The razzmatazz and money of the new Indian Premier League is not the only sign that cricket's centre of gravity is shifting inexorably towards Asia. Beijing is now seeking Indian advice and finance to help China to become a great cricketing nation. The Chinese Cricket Association aims to have 60,000 players by 2012. Even North Korea is about to host its first cricket match.

Sceptics might question whether the sport can take root in cultures that have so far proved impervious to its charms. In the 1890s

A.G.Spalding, the American sports entrepreneur, hoped the English would ditch cricket for baseball and had some success promoting it in the Midlands. A second attempt rekindled interest in the 1930s. Indeed, in 1938 the first amateur series Baseball World Cup was won by Great Britain. But the novelty wore off. Ultimately, baseball just did not seem to fit the British psyche.

Yet these things can change. Sociologists like to maintain that cricket fitted the English temperament but, unlike baseball, was insufficiently zippy to grip the American imagination. Like drinking tea, cricket is supposedly one of those un-American activities dumped by the Founding Fathers.

This is nonsense. It was cricket that kept up the morale of a Patriot army facing defeat at Valley Forge. There, on May 4, 1778, First Lieutenant Ewing noted in his diary that George Washington “did us the honor to play Wicket with us”. America's second President, John Adams, even commended the committee structure of cricket clubs as a model of how the fledgeling republic should be organised.

The world's oldest international sporting event is generally considered to be the 1844 United States versus Canada cricket match. This fixture began 33 years before the first official Test match between England and Australia.

As early as 1859, George Parr's All England XI toured Canada and the United States. An MCC tour followed in 1872. “I never remember seeing a team or crowd of spectators more excited,” W.G.Grace recalled. “They were in rhapsodies, and could scarcely keep still.”

Before the Civil War, 10,000 Americans played cricket in 22 states and in more than 125 cities and towns. It was the war that disrupted play. Not only was baseball easier to organise for soldiers on the move, it was the preference of the new Irish and German immigrants. With the great sports promoters quickly seeing baseball's moneymaking potential, American cricket clubs reacted by becoming ever more self-consciously exclusive, amateur and irrelevant.

Thus in turning to India's big money promoters, the Chinese have clearly learnt from the Americans how not to squander the chance to be a world force in cricket. As for North Korea, beware. The Pyongyang Barmy Army is seeking recruits.

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