England Cricket World Cup winner makes professional baseball debut in the USA

England Cricket World Cup winner makes professional baseball debut in the USA originally appeared on Cricket News.
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KEY TAKEAWAYS:

• Liam Plunkett made his professional baseball debut for the Oakland Ballers, striking out a hitter on Friday.
• The 41-year-old was part of England‘s 2019 50-over World Cup-winning squad before moving to the United States.
• Plunkett is the first English cricketer to ever play professional baseball in any league.

England Cricket World Cup winner makes professional baseball debut in the USA

Few sporting careers take a turn quite like this one. Liam Plunkett, a key part of England’s World Cup triumph in 2019, has reinvented himself once more, trading the cricket field for the baseball diamond with a professional debut in California on Friday night.

The 41-year-old took to the mound for the Oakland Ballers against the Yuba-Sutter Freebirds in the Pioneer Baseball League, an independent competition recognised as a Major League Baseball partner. He threw five pitches and struck out Josh Duarte in front of 1,878 fans at Raimondi Park.

His moment of success could not spare the home side, who slipped to an 18-11 defeat on the night. Still, the strikeout ensured Plunkett walked away with a story few cricketers could ever tell about reinvention long after the international game had finished with them.

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From Lord’s to the mound

Plunkett will forever be associated with England’s finest day in one-day cricket. He played a starring role in the 2019 World Cup final against New Zealand at Lord’s, taking three wickets in a tied contest that England eventually won on boundary count.

That final proved to be his last international appearance. Across a decade in England colours, the Durham, Yorkshire and Surrey seamer played 13 Tests, 89 one-day internationals and 22 T20 internationals, claiming 201 wickets in all formats before stepping away from the international game for good.

An unusual style on debut

Plunkett admitted his approach on the mound owed plenty to his old trade. He described his method as a “bit unusual” and a “mix between bowling and pitching,” the natural result of a cricketer learning to channel years of fast bowling into a new discipline.

He had tried batting in training before deciding that pitching suited him better. “The swing path when you bat is so different compared to cricket, especially when someone is pitching at 90mph,” Plunkett told BBC Sport, joking that a “monster home run” would have gone viral.

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A rare cross-sport switch

The appearance was made possible by the Pioneer League’s marketing player exception, a clause that lets clubs sign a high-profile name outside their usual roster rules. Plunkett believes the move made history, saying he is likely “the first English cricketer to ever play a professional game of baseball.”

Now settled in the United States, Plunkett is part of the San Francisco Unicorns squad in Major League Cricket, though he is yet to feature this season. Reflecting on his debut, he said simply that to “play my first game and get a strikeout, I couldn’t ask for more.”

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