Complex sentence: But as cricket standards improved elsewhere in the world by becoming semi-professional and then fully professional, many North American cricket clubs stayed stubbornly elitist abandoning cricket, they converted their facilities to recreations like golf and tennis.
Split into simpler sentences: But as cricket standards improved elsewhere in the world by becoming semi-professional and then fully professional, many North American cricket clubs stayed stubbornly elitist. Abandoning cricket, they converted their facilities to recreations like golf and tennis.