Baseball and Cricket

All of us know about baseball since it is America’s game, but many of us have no idea what cricket is. The sports are very similar yet very different. A former U.S. ambassador to Britain once said, “Even Americans living in England usually find it easier to become a practicing Buddhist than a cricket fan”. This statement shows just how different the two sports are. Comparing and contrasting the two sports would be very intriguing, so that is what I’m going to do today. Here are the similarities between the two sports. Both sports are members of the bat and ball sport family and both have a very similar style of play with the throwing, catching and batting of the ball. The bat for cricket is flat, while the bat used in baseball is round. Both cricket and baseball batters are defending specific areas located behind them. The baseball batter is defending a strike zone and the cricket batter is defending the wicket. The batters in both games can be declared out if the batted ball is caught before it hits the ground. Both sports are unique in the fact that the offence does not have possession of the ball and both sports have a player that throws the ball overhand towards the batter. In cricket they are called bowlers and in baseball they are called pitchers. For both sports the objective is to score runs and both games have no clock. Both sports have an infield and an outfield. Cricket games have been know to last as long as five days. Now here are the differences between the two sports. The fields used for cricket are very different from the fields used for baseball. The cricket field has no foul territory and is an oval shape. The baseball diamond is of course a diamond shape and has foul territory. The cricket field has two bases, or wickets, 66 feet apart and two cricket players run back and forth to score runs and six runs can be scored on one hit. The bowler throws the ball from the opposite wicket. In cricket, the teams switch places