Introducing cricket in US schools contd/....

I don't agree with the common opinion that Americans will not take to cricket because of long duration of game in order to get a result (not talking about T20). They do have enough patience to wait & watch a Quality sport. Yes, American sports like baseball, basketball or college football are played for 3-4 hours maximum. Let's look at major Golf tournaments, they are played over a few days (as good as a Cricket Test match) and spectators patiently wait for the golfers to hit a shot, then walk some distance, do some calculation & then hit the next one. Result is derived after a good few days. I believe, Quality is a mandatory requirement. Enough knowledge provided to the spectators will surely generate interest in the game of Cricket amongst American population.

PE teachers, in the first 2 sessions, have shown enough interest by asking questions about batting, bowling, fielding, basic rules & strategies involved in cricket. Questions such as why can't the elbow be bent while bowling, why do we need to rotate the arm while bowling, why does a batsman need to go on back foot while batting, why can't a batsman swing at all deliveries, what is a good length ball, which ball does a batsman defend & which one goes to the 'Cow Corner' (towards deep midwicket).

Questions about running the batsman out, which end to throw to get a batsman out. Since they are use to running towards the next base in baseball, some of the PE teachers by default started running in circles while playing a cricket match. They felt a little hard to adjust running staright up & down, however, they just took a couple of chances to get adjusted and believe you me, they were running good.

The third session is coming up on Feb 24th, in which I anticipate about 40 odd more PE teachers. This time it will be Elementary school teachers. I am really looking forward to this session before we start going in to schools to do sessions with the school kids involving these PE teachers...

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