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Usain Bolt serious about taking up professional cricket
Usain Bolt might be serious about switching baton for a bat.
The superstar sprinter really has nothing left to conquer in track and field after being a triple gold medallist in successive Olympiads. There is the possibility of finding a new event for Rio 2016 such as the long jump, but that involves four more years of mind-numbing training. There will be time for that, but in the short run, why not have some fun.
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Bolt played cricket as a youth in Jamaica. Now he has a quite serious offer to join an Australian team later this year to play Twenty20 cricket (the relatively sped-up version where a game usually lasts 3½ hours, still longer than even an American League baseball game).
Legendary leg-spinner [Shane] Warne has offered him the opportunity to participate in Australia's Big Bash League which runs between December 7 and January 9. Bolt will consider the offer, if he can get enough time off.
Bolt said: "If I get the chance I will definitely try because I know it's going to be a lot of fun. I don't know how good I am. I will probably have to get a lot of practice in.
"Warne contacted me and asked me about if I am serious and if I really want to do it then he can put in a few words that should get it done. So we will see if I get the time off. I will try."
And of all the various forms of the game, the Twenty20 version is Bolt's favourite as he can relate to the high tempo drama to which he is accustomed in the field of athletics.
"Twenty20, I love it. Just the fact that it is so exciting, it's about going hard the whole time, not just about playing shots. (Daily Mail)
What's one month with Rio 2016 four long years away? It's another year until the next International Associations of Athletics Federations world championships, too. Bolt would hardly be the first person who reached the summit of his sport and decided to try another one — remember Michael Jordan riding the bus as a .200-hitting outfielder for the minor-league Birmingham Barons.
[Related: Canadian track team shows promise for the future]
Bolt, who's also mused about trying soccer with Manchester United, has some serious cricket chops. During one fun event in 2009 he clean-bowled — i.e., struck out — Chris Gayle, who at the time was captain of the West Indies' Test team
Neate Sager is a writer for Yahoo! Canada Sports. Contact him at neatesager@yahoo.ca and follow him on Twitter @neatebuzzthenet.
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