SPORTS April 23, 2007 Issue

GONE TO THE CRICKET

KIM SHIPPEY, SENIOR WRITER

WHILE AMERICAN BASEBALL FANS are settling into their seats in the early days of another season, sports enthusiasts in 16 other countries have been indulging their passion for cricket during the five-week quadrennial World Cup tournament, which concludes April 18 in Bridgetown, Barbados.

As we go to press, there's no knowing who will reach the final. But the fierceness of the competition so far, and the fearlessness of batsmen, bowlers, and barehanded fielders during seven-hour matches in the broiling Caribbean sun, suggest that cricket might deserve as much respect as its American cousin. It's a tough, sometimes brutal game, in which a rockhard ball is hurled at speeds of up to 100 miles per hour at an opponent holding a wooden bat, who stands no more than 22 yards away. The international following, especially for one-day cricket, could be even larger than that for baseball.

Recently I spent ten days playing cricket in South Africa—the top one-day cricketing nation at the start of this year's World Cup championship. But this was cricket with a difference—literally, grass-roots stuff. I was challenged to a series of half-hour matches by a freckled seven-year-old with flaming red hair and a flaming passion for the game. Michael cannot get enough of it.

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