What impact has the T20 World Cup had on cricket in the USA?

On a late afternoon in the Baltimore suburbs, the Waltemeyers and their extended family gather in the hazy sunshine for a traditional cookout.

Burgers sizzle on the barbecue and the smell of crab cakes, a Maryland speciality, wafts through the air. The stars and stripes flutter on a pole in the neighbour's garden.

Conversations cover politics, house prices, the traffic in Washington DC and family life. A game of wiffle ball, a garden version of baseball, breaks out.

Then my American father-in-law's brother Greg asks: "USA beat Pakistan in the World Cup cricket, right?"

Like many US families, the Waltemeyers are sports obsessed but talk quickly switches from cricket to Major League Baseball's Orioles, the Ravens of the NFL and the US Open golf.

There’s not really a buzz around the USA qualifying for the T20 World Cup Super 8s. Everyone is oblivious to the fact they will play England.

Herein lies the challenge for cricket in the United States.

Has a wider audience been reached?

A T20 World Cup might have been co-hosted on American soil and, from a security and organisational point of view, largely been a success, with the rest of the tournament now taking place in the Caribbean.

"I don't think you could've scripted a better outcome for cricket in the USA than for their team to go through to the Super 8s," Brett Jones, chief executive of the T20 World Cup USA organising committee, told BBC Sport.

"It's had its challenges - but we've definitely seen a passion for cricket in the US and a lot of the fans are domestic to the US so there is definitely something there for the future to tap into."

But there's little to indicate it has registered on the consciousness of the American mainstream.

Admittedly that view is shaped by anecdotal evidence from speaking to people inside and outside the stadiums, rather than anything more scientific or data-based.

What does seem curious, though, is a lot of the marketing and publicity did not feel like an attempt to engage with anyone who was not already connected to the sport.

A full page advert in the New York Times of the Statue of Liberty holding a cricket bat? Neat.

India legend Sachin Tendulkar hitting some balls in a baseball batting cage? Nicely done.

Ireland captain Paul Stirling’s image beamed on to the Rockefeller Centre? Erm, yes…

Meanwhile, inside the stadiums there was nowhere for first-time cricket attendees and budding youngsters to swing a bat, or have a go at bowling.

An opportunity missed?

The International Cricket Council (ICC) has seen an increase of new users from the US accessing their digital platforms, up from 21% during the previous tournament to 61% in this one.

"The US is already one of the top-four media markets for cricket worldwide, and I would expect this to grow," Daniel Kirschner, chief executive of Greenfly, a platform for gathering and distributing content for organisations such as Major League Baseball and the NBA, told BBC Sport.

"The ICC has clearly grown its social numbers in the US and have worked with influencers and digital agencies."

But the matches in the US were all televised on a cricket-specific subscription channel, which has added to a broader lack of visibility.

The USA’s shock victory over Pakistan did not make the top 30 most-watched sports programmes on the day it happened, according to Sports Media Watch.

ICC officials did meet with major broadcasters, including CBS and NBC, a couple of years ago regarding broadcasting arrangements but nothing emerged.

Without the weight of a major media giant behind it in the US, cricket is going to struggle to punch through.

There will also be little by way of meaningful legacy left behind in New York.

The impressive 34,000 pop-up capacity stadium in Eisenhower Park is being dismantled and the site will return to a public park with some degree of uncertainty over who will maintain the cricket field.

A total of 156,719 fans came to the eight matches in New York, with an average attendance of 19,589. Only India against Pakistan was sold out.

Tournament organisers privately acknowledged to BBC Sport that ticket prices for the remaining games perhaps should have been more affordable.

For the time being, if you're a cricket fan in New York, the only live action you will be able to watch in the city is recreational games in parks.

After an outlay of $32m (£25.2m) on the Nassau County International Cricket Stadium, it seems like an opportunity has been missed.

Has cricket's image in the US changed?

Perhaps the one true legacy of this tournament is it has allowed cricket to shed some of the stuffy image it has stateside.

One of the reasons cricket failed to catch on in the US in the 19th and early 20th century was the desire of those in charge of the game to retain its sense of Englishness - a view not uncommon throughout the British Empire.

The club that hosted the feted first international cricket match between USA and Canada in 1844 - St George's CC - had changed its name from New York CC in 1839 and barred American players from joining.

The current USA team are a very different mix.

Four of the squad were born on US soil but the rest are Americans because they want to be, a quality that appeals to many in this vast and diverse country.

It seems like Saurabh Netravalkar, the fast-bowling software engineer, has not turned down a single interview request. Vice-captain Aaron Jones, the US' leading runscorer, has spoken intelligently about popularising the game.

Equally, off the field there are snippets of stories that capture the imagination.

Intrepid American cricket journalist Peter Della Penna met Chuck, from Boynton Beach in Florida, who was dressed in stars and stripes overalls wandering in the rain at the ground in Lauderhill during the washout against Ireland that enabled the USA to progress to the Super 8s.

"Chuck had never seen cricket in his life, but said he had to be there," said Della Penna.

"'I saw they beat Pakistan. I saw they're coming to Florida. I need a ticket! I gotta support the boys!'"

The US equivalent of the Barmy Army seems to have its first member.

Elsewhere, in a Dallas dive bar in the early hours, it was incredible to listen to a visually impaired American man talk with such fervour about the joy of listening to BBC county cricket commentators.

The passion of the South Asian diaspora in the United States to playing, attending and watching cricket matches is what is going to sustain it in this country in the immediate term.

However, some of the key stakeholders acknowledge that has to change at some point to capitalise on the word forever uttered whenever cricket in the US is discussed: potential.

"If it ends up being a sport that is only for the diaspora, cricket won't flourish in the USA," said Soma Somasegar, an investor in T20 franchise tournament Major League Cricket, which launched last year.

"You need people who can capture the attention of the media, and by extension reach a broader population to kindle their interest - and over time their inspiration."