Cricket and Baseball

[Stefano]

As I have already told you, I am a baseball researcher. I have just begun to follow cricket and I am trying to do some comparison between these two great sports.

In my opinion baseball hitters would have some little advantages over cricket hitters.

- Baseball bat doesn't have the flat surface. So it is much more difficult to hit the ball.

- In cricket there are no foul balls. You can hit everywhere: in front of you, behind you, on the side.

- In baseball it is easier to be out.

In my opinion, cricketers would have problem to face curve balls, breaking balls and change-ups, which are those pitches that appear to be fast ball, but they are much slower. I think that it would be less difficult for a baseball player to shift to cricket, than a cricket player to baseball.

Bowlers and pitchers cannot be compared. Although they have the same task, it would be impossible for a baseball pitcher to shift to cricket (and viceversa).

There are points which go against these however. In baseball, a fair pitch can only go within a certain, relatively small space. In cricket, the ball can be at any height and be aimed at any part of the body. Batting in baseball you only need to deal with what might be considered "line" in cricket... the positioning of the ball. The length (how far away from the batsman the ball pitches) does not need to be dealt with by the batter. Also, the pitch introduces a level of variation into playing the ball which doesn't exist in baseball... if the pitch is true you can predict what the ball might do, but because the surface can change you can get variable bounce from one pitch to another, or even from one part of the same pitch to another with cracks and so on, or the pitch can change over the course of a match. Pitches in Australia or South Africa for example tend to be faster and have more bounce than pitches in the subcontinent, offering more for fast bowlers, while in England the ball tends to move in the air more for fast bowlers (swing). In the subcontinent pitches usually spin more. These sort of variations don't exist in baseball.

I wouldn't agree. It is true that there is the strike zone in baseball, however good pitchers can make all kinds of effect. They can pitch a 100 mph fastball. But they can also pitch a curve, which seems too high (so the hitter won't try to hit it) but then comes down. Or they can pitch a ball which seems good, but at the very last moment it breaks: the ball is much lower and the hitter hits the air! Or they can pretend to pitch a fast ball, but actually that ball is much slower, so the hitter starts to swing to early.

Of course, in baseball hitters do not have to think about bounces. However, in cricket it is much more difficult for the defense to get the outs than in baseball. And in cricket hitters collect more good hits than in baseball (and not just because games are longer).

PS: I don't want to appear rude, saying that baseball players are better than cricket players. What I would like to do is having an interesting conversation with you.

[roseboy64]

I agree with you there dude. Both sports have their own different degrees of difficulty so it is folly to say one i sharde to play than the other. I'v eplayed both so I kinda know.

[Scaly piscine]

It would be far harder for a baseballer to convert to cricket than it would be for a cricketer to convert to baseball (assuming we're talking about batsmen here). In baseball you don't need to spend years and years honing your technique for each and every shot - as there are only two shots in baseball if you ignore bunts, a drive and a pull which are somewhat similar anyway and are not too dissimilar to certain shots in cricket.

[BoyBrumby]

I've never played baseball seriously, but growing up in North Cambridgeshire we have two large US air bases nearby (Mildenhall & Lakenheath) and a lot of service families living in the area. As a kid I sometimes played knock-about stuff with the American kids and the main difference I found was the ball. With a baseball you have four rotating seams, so it is far easier to get the ball to move in the air. You can make it rise & dip as well as move sideways like a cricket ball.

It is far easier to teach someone to "pitch" than to bowl tho; none of the Yank kids could ever get their heads round bowling!

Batting is harder to compare, of course baseball batters never play with a straight bat or have to face full deliveries at their feet like cricket players, but weighed against that is the size of the bats. I'm sure if Sammy Sosa was given a cricket bat he'd think he could never miss!

[roseboy64]

It would be far harder for a baseballer to convert to cricket than it would be for a cricketer to convert to baseball (assuming we're talking about batsmen here). In baseball you don't need to spend years and years honing your technique for each and every shot - as there are only two shots in baseball if you ignore bunts, a drive and a pull which are somewhat similar anyway and are not too dissimilar to certain shots in cricket.

Baseball players do that also. Practice for years that is. It's not that easy to get those "shots" perfect.

[marc71178]

I've never played baseball seriously, but growing up in North Cambridgeshire we have two large US air bases nearby (Mildenhall & Lakenheath) and a lot of service families living in the area.

Ah, the good old Second World War years!

[Sanz]

Baseball players do that also. Practice for years that is. It's not that easy to get those "shots" perfect.

True, Hitting a ball racing at you with 90-100 mph is one of the toughest thing in sport. Those who say that batting with a cricket bat is tougher need to try hitting baseball. (I used to think the same )

[BoyBrumby]

Ah, the good old Second World War years!

Why you impudent young pup! If I were twenty years younger......my girlfriend would be a paedophile, actually!!

[Scaly piscine]

Baseball players do that also. Practice for years that is. It's not that easy to get those "shots" perfect.

It's not the technique they're working on all the time tho, baseballers play the best part of 162 games a year (minimum), with a lot of time obviously spent in the gym and guzzling steroids, so there's obviously not a huge amount of work gone into their technique - it's more a case of seeing pitches and trying to hit them or leave them. Look at the Bangladesh cricket team, they've been working on their technique for years and they still have glaring flaws there.

[honestbharani]

I would say that batting in cricket is tougher...... Simply because batting in Baseball basically involves perfecting the art of hitting, at the most, 5 or 6 different kind of balls that the pitchers can throw in. Obviously, it is tough but the point is, in cricket, there are so many different kinds of bowlers and they bowl so many different kinds of deliveries, sometimes with no real visible change in their bowling action, and also, the pitch is a whole new variable. The ball can do crazy things after pitching. Wasim Akram (He is the Roger Clemens amongst cricket bowlers, if you will) once said that he almost never knew why the ball moved in a certain direction after it pitched. Generally, even he had intended it to go in the other direction. Imagine the plight of the poor batsman in such a case. No offence or anything, but I think batting in cricket is a lot tougher than batting in baseball.



I suppose the one area where baseballers would easily be better than cricketers would be athleticism etc.. Those guys run faster than the best in cricket, IMHO.......



BTW, Adam Gilchrist of Australia has been offered an Baseball contract with one of the US teams. That should tell you that they fancy that cricket batters can convert to baseball more easily...

[Swervy]

In Ed Smiths book he actually compared crickets batting to baseballs pitching..in that the rewards in both disciplines are often but have a small effect on the game as a whole (unless taken as a cumulative effect)..whereas crickets bowlers and baseballs batters rewards are less often come across in a game (ie wickets and home runs) but have a bigger effect...anyway..

In cricket, batsmen have the advantage of being able to hit the ball anywhere on the field, and use a bigger wider bat, but have to deal with the uncertainties of the pitch, and the uncertainties that the bowler can bowl to a greater area (so the batsmen doesnt have as much clue as to where the ball will be headed towards when he is batting) and also in cricket the batsman has to cope with teh fact that that it is legal to bowl a ball aiming for his head, or body (after bouncing of course)..baseball batters really dont have to worry to much about that.

I would say that although to a novice, it would appear to be easier to hit a ball while playing cricket, i think that as one progresses through the game, batting well at cricket gets harder to master, what with all the footwork and wrist work involved in it.

I will always remember the story about Ian Botham going to some major league baseball team in the 80's and complaining coz the pitchers werent fast enough, and he was batting with an average quite a lot higher than established hitters.

In the bowling/pitching dept, no contest, bowling all the way.

And again with fielding, in cricket I would say its much more difficult to be a good fielder than in baseball

[Stefano]

Thanks for your reply. Really enjoyed to read your opinions (although not always do I agree).

For pitching vs bowling: I wouldn't do any comparisons, since they are too different. And there is one thing that pitchers have to think about, while bowlers don't: RUNNERS on bases. And don't forget the balks, which are the penalties assigned against the pitcher. Even a slight fake movement of the leg can be considered a balk...

[Neil Pickup]

Thanks for your reply. Really enjoyed to read your opinions (although not always do I agree).

For pitching vs bowling: I wouldn't do any comparisons, since they are too different. And there is one thing that pitchers have to think about, while bowlers don't: RUNNERS on bases. And don't forget the balks, which are the penalties assigned against the pitcher. Even a slight fake movement of the leg can be considered a balk...

Cricket has its equivalents; no-balls and trying to prevent established batsmen stealing the strike...

[Swervy]

most of us are bound to prefer cricket for two reasons

a) this is a cricket website
b) cricket is better than baseball

[Stefano]

Great Answer, Swervy!!