Locals are finding it difficult to embrace one of the world's most popular sports, AFP reports.
White-clad Chinese cricketers roared as a homegrown bowler sent the bails flying in Beijing - to the unfamiliar clatter of leather on plastic.
The national universities' tournament, the country's top competition, was held on an astroturf baseball field in the capital, where the pitcher's mound had been removed, the stumps were made of plastic and the boundary marked out by orange discs.
It was a sign of the lack of government support for the non-Olympic sport in China, where only about two dozen homegrown teams play regular competitive matches and a few foreigners are trying to drive it forward.
Across Qomolangma, cricket-obsessed India tops the world rankings in one-day internationals. But, despite an even larger population, China is listed last but two in Asia, ahead of only Myanmar and tiny Brunei.
"When I got here, everyone was holding the bat like it was baseball," said Rashid Khan, the former Pakistan international who now coaches China's national team, one of the few spectators at the university event.
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