Cricket and Baseball
I've been fascinated by cricket for about five years now. It seems like a pretty fun game, and its connection to baseball is unmistakable. And to those who say it takes too long, just think of the three day matches as a series -- they only play during the day, after all.
And I always figured that baseball players would be pretty good at it. Of course, any time I mention that to a British or Indian person*, they snootily reply, "Huh, you think skills from an American sport would transfer? My my, how quaint. Blah de blah, you're as worthless as your stupid country!"
I've mentioned it to Americans before, but the response is always something like "What's cricket?" or "Who cares?" Both of those are good points, but they don't exactly advance the discussion.
But really, when it comes right down to it, the sport consists of throwing, hitting, running, and catching. Why wouldn't baseball skills translate to cricket? (And, consequently, vice versa? I figure there are a bunch of kids over in India who'd be pretty good baseball players if given the chance. Why is it that only the Pirates are trying to take advantage of that?)
Well, it turns out that I'm not the only person who thought that way:
THIS was batting, but not as we know it, even in a game that isn't cricket as we know it. In the space of 43 breathtaking deliveries, yielding 89 runs, wunderkind David Warner redefined power-hitting at the MCG on Sunday night. The ground has been witness to power-hitting before but has not seen shots played like this, for many of Warner's towering hits in the Twenty20 match against South Africa owed as much to baseball as to cricket. There is a good reason for that — it is how he has been training and how the new generation of young players have been instructed to play. "It is a new way of batting to develop power-hitting for this game," said Cricket NSW high performance manager Alan Campbell, who has been monitoring Warner since he was a promising 12-year-old. "The advent of Twenty20 cricket has meant that our model is to teach our players to power-hit to all parts of the ground in a non-traditional manner.
You mean someone involved with cricket finally realized that if you swing like a baseball player you can absolutely destroy the ball? And it has the potential to revolutionize the game?
My my my, who gets to be snooty now?
Posted by Sean Schulte at 2009-01-13 16:14:24
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