In cricket, he knows to hit it where they ain't

A newcomer masters a world mainstay

Dan Drebing has the distinction of playing on the only college varsity cricket team in the country.

A two-sport athlete back at Holliston High, Drebing now suits up for Haverford College, which fields a cricket program that can trace its roots to the middle of the 19th century.

"My experience with cricket started when my cousin came back from a trip to India a few years ago," said Drebing, a sophomore at the liberal arts college outside Philadelphia. "He brought home a bat and a DVD of a match and gave me a cursory overview of the rules. I also found out then that Haverford, not far away from their house, had a team.

"When I was accepted to Haverford, a family member gave me a cricket bat, somewhat jokingly, but the gift put the idea in my head," added Drebing, who played lacrosse and volleyball in high school.

Cricket, a game that originated in England and had a direct influence on the evolution of baseball, is Haverford's oldest and most distinctive sport, and was believed to be introduced by the English landscape architect who planned the campus in 1833. One of the first intercollegiate cricket matches on record was Haverford's victory over the University of Pennsylvania in 1864. The college also houses one of North America's most comprehensive collections of memorabilia from the sport at its C.C. Morris Cricket Library.

Drebing's varsity coach is Kamran Khan, a former US team captain from Pakistan, which is among the former British colonies where cricket remains a major sport. The Haverford roster has players from England, South Africa, Nepal, India, and the United Arab Emirates, as well as several Americans.

Haverford's squad plays both fall and spring schedules, competing against Philadelphia-area cricket clubs and college club teams, and has had three undefeated seasons over the last six years. The team finished with a 3-2 record this fall. Haverford teams won nine of 10 matches while touring England and Scotland in 1990 and were 8-0 during a trip to England in 1996.

"Of all the aspects of cricket," Drebing said, "the culture and the teammates are the most appealing. There is a whole world of cricket that I was completely blind to before playing here.

"The batting motion is very different than a baseball swing and the fact that the ball bounces forces you to pay attention to one more thing when trying to hit it. Coming from a culture so dominated by baseball, it was difficult to learn to swing the bat underhand and not always try to hit the ball as hard as possible," Drebing said. "The size of the pitch," or batting area, "in cricket, and the fact there are no foul balls, calls for more wit when batting than pure strength."

Drebing has also been called upon as a bowler - the equivalent of baseball's pitcher - and he said the overhand throwing motion felt strange initially. "I realized very quickly how difficult is it to put the ball right on the wickets while bowling quickly," said Drebing, who is also a member of Haverford's fencing team. There, too, he's been a quick study.

"Dan stepped into a varsity slot that opened unexpectedly at midseason," said fencing coach Chris Spencer. "Having only a few months of experience before college, but a solid technical background, he learned the intricacies of the game at a rapid pace and bested fencers from schools like Johns Hopkins and the University of North Carolina."

Khan, the cricket coach at Haverford for 35 years, has likewise been impressed with Drebing's progress.

"Dan is a keen student of the game, he's a very good athlete and in his first year he was given the Most Improved Freshman Award. He has learned the bowling and batting skills very quickly, and I believe that during the next two years he will learn enough to be able to play for most of the cricket clubs in the United States," said Khan. "This will be a great achievement for someone who learned his cricket after joining the team at Haverford."

A cricket match is played by two teams of 11 players on a roughly elliptical grass field, 100 or more yards across. The pitch, a flat strip of ground 22 yards long with wooden wickets placed at each end, is at its center. The bowler attempts to hit the wicket with a bounced throw; armed with a flat-sided bat, the striker tries to hit the ball, and then decides whether to run to the far wicket, exchanging ends with a teammate stationed there.

Runs are scored each time the runners exchange ends, or if the striker hits the ball past the field's boundary; outs are recorded if the wicket is dislodged by a pitch or by a fielder hitting it with the ball while the runners are exchanging ends, or if the hit ball is caught on the fly, among other ways.

Many times at first, Drebing said, "I would not be able to drive the ball past the fielders and got caught out. When batting, often times hitting the ball to the right place, instead of as hard as possible, accounts for a lot more offense."

A cricket match can take up to five hours (or even several days, depending on how many innings are played), with the run total often topping 200.

"Because matches take so long," said Drebing, "we all get to know each other very well. Even though we're the only varsity cricket team in the country, it feels like any other varsity team I've ever played on."