The US cricket team is closing in on a major achievement at the Twenty20 World Cup

The sport of cricket is as foreign to most Americans as driving on the left-hand side of the road or drinking warm beer.

This year, though, the United States is getting a close-up view of the bat-and-ball sport originally from England that resembles a cockeyed version of baseball where the pitcher purposely bounces the ball in front of the batter.

The U.S. national cricket team — which dates to at least 1844 — has already made a dent in the hierarchy of the game by beating Pakistan last week at the Twenty20 World Cup, which is being held in New York, Texas, Florida and six other venues dotted around the Caribbean.

The team’s next game is set for Wednesday against India on Long Island, about an hour outside New York. The Americans aren’t expected to win that one, but neither were they expected to beat Pakistan — a traditional powerhouse that reached the final at the last T20 World Cup in 2022.