The Natural

Who is the greatest living batsman? You could make a reasonable case for Manny, for A-Rod, for Albert Pujols; for Barry Bonds; for Hammerin' Hank. All reasonable choices, to be sure, but given population figures there's probably a greater constituency for the man pictured above, the great Indian cricketer Sachin Tendulkar. Last week, Tendulkar became the all-time scoring leader in "test" cricket after scoring his 12,000 career run. The righty from Mumbai was a child prodigy at the sport, like Manny, and is admired especially for his beautiful, textbook form. Baseball and cricket are cousins (baseball is not a derivation of cricket, a common misconception) that require mastery of the difficult art of placing bat on a whizzing ball. Putting aside our chauvinist ideas about the superior game, surely we can all appreciate those in either sport who can perform that feat with consistent excellence.

Comments

[LocklandSF]

My father spent a lot of time trying to teach me cricket, his love of baseball drew him to the game when he was in the Navy traveling the world by submarine.

I still don't have a clue, and reading Sachin Tendulkar's wiki page game me a headache.

[Sam-YF]

Yeah but how many sixes has he hit in his career?

[krueg]

I played cricket a few times in Bermuda...it's real fun and much harder than it looks!

[dw (sf)]

all I know is that's where the term "sticky wicket" comes from.

[I'mBillMcNeal]

I threw that asshole a wicked googlie once and he hit the snot out of it.

[I'mBillMcNeal]

OK, that last post was a lie.