England cricketers Harry Brook and Issy Wong have been named Major League Baseball Europe ‘ambassadors’ ahead of June’s games at London.
Brook, who has made a fantastic start to his Test career, making four centuries in his first six matches, is to join the St. Louis Cardinals for their spring training in Florida.
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The Cardinals face the Chicago Cubs in a two-game series at London Stadium on June 24 and 25.
“It’s going to be amazing to see baseball first hand in the US and help spread the word back in the UK and hopefully help build baseball’s fan base here.” England Test player Wong, 20, who recently secured a contract in India’s Women’s Premier League with Mumbai Indians, posed in a Cubs jersey as part of the MLB’s promotion for the game.
“I think there’s definitely things that, as cricketers, we can learn from baseball,” said Wong.
“I’m really excited for this partnership and can’t wait to try my hand at hitting some home runs,” Brook said in an MLB press release.
“I’m intrigued to see how different it is to cricket and what similarities there are too – will a home run feel as good as hitting a six?” he said.
Brook says he will be looking to see if he can pick up any skills to add to his impressive batting repertoire which has been honed under the all-out ‘Bazball’ attack of England coach Brendon McCullum and skipper Ben Stokes.
“I’m also excited to learn from how other professional sportspeople go about their game and see if there are any transferable skills between batting in baseball and cricket,” he said.
It’s not his first time being exposed to the crossover between baseball and cricket.
Brook spent the 2018/19 season as a young English professional in the cauldron of Sydney grade cricket, playing for the University of New South Wales after a disappointing County Championship where he averaged 25 for Yorkshire.
Brook scored over 1000 runs that summer at an average of 50.5 in all forms, and while he was in Sydney, worked with Sydney-based batting coach Darius Visser, who works with baseball players to bring the power-hitting techniques of baseball into a cricketing context.
Brook returned to the UK in 2020 to announce himself in the T20 Blast, averaging 55 and striking at 163 despite batting in the middle order.
Since then, his pure ball-striking has seen him rocket into Test contention, becoming England men’s Test cap 707 after plundering 967 runs at 107.44 in the County Championship last year.