(AFP) – Jun 30, 2009

BRADENTON, Florida (AFP) — Rinku Singh and Dinesh Patel, two cricket hopefuls from India who found their way to baseball thanks to a reality television show, are ready to make their debuts as minor-league professionals.

Patel and Singh, neither of whom had ever seen a baseball game in their lives, are expected to take the mound this week for the Bradenton Pirates of the Florida-based Gulf Coast League, a rookie-level development league.

Both players are prospects for Major League Baseball's Pittsburgh Pirates who had never held a baseball until last year, when they became the winners on Million-Dollar Arm and received a chance to make a career in America's national pastime.

Kyle Stark, the Pirates director of player development, said Patel and Singh are likely to play this week.

"It's going to be fun," Pirates general manager Neal Huntington said. "It's going to be a little different from the typical first professional outing. This is really their first outing.

"It will be different, but we're not trying to get too caught up in it. We want to let them become part of the routine as much as possible."

Singh and Patel, both 20, have received instruction on fitness, throwing techniques and styles and adjusted to life in the United States as well as sparking curiousity about what they might be able to offer the Pirates.

Each signed for 10,000 dollars and spent months working out with Tom House, a former major league pitcher whose prior pupils included 30-game major league winner Randy Johnson.

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