ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) – A game of cricket is good for U.S.-Pakistani relations, but that’s about as far as it goes. President Bush says baseball is where his heart is.

After a day of meetings, Bush rolled up his shirt sleeves Saturday afternoon and headed out to the lawn of the U.S. Embassy to play the baseball-like sport with Pakistani students.

He took his turn at bat after a few pointers from Shahryar Khan, chairman of Pakistan’s Cricket Board, and Inzamam-ul-Haq, captain of Pakistan’s Cricket Team.

Bush took three practice swings with the bat, which is flat on one side and humped on the other. He pretended to knock dirt from his shoes like a baseball player stepping up to the plate, then strode up to the wickets for a few swings.

The president connected with the first pitch, was hit in the shoulder by the second one, and sent a third ball sailing into a tree.

“Put something on that thing,” Bush called out to the bowler, the equivalent of a pitcher in baseball. “Do I have my elbow right?”

Asked whether he liked this country’s national pastime better than America’s, the former owner of the Texas Rangers baseball team paused and cocked his head before answering. “I haven’t quite got the skills yet,” he said.

“I’m a big baseball fan,” said Bush, who brought autographed baseballs for each of the students from the Islamabad College for Boys Cricket Clinic.

Last April, cricket played a central role as India and Pakistan tried to resolve their long-running dispute over Kashmir. Talks between Musharraf and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh were squeezed around a Sunday cricket match in New Delhi between the two countries.

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Laura Bush usually visits classrooms and schoolchildren when she travels abroad. But because of security concerns in Pakistan, the children came to her on Saturday.

U.S. Embassy officials tried to recreate the classroom environment for a demonstration with 22 fourth-graders who are the beneficiaries of U.S. aid to Pakistani schools.

The first lady, a former librarian and teacher, beamed as she watched a circle of students, dressed in blue Western-style uniforms, as they participated in an imagination exercise in which they made up stories that revolved around a toy rabbit.

“That bunny over there is actually Bugs Bunny,” Laura Bush told the children.

This poor Islamic nation has one of Asia’s lowest literacy rates, with only 48.7 percent of adults able to read and write.

Laura Bush empathized with a teacher who lamented that traditional teaching methods she learned in the Pakistani education system had not achieved results.

“I was the same way after graduating with a degree in education,” the first lady said. “I started to teach and I was wondering: Do I really know how to teach?”

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Associated Press writer Rod McGuirk contributed to this report.

AP-ES-03-04-06 0854EST

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