Baseball has not done well on the international scene. Not like basketball. Certainly not like soccer. A little better than American football, but that isn’t saying much. Baseball made the Olympics for a while, there. American football really isn’t played anywhere that isn’t the 50 states.

However, I am now convinced baseball has an enormous opportunity to break into a new market.

India!

Yes, India. The country with 1.1 billion (with a B) people.

Really. I’m serious. And here is why:

Most of the world is addicted to soccer. Which is everything baseball is not. Continuous, instinctive, free-flowing and fast — matches last two hours, almost right on the nose.

Thus, most of the world is not ready for baseball. It is far too slow. Far too complicated. Far too … weird.

But India?

India already loves cricket. And cricket is the cousin (OK, maybe once-removed) of baseball. Baseball probably is descended from cricket.

Much of the action is the same. Someone throwing a ball, someone trying to hit it, guys standing around on an enormous grass field attempting to catch the ball. Outs and innings. Yes. Indians know these terms already.

And this is key: Cricket is even slower, even duller (to the uninitiated) than baseball.

A cricket match can last three days. It can last five. In recent years the game’s honchos have decided they need to pick up the pace a bit, and one-day matches have become popular. That’s one day. All day. With breaks for lunch and tea. I kid you not. It makes the Seventh Inning Stretch seem like the Seventh Inning Snooze.

Baseball is action-packed, compared to cricket. Wild and crazy. It’s madcap, compared to cricket. And a three-hour game? Wow, that’s fast.

So, India is ready for the pace and rhythm of baseball, and understands pitching and batting. That puts Indians miles ahead of all those soccer countries.

Hey, Bud Selig! India is halfway there.

Now, there are some problems. For one, India loves cricket. Loves it. Perhaps more than England, which invented and codified it. Check the wikipedia page for Indian cricket. It’s a monster.

Try googling the words “Why India loves cricket” and look at all the stuff that turns up.

Check out this mini-paean to cricket by an Indian fan in which he compares it to “religion, love or life.”

Baseball can’t expect India to abandon cricket any time soon. Especially not with India ranked No. 1 in the world for the first time in its history.

But there is a crack there. A chance. A ray of hope.

Here is what you do:

1. Send talent scouts to India. At the least, they ought to be able to find some guys with good arms. The Pittsburgh Pirates got a lot of attention by signing two pitchers from India who had never seen a baseball game. India has to have some guys who can play. Has to. Get them into the minors, and eventually someone gets into the majors, and India starts to notice.

2. Hook up with some cricket clubs and offer to do exchanges. Have a couple of major-league teams visit India and play … while India sends over a couple of cricket teams for exhibitions in the U.S. (If the exhibitions are planned in cities with an Indian population of any size, they will throng the stadiums.)

3. Send over equipment and coaches. Baseball missionaries. Recruit the cricket rejects, maybe. Tell them they can come start for your baseball team. Tell them “and the game will be over in three hours! Maybe less!”

4. Give away MLB games to Indian TV. That’s right: Give them away. Any cable station that will take it, send it over. Have to think big here. Remember when Aussie Rules football had a cult following in the U.S.? Because that new cable station, ESPN, couldn’t afford real sports and got “footie” for little or nothing, and showed it, and before we knew it, guys in sports departments were talking about the Geelong game last night.

So, baseball: Give away your product. To India.

What is at stake? A whole new,  possibly enormous baseball market. And a potential gold mine of baseball talent. One that will make the Domincan Republic look like a little gold fleck in a pan.

If, say, 20 years from now, 1 percent of the Indian population is willing to pay $1 to see the World Series … we’re talking about 11-12 million people.  (And that’s if India’s population stops growing, and it probably won’t.) One percent.

And on a personal note … In the past 16 months I have been to Beijing, Hong Kong, France and the United Arab Emirates. And in all those places, I saw soccer pickup games everywhere. But here in the UAE, I have seen pickup cricket games on any patch of grass that is open. A half-dozen guys Indian guys (or kids) playing, swinging those weird flat bats. Street cricket. That’s when you know a community is really into it.

Anyway, it’s something to think about. A bigger target than Korea and Taiwan, where the game is fairly well-established. China and Africa and Europe … not happening. Because of soccer.

India, though? (Well, and Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, too … all serious cricket nations.) There is a real market that can be tapped. A whole new world. A billion potential fans.

Something to think about. And somebody in MLB’s New York headquarters ought to be.