Top | Newest First | Oldest First
Easier to enumerate the similarities:
Each is a game played by two teams,
on a defined pitch;
based on the principle of a batsman aiming a wooden bat to deflect as far as possible, a ball bowled at him;
while other members of the bowler's team try to catch or run him out.
The teams may be amateur or professional, and usually members of appropriate leagues.
Errr... anything else in common?
One important difference is that in cricket there are not one but two batsmen on the pitch in play, but bowling is from one end during the session called an "over", and is actually aimed not the the player but at knocking over the "stumps" the batsman is defending. Success in that means the batsman is "bowled out".
If the batsman being bowled at, drives the ball far enough away to give him and his team-mate time to run the 22 yards in a straight line between the sets of stumps, they try to do so for as many runs as possible, these being part of the score counted.
The other part of the score is the trade-off of bowlings-out.
Many people find cricket baffling, and I only know its basics, and they are quite simple. Perhaps the reputation is due to to its complicated fielding positions with wonderful names like "slips" and "silly mid-on". Those positions probably evolved over many years' experience as the best for catching a driven ball in flight, hence "catching out" the batsman.
Both games originated in England, but what the Americans turned into Baseball was the simpler Rounders.
(So, incidentally, did alley Bowling - but it is called Skittles or Ninepins; with 9 pins not 10, and none of the commercialism and mechanising of Ten-Pin Bowling.)
;;;
Which is the more widely played?
Probably cricket, with major national and international professional leagues as well as amateur clubs and their leagues; not only in England but also Australia, New Zealand, Pakistan and India. I think it is also played in Iran and Afghanistan.
Neither Cricket nor Baseball have caught on much in other European countries, as far as I know. The national professional game in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Holland, etc, is Football (the original, not the USA's gladiatorial "Football" loosely based on Rubgy).
France's traditional amateur game is the gentle Boules, or Petanque. Its closest English fellow is perhaps green Bowls; but whereas Bowls needs a very carefully-manicured, flat lawn reserved for the purpose, Boules needs little room and formal pitch, and can be played on a dusty village square, so is the more suited to the somewhat arid conditions common in French Summers.
Each is a game played by two teams,
on a defined pitch;
based on the principle of a batsman aiming a wooden bat to deflect as far as possible, a ball bowled at him;
while other members of the bowler's team try to catch or run him out.
The teams may be amateur or professional, and usually members of appropriate leagues.
Errr... anything else in common?
One important difference is that in cricket there are not one but two batsmen on the pitch in play, but bowling is from one end during the session called an "over", and is actually aimed not the the player but at knocking over the "stumps" the batsman is defending. Success in that means the batsman is "bowled out".
If the batsman being bowled at, drives the ball far enough away to give him and his team-mate time to run the 22 yards in a straight line between the sets of stumps, they try to do so for as many runs as possible, these being part of the score counted.
The other part of the score is the trade-off of bowlings-out.
Many people find cricket baffling, and I only know its basics, and they are quite simple. Perhaps the reputation is due to to its complicated fielding positions with wonderful names like "slips" and "silly mid-on". Those positions probably evolved over many years' experience as the best for catching a driven ball in flight, hence "catching out" the batsman.
Both games originated in England, but what the Americans turned into Baseball was the simpler Rounders.
(So, incidentally, did alley Bowling - but it is called Skittles or Ninepins; with 9 pins not 10, and none of the commercialism and mechanising of Ten-Pin Bowling.)
;;;
Which is the more widely played?
Probably cricket, with major national and international professional leagues as well as amateur clubs and their leagues; not only in England but also Australia, New Zealand, Pakistan and India. I think it is also played in Iran and Afghanistan.
Neither Cricket nor Baseball have caught on much in other European countries, as far as I know. The national professional game in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Holland, etc, is Football (the original, not the USA's gladiatorial "Football" loosely based on Rubgy).
France's traditional amateur game is the gentle Boules, or Petanque. Its closest English fellow is perhaps green Bowls; but whereas Bowls needs a very carefully-manicured, flat lawn reserved for the purpose, Boules needs little room and formal pitch, and can be played on a dusty village square, so is the more suited to the somewhat arid conditions common in French Summers.
RedwoodBarman · 31-35, M
smiler2012 · 56-60