The St. Louis Cardinals snatched victory from the jaws of defeat in the sixth game of the Baseball World Series against the Texas Rangers. Trailing 3-2 in the best of seven series, they were twice within a pitch of defeat but some opportunistic hitting by their batters saved the day. The winning run was a towering two run homer to center field in extra innings.
The rather pretentiously named World Series is limited to teams from the USA plus a couple from Canada. Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and Cuba are some of the countries who might have their own point of view regarding the World Series as each country has a very high standard of baseball played there. In fact the amateur and the junior game are dominated by some of these very countries.
American professional teams which tour Japan on occasion, find the going very tough there. Baseball is an adaptation of the English playground game “rounders”, but has become a huge sport in North America as well as in the previously mentioned countries. It is similar to cricket only in the sense that there is a bat and a ball. Twenty20 cricket would be the closest to baseball; in fact it is much more exciting as there are a lot more shots played and runs scored than in baseball.
While in cricket, top batsmen average over fifty runs an over, baseball batters who make contact with the ball and reach first base three time out of every ten at bats are considered super stars and earn tens of millions of dollars a year. In the field, they are allowed to use a glove the size of a small basket to catch the ball. A forward short leg fielder in cricket, camped under a helmet a couple of yards from the harm’s way and earning a tiny fraction of what the baseball superstars make, would be quite bemused by that. Baseball pitchers are highly sought after.
The best of them fire the ball in at over a hundred miles per hour, making it swerve in every direction. Baseball has taken root in Pakistan lately and some of our teams seem to have done quite well on their overseas tours. It is, however, unlikely that baseball will ever make any dent in the passion that we hold for cricket.
What Pak cricket could learn from baseball: What Pakistan cricket could learn from baseball is the way it is marketed by the Major League teams and the way their various farm teams and scouting is conducted. Each team plays about 160 games every season and the stands are usually quite full. Tickets can cost over $100 for the best seats. The reason is that an evening at a baseball game is a pleasurable experience, complete with music and showmanship of a high order.
The Indian T20 leagues have used basically the same formula and have been very successful despite paying huge salaries to the players. Pakistan’s first class cricket has not been marketed professionally and our new cricket chairman could do worse than to consider hiring a Major League Baseball expert as a consultant.
Impressive show by Misbah’s charges: The Pakistan cricket team continues to impress on the field against Sri Lanka in their series in the UAE. They look like a team that has gelled well and there do not seem to be any prima donna, the so called superstars who had become a bane for our team on and off the field.
While we have always had good bowlers, the present group Umar Gul, Junaid Khan and Aizaz Cheema has been impressive on the unresponsive pitches. The spinners, Saeed Ajmal and Abdur Rehman backed up by the batting all rounder, Mohammad Hafeez, must be among the best around. What is encouraging is the consistency of the batting.
In particular, Azhar Ali the youngster who has made the one down position his own following a series of half centuries followed by his maiden hundred in Dubai. Azhar is a percentage player who sells his wicket dearly. He plays with the full face of the bat, scoring with deflections and nudges early on and then moving on to more aggressive play.
Asad Shafiq is another who has impressed with his temperament. Taufiq Umar should have always been in the opening spot and his double hundred in Abu Dhabi underlined his temperament and discipline. With Hafeez in the other openers’ spot and the veterans Misbah and Younis in the middle order, our batting looks like it can always give our bowlers runs with which they can attack the opposing batsmen.
The Abu Dhabi Test was drawn because of a series of inexplicable dropped catches. This is the weak link in our team. If our bowlers have to get fifteen wickets while the opposition picks up even the half chances, then the odds are indeed stacked against us. It might be worth considering the Australian formula for selection into their national team. A player has to excel in at least two of the cricketing disciplines if he is to be considered for selection.
He either has to be a good all-rounder or a batsman or bowler who is an excellent fieldsman. Were we to use this formula on our top players of the past, players like Inzamam and Zaheer would have struggled to make the team and would consequently have been forced to work on their athleticism and their fielding.
A batsman with an average of fifty who leaks ten runs an inning and drops a vital catch would be akin to a batsman who averages thirty five but is an excellent fielder. This selection criterion would motivate our players to not only concentrate on their averages, but also to save runs and take half chances.
