Twenty20 hits a home run

The advent of T20s has encouraged more Americans to turn to cricket as a serious career option, writes Paul Rhys for CNN.

Julien Fountain, the former fielding coach for Pakistan's Test cricketers who also played baseball for Great Britain, is recruiting American players to a scheme he calls Switch Hit 20 -- aimed at taking the inherent aptitude and athleticism of ballplayers and training them in the nuances of Twenty20 cricket. "I'm not trying to take players away from a baseball career," says Fountain, who had tryouts with the Royals, the White Sox and the Mets, before coaching some of cricket's top international teams using skills learned in the ballpark.