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by Jason Daniels

Cricketer D’Arcy Short and former MLBer Luke Hughes open up on the growing connection between the two bat and ball relatives and how cricket can draw even more inspiration from the world of baseball.

It’s with a smack of the bat and smooth torque of a baseball clean-up hitter that D’Arcy Short knocks an eye-raising six at Auckland’s Eden Park.

The date is February 16, 2018 and team Australia are chasing a record deficit against New Zealand in the Trans-Tasman Twenty20 (T20) series. Australia need 244 runs (8 more than the current record chase) if they are to defeat the rival Kiwis on their home soil.

Short stands at the crease, the massive run total his to chip away at.

He executes to plan, spearheading a record-breaking assault with gusto and good fortune. By the time it’s over, Short notches 76 runs from 44 balls, earning Man of the Match honors as Australia top the near insurmountable tally with 5 wickets and 7 balls remaining.

(Above: 43 seconds…For his torrid performances during the 2017-18 BBL season, Short was aptly named ‘King of the Six’.)

This was Short’s year.

During the 2017-18 Big Bash League (BBL) campaign with the Hobart Hurricanes he became the first batsmen to score more than 500 runs in a season (the League’s 7^th since inception in 2011). He achieved the highest run total, most sixes, and highest individual game score of 122 not out.

That season, Short epitomized ‘big bash’ and batting ingenuity. If it appeared that Short was striking the ball unlike most others, that’s because he was.

Short To It, Long Through It

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Until he was thirteen years old, Short grew up playing baseball in the Northern Territory. He followed in his father’s steps, who was a state-level player. That’s where Short first learned to drive the ball.

“I loved the baseball,” he says, reflecting on his youth. “I had a cricket bat or a baseball bat in my hands hitting often in the backyard.”

Short was drawn to baseball batting, where getting out once didn’t mean the day was over. As his career has progressed, he’s leaned on his baseball experience to run up cricket scores at a skillful pace.

“Something that helped me when I first started playing cricket was always wanting to hit the ball and having that baseball swing technique in the background, wanting to get my hands through a bit quicker and hitting the ball a bit harder,” Short explains.

His approach sounds like that of a baseballer. He notes similarities in terms of the setup and mentality. When the ball is coming in at 140km an hour, there’s hardly time to think. “Try not to premeditate it too much and just watch the ball as hard as possible to try and commit to your shot.”

A natural overlap exists between baseball and cricket, especially in T20, where big swings are the norm and clearing the ropes equates to majestic home runs. The bat, whether in baseball or cricket, becomes an exclusively offensive weapon.

T20 has also redefined throwing and fielding, two often overlooked aspects of cricket that can separate good from great teams and narrow wins from razor-thin defeats.

“A massive thing that we can probably take out of it is the throwing side of things,” says Short. “That’s where I learned to have good technique, learned how to throw from a young age and have a reasonably strong arm from the start.”

Although baseball has played a formative role in Short’s career, he feels that cricket today can do so much more to incorporate baseball.

“I don’t think we tap into it as much as we should,” he admits.

Short says there’s no clear process for cricketers to learn from the world of baseball. “Generally, the onus is on you to go that way,” he says. But increasingly cricketers are turning to baseball to enhance their technical skills and even to gain inspiration.

Years after he first dropped the rounded baseball bat in favor of the flat cricket cousin, Short has continued to make the cross-over work, most recently thanks to guys like Luke Hughes.

COOL HANDS LUKE

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Luke Hughes is one of Australia’s most accomplished baseballers.

The 40-year-old Perth native played for ten seasons between the Perth Heat and Melbourne Aces and parts of three seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) with the Minnesota Twins and Oakland Athletics from 2010-12. He also spent more than a decade on the Australian National Baseball Team.

During his time in the big leagues, he manned third, second, and even first base on occasions.

Luke had a reputation as a safe pair of hands.

Upon returning to Australia, Hughes noticed a natural synergy between cricket and baseball. He felt he had something to give back to the sports as well.

“There’s a lot of translation from baseball to cricket,” he says. “Naturally for me being a cricket lover I’ve always been interested in the cross-sporting implementation of how to field.”

An aggressor at the plate, Hughes memorably homered in his first MLB at bat vs. future Hall of Famer Max Scherzer.

As Hughes discusses baseball, it’s impossible not to feel the passion he holds for his defensive craft. His talk of fielding technique is as elaborate as it is insightful.

With pedigree and purpose, Hughes joined the Western Australia Cricket Association (WACA) from 2017-18 to work with Perth Scorchers coach, Justin Langer, and Western Australia players on fielding and throwing as well as batting.

“That was really good fun,” he says.

During his second year with the WACA from 2022-23, he and D’Arcy Short became acquainted. It was welcome help for Short who had been going through trying times at the crease.

“We were doing some stuff to find his groove again because he had somewhat lost that power stroke, which set the T20 world on fire when he first started playing,” says Hughes.

Hughes knew he had someone to work with in Short. Cricketers who have prior experience with baseball clearly stand out. “They’re just so much different to the other guys. You can see the difference with their fielding techniques straight away.”

A winner of five Claxton Shields, Hughes has carried that winning mentality over to Australian cricket (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

At the crease, Hughes and Short worked on different shots, Short using a cricket and baseball bat to try and regain his technique. They focused on range hitting: trying to hit the ball as far as possible into the outfield, similar to baseball batting practice. “You’re hitting the ball to see where it goes and getting a feel of when you hit it that distance and just taking confidence out of that,” Short says.

This training came at a time when baseball-influenced power strokes were becoming increasingly common in T20. Today, Hughes says this approach is being taught at a younger age. “When [T20] first started, the older guys were still playing conventional cricket shots. The guys that have been coming through the system, these guys are coming out and actually belting the ball all around.”

A Wide Open Field

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Luke Hughes didn’t pioneer the overlap between baseball and cricket, but he’s aiming to take it to the next level.

One of the first major exchanges between baseball and cricket in Australia came through an American named Mike Young.

Young moved to Australia in 1981 as an animated baseball coach where he led the Queensland Rams to a Claxton Shield before managing the Australian baseball team at the 1988 Seoul Olympics.

He also coached the national squad to a famous victory at the 1999 Intercontinental Cup in Sydney.

Young introduced the idea of an Australian Baseball Academy that coincided with an uptick in Australians signed by MLB. Twice, in 1997 and 1999, he was named the International Baseball Association Coach of the Year.

By 2000, Australia cricket coach John Buchanan had noticed Young’s ability to develop talent and made him an intriguing offer: to help the national side as the first fielding coach in modern memory.

“He was the one that really changed the way the Australian cricket team went about fielding,” says Hughes.

Young helped to raise Australian fielding and superstars like Ricky Ponting to new heights.

For most of the 2000s, Young transformed Australia’s fielding abilities as the team marched to World Cup wins in 2003 and 2007 and multiple Ashes series romps.

His approach worked because as a hands-on coach, he emphasized effort and intensity to instill more aggressive fielding. Young also brought a fresh perspective to hand-eye ball skills borrowed from baseball. He could explain cricket in novel ways and propose ideas that opened new pathways to innovative tactics and better techniques.

This meant prioritizing sound throwing mechanics, anticipating the pace and location of batted balls, and first step reactions. In time, Young brought in baseball gloves to make playing catch easier with the hard cricket ball. “He actually talked about footwork and the throwing and added in a lot of different aspects,” notes Hughes.

That’s when Hughes feels cricket fielding for team Australia became elite. They had players like Ricky Ponting, one of the best fielders the sport has known. The international community soon took notice. Today, many professional teams utilize fielding coaches.

Throwing From The Feet Up

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Hughes counts himself a beneficiary of Young’s pioneering influence.

When Hughes first joined the WACA, he had similar messages to share.

“I was trying to change the mentality,” he says.

He noticed teams at the state association level bringing in baseball pitchers to discuss throwing. But the cricketers weren’t pitchers – they were essentially position players, which requires an altogether different skillset around fielding, footwork, and throwing on the move.

Hughes began a grass-roots effort to alter the mindset of local clubs before going deeper with the WACA. He identified specific areas for improvement. For instance, when fielders approached the ball diagonally or side-on instead of square to the ball, he saw how that left them fielding deep off one foot. As a result, by the time they replaced their feet and pivoted sideways, their mechanics were out of whack, their arms already behind them.

“They don’t actually use any of their weight transfer through their body to be able to throw harder,” Hughes observes. So, players had difficulty throwing accurately because their bodies weren’t in strong, stable positions.

In baseball, he notes that fielders are more conscientious about fielding with their feet out in front and at a bit of an angle. They quickly shift their feet to the target, enabling a firm and accurate throw.

In his second stint with the WACA, one of the things Hughes stressed was everyday footwork. He wanted players to get a better feel for their feet and the rhythm of flowing through the motions of fielding and throwing before they even did fielding drills.

As Hughes broke the mechanics down for players, results came quick. “They were like holy [shoot], my arm actually feels stronger.” Players were finally giving themselves a chance to get in the right throwing position. The upshot? “That essentially saves runs, which essentially helps you win,” says Hughes.

Hughes is helping to reimagine the long-neglected art of cricket fielding. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

This past summer demonstrated the importance of fielding in international cricket. When Australia faced Pakistan in test cricket, Pakistan dropped a number of catches.

According to Hughes, “if they caught 50% of the ones they dropped, the whole series would’ve been different.”

“There’s a big reason why the Perth Scorchers have won so many [BBL] championships. Because they have probably three or four elite fielders and they don’t have any below average fielders,” he says.

Other cricket teams will commonly hide below average defenders, and hope the ball isn’t hit their way. But weak spots are eventually revealed.

“That’s the biggest gap I see within the sport,” Hughes says.

Hughes used to attend BBL games and analyze missed fielding opportunities. One of the questions he presented to the WACA was ‘how many runs do you think an elite fielder will save in a T20 game?’ Hughes figures this could be 10 or more runs a game.

“Three elite fielders could be saving 30 runs per game, by diving, or people not running on their arms, or they catch the ball,” he says. In T20 matches where chases often come down to final overs, each run is precious.

Communicating that opportunity to clubs is an ongoing challenge. He finds that old-school mentalities persist.

At trainings, players will bowl and bat and maybe have a quick throw at the end. Coaches will float in and out to help with fielding, but there isn’t a concerted, prolonged push.

“They understand it and they know they need to do it, but no state body actually wants to commit the funds to change it or put someone on full-time,” Hughes notes.

This highlights a void compared with professional baseball where teams have infield and outfield instructors, base running coaches, and hitting and pitching coaches.

Hughes has discussed the importance of training players for fielding with former Australia baseball manager, John Deeble, who worked with Cricket Australia and the Indian Premier League (IPL), as well as with former ABL and MLB player Brad Harman, who has worked with cricketers in the Melbourne area.

“We’re all on the same page, but no real franchises are willing to put the money out there to hire a full-time person,” says Hughes.

“No one teaches [fielding] in cricket. No one actually says this is how you field a ball.”

 Building A Partnership

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That’s all likely to change.

The past decade of cricket has seen transformational changes – many with ties to baseball – and more are on the horizon.

Cricket has an impressive track record of including former baseballers, notes Dr. Jason Doyle, Sr. Lecturer of Sport Management at Griffith University. “A number of Australian national team cricketers – including former Test captains – have stated they benefited from playing both cricket and baseball growing up.”

Professional baseballers, too, have given back to cricket. Says Doyle, “[Australia manager and former MLB all-star Dave] Nilsson, perhaps Australia’s most famous baseball export, was credited with sharing tactical insights on how to identify batting strengths and weaknesses and assisting bowlers in learning new types of delivery.”

Remnants of baseball are on display through ‘Bazball’: an aggressive new approach to batting popularized by England’s Kiwi coach, Brendon ‘Baz’ McCullum, which upended the cricket world a couple years ago. The strategy encourages a free-flowing, entertaining, and high-risk flair where players attack each ball and clearly set out to seize the match.

Nilsson has brought coaching chops back to Australian cricket and the national baseball team. Photo: Scott Powick.

In recent years, rules have been implemented in both sports to limit length of play and where fielders may stand to produce fewer delays and more offense, says Associate Professor of Sport Management at Brock University, Dr. Michael Naraine.

Naraine, who grew up playing baseball in Canada and later consulted with the BBL, points out that just as Minor League Baseball (MiLB) represents a more experimental environment compared to Major League Baseball’s (MLB) traditional format, the BBL similarly offers a more casual alternative to test cricket’s old-school approach. Naturally, Australian cricketers have looked across the Pacific to see what baseball is up to.

Around the time that the BBL launched, Cricket Australia needed innovative ideas and new revenue streams. The BBL wanted to make the game more accessible and engaging to younger and female crowds. For inspiration, they turned to sports marketers who could enliven the game atmosphere.

A man named Night Train – yes, Night Train, – from the famed Veeck family that controversially transformed fan experiences for the Chicago White Sox in the 1970s, was brought in by the BBL to help.

“They hired him because he had this experience with MLB and MiLB and he brought that back to Cricket Australia,” says Naraine. “That was really an important milestone for the BBL.”

Teams began applying new features and infused more personality into the game.

“They brought in fireworks, zinger lights on the wicket bales, family festival atmospheres, bouncy castles, face paint, and a host of other new additions and brands such as Nickelodeon and Marvel to the sport environment.”

As Naraine suggests, the BBL began to see that “Minor league baseball in America is the way to test new product.”

Cricket’s Moneyball Moment

Baseball and cricket tell a story of continuous cross-pollination. It’s a matter of time before new exchanges occur. Meanwhile, the two sports are at a crossroads with the future of their growth at stake.

The good news is that baseball and cricket can help each other grow. Both can co-exist and thrive.

For one, Naraine feels that more youth would benefit from playing both sports. It would allow them to adapt their bodies and incorporate new abilities as they physically mature. By staying in a single context athletic environment, they miss out on that opportunity.

“Kids are starting to hyper-specialize earlier on, which is not the best thing for their development,” he says.

He cites Mason Cox from Collingwood of Australian Rules football as a shining example: a former American college basketball player who was able to translate his skills into a new sport at an elite level.

The moment is timely. In 2028, T20 will be a part of the Los Angeles Olympics. It will then be a feature event at the 2032 Olympics in Brisbane. Naraine sees 2032 as a massive opportunity for Australia.

“They’ve got an eight-year window before they have home field advantage at the Gabba [Brisbane Cricket Ground],” he says. This means that Australia has a generation of cricketers it can focus on now, training them with baseball skills to round out their physiology in time for the Olympic games when the world will be watching.

Competitive advantage is up for grabs, and incremental gains can mean the difference between victory and defeat. “It is kind of a Moneyball aspect. We need to tinker around the edges and if we can get just a slight competitive advantage, we can get that much better,” says Naraine. Doing so will require thought leadership, design thinking, and innovation.

“It’s a high-risk, high-reward situation,” he admits.

Naraine sees parallels with several sports that Australia can draw from as they chart a course to improve cricket skills. “We’ve seen that with coaching in [American] football in the US, we’ve seen it in soccer in Europe, we’ve seen it in other sports,” he says.

And with the Australian Baseball League (ABL) next door, cricket has turnkey support. “That is a huge competitive advantage for Australia. There is an ecosystem of baseball in Australia. If cricket can leverage that to make the cricketers better, why wouldn’t you want to do that?”

Luke Hughes offers a similar perspective, noting baseball’s own ‘Moneyball’ era. Considering how competitive entertainment and sports are today, that makes added eyeballs and registrations all the more imperative if leagues are to survive. “You’d think that any sport would look for any advantage they can get,” he says.

He mentions Major League Cricket (MLC) and Baseball United, two sporting bodies that have sprung up in the last couple years in traditionally baseball (USA) and cricket (Middle East and South Asia) territories, respectively.

However, Australia is the only country with established professional leagues in both baseball and cricket – not yet counting the novel leagues above. No other country has such an inherent advantage to achieve this cross-sport success.

What’s Next, Plus Some Predictions

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Luke Hughes has every intention to continue coaching cricket.

He says he just received a message from two state players on the under-19 Western Australia women’s team who asked for help with their fielding.

“It’s a very similar thing to the girls’ program,” he says. “They just want information. They don’t get enough coaching and they just lapped up every little thing that I’ve discussed with them.”

D’Arcy Short, meanwhile, continues to follow bits and pieces of baseball in America. The time difference means early morning hours which sometimes makes it inconvenient to watch. One of his goals is to see a MLB game in the flesh.

“That’s probably one of those things that’s on my bucket list: to get over to America and watch it live,” he says.

In the meantime, ever a student of the game, Short will have to settle for practicing baseball. His next plans? “I’m actually trying to go down to a Perth Heat training session and have a swing of a baseball bat.”

Over 100 kids in Adelaide play tee-ball outside the iconic Adelaide Oval in South Australia. Is more cross-pollination between sports on the cards? Photo: Hugh Whittle.

The partnership between baseball and cricket reflects Australia’s resourcefulness, creativity, and athletic spirit. Going forward, what could baseball take away from cricket and vice versa? A few predictions and watch-outs:

• Designated batsmen. Like the designated hitter (DH) in baseball, designated batsmen in cricket would add offensive skill and excitement to matches while bowlers (save for all-rounders) can focus on their craft. At the time MLB was considering adding the DH to the National League, the same Max Scherzer that Luke Hughes homered off said, “Who would people rather see, a real hitter hitting home runs or a pitcher swinging a wet newspaper?” Players get to do what they do best while fan engagement is maximized.

• Better cricket fielding stats. History is light on cricket fielding metrics. In the spirit of the ‘Moneyball’ era and the age of mass analytics, cricket could use greater data in areas like fielder spacing, ground covered, runs saved, and throwing efficiency and speed. Teams could strategize accordingly and prepare matchups based on their strengths and the particular opposing team to squeeze the most out of their defensive abilities.

• More skills competitions. This July, MLB instituted a Futures Skills Showcase where top prospects competed in three batting skills challenges: hitting the ball to infield and outfield targets, ‘calling their shot’ by choosing which part of the field they’ll hit the ball to, and swinging for the fences where bonuses are awarded for consecutive and opposite field homeruns. Similarly, the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) has showcased “Bunt King and Perfect Pitcher” competitions during all-star festivities. Both baseball and cricket can run with these ideas, adding challenges around fielding ability, throwing accuracy, and batting prowess for fans to lap up and the next generation to study up.

• Baseball powerplays. In shorter cricket formats, ‘powerplays’ are used where defending teams are restricted in where they can place fielders. This opens up the ground to more runs and action. “I think Major League Baseball will eventually get to that place too,” says Naraine. Imagine in the 6^th inning of every baseball game taking out one of your outfielders or shifting where they can stand. Advantage to batters, excitement for fans, win-win for MLB.

MLB is currently looking around the world for inspiration, says Naraine, just as cricket will need to do to continue attracting fans. Cricket will likely look to baseball as it has done before.

The appetite for more baseball collaboration is encouraging. And there’s no telling where it may come from next. As South Australia MP, Jayne Stinson, shared while congratulating the Adelaide Giants on their 2022-23 Claxton Shield, “although there is much that we might prefer we did not have from American culture in Australian culture, baseball is certainly not one of those.”