Cricket and baseball has at least one thing in common, both of them are a very boring game to watch. But baseball has one advantage over cricket, they sell beer in the stadium.

Jul 22nd 2010, Economist
Comparing cricket with baseball is a good way to start a spat

BRITAIN and America are divided, not just by a common language, but also by their passion for summer ball games. The English dismiss baseball as a barbarous mutant form of rounders, a kids’ game; Americans regard cricket as a crazed English joke. Matthew Engel, a cricket writer, notes that “It is less contentious to write about religion or politics than the origins of these two games.”

Early in the 20th century Albert Spalding, an American sporting-goods manufacturer, insisted that baseball had been invented in Cooperstown, New York, in 1839 by a young soldier called Abner Doubleday who would be promoted to major-general during the American civil war. Baseball’s Hall of Fame was opened in Cooperstown when a misshapen leather ball found in the attic of a house near the town in 1934 was heralded as the ball originally used by Doubleday. This was always an unlikely tale, and Spalding’s papers, which are now housed in Cooperstown, expose his claims as a fabrication.

The true origins of both games are to be found in “Swinging Away: How Cricket and Baseball Connect”, a new exhibition for which the curator, Beth Hise, has written an exemplary catalogue. This cornucopia of bats and balls, uniforms (belonging to England’s Andrew Flintoff and the Yankees’ Derek Jeter), photographs and memorabilia has opened at the Marylebone Cricket Club’s museum at Lord’s Cricket Ground in London and will move on to the Hall of Fame.

It is based on the revisionist notion that the two games have much in common. Both are rooted in English folk traditions, and each is based on a contest between the pitcher and the batter in baseball and the bowler and the batsman in cricket. Referees are called umpires in both. “I see them as blood brothers, separated at birth but genetically linked,” writes Mr Engel in the catalogue’s introduction.

The first handwritten reference to baseball is to be found in a copy of a diary written in Shere, Surrey, on Easter Monday in 1755: “After Dinner Went to Miss Jeale’s to play at Base Ball…” (The original diary turned up after the exhibition opened.) Four years earlier, a team of London cricketers had already played a cricket team from New York, for a considerable wager, and between 1840 and 1855 cricket was America’s leading ball game. The first international cricket match was played between the United States and Canada in 1844. (Canada won.)

Baseball became pre-eminent during and after the civil war. Ms Hise suggests that the key to popularising it was the abolition of the rule that a fielder could eliminate a batter by catching the ball after one bounce. To catch the ball on the fly was considered more “manly” and “scientific”, making baseball less a game for women and children. The system of box scoring was invented by an Englishman named Henry Chadwick, and many of the first professional players were from immigrant English families who could play both cricket and baseball.

By 1900, though, the two games had become completely distinct. When Babe Ruth (pictured) and Sir Donald Bradman, the greatest of all batters and batsmen, were introduced in 1932, it was not a meeting of minds: “You mean to tell me you don’t have to run when you hit the ball?” said Ruth, who was known as the Sultan of Swat.

In recent decades baseball has been more confident about the way it is organised than cricket, which experiments with new forms of the game intended to popularise it, by speeding it up. In the traditional format, games last four or five days and can end in a draw. Twenty20 is the latest of these innovations. The two teams each bat for 20 six-ball overs and the emphasis is on heavy-hitting. This form of the game has become very popular in the subcontinent, where the Indian Premier League is a major television spectacle, paying cricketers unheard-of sums to play in a short period in the spring. The attraction of Twenty20 is that games take about three hours to complete and there is no such thing as a draw. In fact, Twenty20 is not unlike baseball. Indeed, it is perfectly plausible that cricketers and baseball players will become ambidextrous again, swinging between the two games, as they sometimes did in the 19th century.

I arrived at the restaurant a lit early, so I take a look at the show room and the souvenir shop. I am kinda interested in the cricket bet, so I ask the sales to show me what they got. The sales bring forth some of their finest cricket bet that is used by the professional. The bet is made of imported English willow wood and beautifully handcraft in India. The bet is really expensive. It costs Rs8000, which is almost US$200. The sales seems very determine to sell me the bet. I reject politely him by saying the bet is too heavy for my luggage. He keep saying I can ship it with special luggage arrangement via airline or hand carry it on board. Duh! Didn’t he got my hint that I don’t want to buy the bet at all.

Does he have any common sense? No one with a right mind will buy an expensive professional cricket bet for souvenir. Maybe he mistaken me as one of those rich Japanese tourists who like to buy expensive and useless stuff. In the end, I bought a jersey of Indian cricket team. I think I got ripped off on the jersey, it’s not a real Nike jersey but a cheap knock off. Yet I still paid Rs300 for it!

When we arrived at the stadium, the ticket is already sold out. We were a bit disappointed, so the driver offered to help us get some tickets from the scalper. He left the car disappeared into the crowd for a few minutes, then come back with the scalper with him. The scalper is selling us three tickets for 3000 Rupee. We thought its a bit too expensive, so he lower it down to 2000 Rupee. We still think it’s too much and we counter offer him 1500 Rupee. Which is what we original budget for the game. CAD$10 for a few hours of game. Not bad. So we got our tickets, sent our driver away and ready to have some fun.

When we arrive at the gate, we found out the tickets turn out to be used. It’s OK, because the ticket come with the return pass allowing ticket holder go out and get back into the stadium. However we only got two return pass, one return pass is missing. We played dumb with the door man, pulled our innocent tourist card and eventually he let us go inside. When we arrive at the seats, it turns out 2 tickets belong to one section and another ticket belong to another section. Again, we play dumb and pulled our innocent tourist card, all three of us get into the seats. The seats are very good, we were sitting on the 3rd row right behind the camera men. We watched the game until the end of the day, get almost 2 hours of good cricket action. The pace of the game is quite slow, probably it is as exciting as base ball. It really test my patient spending two hours watching the Indian team getting 100 points, trying to catch up with the 450 points Australian team got in the 1st inning.

At the end of the day, every one is happy. The scalper is happy for turning an handsome profit on some garbage paper. The driver is happy for getting a cut from the scalper. We are happy for watching an international cricket game at prime location seats. We get to experienced two India trademark experience first handed in a single cricket game. We got ripped off big time by the scalper and we got bored by watching the endless bowl and bat in a cricket game. One stone shooting down two birds.

Cricket to Indian is like Hockey to Canadian.  Cricket is probably the national sport in India and every one seems crazy about it.   I haven’t a live game, but I see lots of cricket on TV as the world champion is playing in Australia this week.  The India team is playing against the Australians and too bad they lost the game.  At first I have no clue what is going on in the game.  The good thing is that everyone is happy to explain the rule to me.  It took me a while to get a sense of what is going on in the field.

Cricket is kinda like baseball, with pitcher, batter and catcher.  Instead of running in diamond, the batter runs back and forth in the dirt stripe in the middle of the field.  The rule is similar to baseball.  The pitcher throw the ball to the batter, then the batter strike the ball.  If the ball is caught in the air, the batter is out.   Otherwise, the batter can keep running to score more points until the ball is threw back to the stripe.  If the ball go outside of the field, it kinda like home run, the batter automatically score 4 points or 6 points depending on whether the ball is in the air.  Of course, the team score more points win the game.  The rule kinda make sense up to this point, just like baseball.

The flow of game is weird.  Instead of having innings with teams playing offense and defense alternatively, the game is played in two sessions.  One team will finish all his batting in first session, then the other team will do the batting in second session.  A session ends when all the batter are strike out or 500 balls is threw.  It’s kinda like a team score several hundred points first, then let the another team to catch up.  The game flow makes the game not very exciting.  The first few hundred points is kinda boring, since it won’t make much difference to the game.  Only when the second team come close to catch up and almost run of batters or balls, then the game becomes interesting.  It is more fun to see the score from both teams leap frogging each other every inning.