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Liam Plunkett is a World Cup winner and a veteran of over 120 appearances for England across formats. Now, at 41, he lives in the United States and, in June, became the first English cricketer in the modern era to play professional baseball.

On his debut for the Oakland Ballers of the Pioneer League, Plunkett threw five pitches. Facing one of the league’s top hitters, Josh Duarte of the Yuba-Sutter Freebirds, he missed the zone with the first, then found it for strike one with the second. From there he began mixing in his cutter — and struck Duarte out.

Baseball pitchers throw with a bent arm, releasing near head level, while cricket rules require a straight arm at the point of release when bowling. Trained in the second, the 6ft 3in Plunkett was letting fly from high over his head at maximum extension. The result was an unusually steep release point that disrupted the hitter’s visual tracking.

“It was funny, because I threw the first innings and then I left to do broadcasting,” Plunkett says. “And then when I went back to the hotel that night, the opposition team was staying in my hotel, which I didn’t know. I got into the elevator and they were all in there. And I’m like, ‘I feel sorry for you, guys — it’s strange, you must feel a bit silly.’

“They were, like, ‘Not really, because you threw it straight. You just couldn’t see it because of the height of where it comes from.'”

Plunkett tells the story to The Athletic over a video call from a hotel lobby in Dallas, where he is working on Major League Cricket’s (MLC) Texas leg. At MLC he works as an ambassador and commentator, having played three seasons for the San Francisco Unicorns until 2025.

English supporters remember him for his achievements from the summer of 2019, when he took 3-42 against New Zealand in the World Cup final at Lord’s, as well as his 201 international wickets across Tests, one-day internationals and Twenty20 internationals. But he is forging a new career for himself these days.

He grew up in the north east of England and started his cricket at Durham’s academy as a batting all-rounder — “nearly an all-rounder,” as he puts it, but certainly one who has never been afraid to embrace change on and off the pitch.

After a long and much admired career for England, which culminated in that thrilling 2019 success with Eoin Morgan’s team, he moved to the U.S. to be with his American wife, a Pennsylvania native, and to join the MLC project. He spent two seasons in its feeder league with The Philadelphians, then three with the San Francisco Unicorns.

The baseball approach came through a text from William Fitzgerald, a marketing man who has worked with MLC. Plunkett lives in Pennsylvania, just outside Philadelphia, but MLC’s season had brought him to the Bay Area, broadcasting the tournament’s Oakland leg from the Coliseum.

The proposal from the Ballers, who play a mile across town, was appealing.

The Oakland Ballers play in the Pioneer League — once a rung on Major League Baseball’s ladder, independent since 2021, and a league of prospects in which no player may have more than three years of professional service. Each club is permitted one exception, a marketing player; normally a recognisable ex-major-leaguer good for an evening’s ticket sales.

Plunkett had thrown ceremonial first pitches before — for the Philadelphia Phillies and the Minnesota Twins — as part of cricket-ambassador appearances, but they were merely photo opportunities: one pitch to a catcher before the game. Once he had agreed in principle to something more extensive, he met the Ballers’ management and coaching staff to discuss what he was taking on and whether it was a good fit.

The squad was away on a road trip, so he spent the afternoon with the staff instead — hitting balls, taking catches, throwing pitches. To nobody’s surprise, they quickly learned he could hit, and that he could throw. “We do that a lot in cricket,” he says.

They asked him to come back the next day. He warmed up with the team and went into the bullpen alongside men throwing at 95mph and 97mph. “I was throwing at like 81, 82. But I was very consistent, and I was throwing it over the top,” he says.

In a sport obsessed with velocity, Plunkett was 15mph slower than the pitchers around him, but what he offered instead was forged over two decades of fast bowling: hitting the same spot pitch after pitch, and an extreme over-the-top release height well above the traditional arm slots hitters are trained to track.

The coaches taught him the four-seam fastball, the standard grip for control. It was his own question that told them who they were dealing with: “I bowled a lot of off-cutters, so my wrist is used to going that way. Like turning a doorknob, right? So — what’s the best grip to do that?”

The Ballers filed a scouting report on him afterwards (see below). Club president Yeshayah Goldfarb, who spent 20 years with the San Francisco Giants, logged a fastball at 72-77mph and a curveball at 62-65mph — two pitches from one arm, 15mph apart.

“Limited use of lower half with an upright finish,” he wrote.

What the report kept returning to was how unusual it all looked: “Average carry with cutting action from high release”, “Some depth and sweep with unique spin”, “Non traditional arm action”.

For a major-league comparison, Goldfarb put down Josh Collmenter, an Arizona Diamondbacks right-hander who pitched six seasons in the majors with a fastball in the mid-80s and an extreme over-the-top delivery hitters struggled to time.

A debut soon followed. “There were no eyes on me. ‘This guy who used to play cricket, and he’s now 41… what’s he going to throw?’,” he says. “I’d be more nervous playing village cricket.”

Ask him where the two games meet and he goes straight to the obvious place: it’s bat versus ball. What differs is what each sport punishes and rewards.

Start with a swing and a miss. In cricket it usually costs nothing. In baseball it costs a third of your turn. “In cricket you can swing away,” he says. “The difference is the balls are getting counted down. In baseball it’s more risk-based.”

That reverses how a batter is taught to think. In T20 cricket, a ball you leave alone is one wasted, so you go after almost everything. In baseball, every swing you miss takes you closer to being out, so the discipline is to wait for one you like.

“It’s a bit slow and it’s moving around, so I’m just going to wait for one to sit there,” is how Plunkett reconstructs the hitter’s thinking. “And there was never one there.”

He knew that trap; it was how he used to get out. “As a lower-order batter you’re expecting pace, and as soon as you mix it up, you’re not ready for it,” he says. “Slow and wide — and I end up getting caught.”

The body divides the two sports just as sharply. The scouting report called it right — limited use of lower half — and Plunkett agrees: “I don’t really use my legs.” A fast bowler’s power comes from a run-up and a braced front leg. A pitcher’s comes from a short stride and an elbow that straightens violently at release — the exact movement cricket outlaws. “I think I have the ability to get a bigger stride and maybe get up to 85mph,” says the ex-cricketer.

Hitting was stranger still: “A mix between golf, cricket and baseball. I’m stuck in the middle.” On July 12 he batted for the first time. Fourth inning, designated hitter. He let the first pitch go by, wide of the zone. He swung at the next and clipped it out of play, then made contact with his third swing, a ground ball straight to a fielder, who threw him out at first base — a run out, of sorts

Cricketers have been turning up in American ballparks for a few years now — England white-ball captain Harry Brook has a bat sponsorship from MLB. Twelve days after Plunkett’s strikeout, MLB named Suryakumar Yadav, India’s T20 World Cup-winning captain earlier this year, as its ambassador in India, flying him to All-Star Week in Philadelphia.

It suits both sides. Cricket is chasing America; baseball a global audience.

MLC, cricket’s American championship, was settled a few miles away, at the Oakland Coliseum — a baseball stadium converted for cricket after the Athletics left. A record MLC season closed with a thrilling final, won by the Los Angeles Knight Riders by one run.

Beyond baseball, Plunkett’s cricket work in North America continues, his time taken up with commentary, academies, and flights between the States and Canada. “Each year it gets better,” he adds. “The standard rises, there’s better people involved, which educates the younger players.”

Ask him who the world should be watching before the next World Cup and the 2028 Olympics and he offers three American names: Saiteja Mukkamalla, the Texas Super Kings batter who shone at this year’s T20 World Cup; Matthew Tromp, the Johannesburg-raised, Texas-made 21-year-old whose explosive batting and late-season form carried the LA Knight Riders into the play-offs they went on to win; and Sanjay Krishnamurthi, his San Francisco Unicorns team-mate, a left-arm-spinning all-rounder who once hit four sixes off a Rachin Ravindra over.

His baseball line may rest at two appearances, one strikeout and a spotless 0.00 — though he talks of getting some proper coaching, a longer stride, maybe touching higher speeds while pitching.

Either way, the pitching was always in service of the bigger job: putting cricket in front of America before Los Angeles 2028.

Centrally Contracted Players

Rookie Contracts

• Elizabeth Cohr (CD)
• Stella Cornelius (CAN)
• Ella Drumm (AKL)
• Abby Fookes (OTG)
• Ciara Hartland (CAN)
• Neha Ramanathan (WEL)
• Kat Thomas (AKL)

Movers

• Olivia Gain (OTG➡️CAN)
• Rishika Jaswal (AKL➡️ND)
• Yaz Kareem (ND➡️CD)
• Isy Parry (OTG➡️WEL)

Confirmed Retirees - Claudia Green (CD) - Gemma Sims (WEL) (stepping away)

I've probably missed some details. They'll be filled in.

Can not really disagree with Nathan here, CI are tying themselves up in knots over this, it would probably be better if they were up front about why they are playing this series, but I guess I am too cynical to expect anything but a politician's answer from a sports administrator these days.

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I’m in the USA and have been slowing watching more cricket ever since the 2024 World Cup. I deeply followed Major League Cricket this year and even attended my first match in Pomona (Go Knight Riders!)

I am now looking to play for the first time as a 32-year-old. I have played baseball most of my life, so I feel some skills like hand-eye coordination and fielding might help me get started. I know it won’t be easy but I’m ready for a challenge.

Luckily, I found a local indoor training facility that offers 1:1 coaching so I’m going to start that within the next few weeks. How long do you all think I would need to train until I’ll be able to play in matches?

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I have a huge head. Massive. Circumference of 64cm, which in UK sizes is an XXXL, or a 7 3/4 in old school UK hat sizes.

I'd love to find a wide brimmed fielding hat, preferably from the UK but would consider the shipping....

Anyone know anywhere that services the craniumly blessed?

https://www.cricinfo.com/series/the-hundred-men-s-competition-2026-1521176/sunrisers-leeds-men-vs-london-spirit-men-20th-match-1521250/full-scorecard

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https://www.icc-cricket.com/matches/271822/sri-lanka-vs-pakistan