Meadow, which can hold 34,000 spectators, will be inaugurated with an exhibition match on Saturday between India and Bangladesh.
The Indian team arrived in New York this week and practiced at a nearby facility in Hicksville. This was all reported with great fanfare in India, a country dotted with cricket grounds of all sizes.