CRICKET, ANYONE?

BASEBALL MAY HAVE GOTTEN ITSELF into a sticky wicket, but from mid-March through mid-Septemher, members of the Dallas County Cricket Club will don their traditional white shirts and pants and converge on the grounds of The Hockaday School to play the game that is the forerunner of America’s pastime.

The club, one of five or six in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, has been faithfully playing matches almost every Sunday for 35 years. It is the only local club that participates in the Southwest Cricket Conference and travels around the country for tournaments

Most who play are English or hail from one of Britain’s former colonies, such as Indian Suhas Naik. “Very few Americans play the game,” he says, “because it can be an all-day affair.”

If cricket is slower than baseball, it’s also more civilized. No crotch-grabbing or Red Man-spitting-in fact, players take a lunch break and tea breaks. And no apoplectic managers rake the umpires with profanity.

Other differences: Rather than slice-of pie-shaped, the field is a circle with a 70-yard radius. The fielders don’t use gloves, and there are only two bases (“wickets”), which are three sticks (“stumps”) stuck in the ground. One face of the bat is flat, and the hall ( red leather with a cork center) is bounced when pitched. You score if you hit the hall outside the circle, or if it rolls across the boundary. Otherwise, you have to run.

While the U.S. does have a national cricket team, there are no pros in this country. The richest “cricketer” in the world, even with endorsements, makes far less than the seven figures hauled down by his baseball counterpart.

Naik himself is a disappointed fan who holds Texas Rangers season tickets: “A cricketer always fancies himself being able to play baseball,” he says.

For more information on this baseball alternative, contact Suhas Naik at 214-340-3501.