BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe—It’s almost natural that Vatsal Vaghela’s first exposure to cricket in California was at a baseball field, where cricketers had to wait for the baseball players to finish and leave.
Cricket gave birth to baseball, though the offspring quickly eclipsed the parent as the summer pastime for Americans. But step back for a minute there, baseball, because Vaghela and his teammates on the United States cricket team aim to reach their own kind of World Series this week.
They need one more win on Friday to qualify for a cricket World Cup for the first time.
The United States has easily beaten Jersey and Singapore in its first two games at a qualifying tournament in Zimbabwe. The prize is a place at the T20 World Cup in Australia in October, and another victory in the semifinals will clinch it for the Americans. T20 stands for Twenty20, the shortest format in international cricket….