Sounds like the tryout for Dinesh Patel and Rinku Singh went ok. If you didn’t see the article DJ posted in the comments section, here’s a first hand report from a writer for the Arizona Republic who was at the tryout. My guess is that someone will take a shot, as pitching guru Tom House says, “There’s just too much upside.” No doubt there’s a lot of upside for MLB…tapping into a largely English-speaking market of 1.2 billion.
But in Hawaii things are already moving along with an abbreviated version of cricket, which was born in India about five years ago. Uh-oh. The Hawai’i Premier League, a cricket league featuring 20/20 cricket has been going on during the week and folks are throwing around quotes like “a full game of 20/20 cricket can be played in about three hours, roughly the duration as a game of baseball or American football.”
Just last week, the fine men of the Hawai’i Premier League accomplished what many casual sports fans had assumed impossible: two complete cricket matches in a single afternoon.
It was, to American eyes at least, an accomplishment on the scale of a cinderblock beating Michael Phelps to the wall in a 100-meter freestyle sprint.
Uhhhmmm, yeah. Right. Good analogy. Anyway, if you live in the area the tournament continues through the end of the month. Info on the Honolulu Cricket Club can be found here. The above photo was taken from Hana Hou — The Magazine of Hawaiian Airlines.
2 responses so far ↓
1 DJ // Nov 8, 2008 at 2:33 pm
If you check out the Million Dollar Arm blog, you’ll see that Singh and Patel are blaming the mound for their reduced velocity at the try-out. Already making excuses. They’ll fit in perfectly here!
On another note (and for what it’s worth), here in the greater Seattle area, cricket’s huge with the South Asians who’ve emigrated to work in the tech field. In fact, Microsoft has even built a cricket pitch on its Redmond, Washington campus. But I’ve read that the real home for cricket in the States is in South Florida, with its huge West Indian population.
Also, this 20/20 version of cricket is really taking the cricket world by storm. Purists are aghast, but 20/20 is the top professional league now in India, and British cricketers are starting to move over there to play. I bet it won’t be long before 20/20 is the preferred game in the UK. International matches, however, will probably always be test cricket.
Again, for what it’s worth.
2 baekgom84 // Nov 8, 2008 at 4:30 pm
There are international matches of 20/20 too, although test cricket remains the most prestigious form of international cricket. There was a big controversy in Australia when many of our best players broke contract to go to India and play in their new league, where they can make a lot more money. The authorities threatened to cut them from the national team but I think in the end, they backed down and allowed the players to go (I don’t follow cricket all that closely so maybe this information is not entirely accurate.)
20/20 is certainly a lot easier to digest than the test or one-day versions of the game. I don’t think baseball has anything to worry about, though.
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