After 'Million Dollar Arm', time now for 'Million Dollar Bat'

DUBAI: When Rinku Singh won the ' Million Dollar Arm' show in 2008, the Indians' 'Great American Dream' of playing professional baseball became a reality and now the promoters of that very contest want Americans to realise the 'Great Indian Dream' of playing in cash-rich IPL.

Sports agent JB Bernstein and partner Ash Vasudevan, co-creators of 'Million Dollar Arm', that gave Rinku a chance to become a professional pitcher (thrower), today announced a cricket reality show ' Million Dollar Bat' to find baseball batters to compete for the chance to play cricket in the Indian Premier League (IPL).

In fact, the tournament does have the blessings of BCCI with all-powerful IPL COO Sundar Raman giving his vote of confidence for the event.

"Anything that helps grow the game of cricket and bring new talent in is very welcome," Raman said.

"When we went to India no one had ever heard of baseball. We 'borrowed' the American Idol format, replaced the microphone with a baseball, and followed the old adage:"Show me a guy, who throws hard and I'll teach him how to pitch," said Bernstein, at the Host Cities summit, here today.

It is a two-day conference with experts from the fields of sport and other major events looking to take Dubai's lead in winning and hosting major world events.

Bernstein goes onto recollect,"Along came Rinku with his 88 miles-per-hour arm and the naturally talented Dinesh Patel and the rest as they say is history. Now we're looking to do it again but with cricket.

"Having spoken to a number of professional baseball players and cricketers myself, there is a great deal of crossover between the two sports - especially in terms of hand-eye coordination - and I'm confident that we'll find ourselves, a US-born IPL star," he added.

In fact, a Hollywood film by the same name was released, last May, based on the lives of Rinku and Dinesh.

Rinku's role was essayed by 'Life of Pi' hero Suraj Singh while American actor John Hamm portrayed Bernstein's character.