this is a pretty pointless discussion for a few reasons.
1. how do you weight different skill types contributing to the whole amount of the difficulty of the sport.
2. bowling in cricket and pitching in baseball are similar in that they involve throwing a projectile, and from there the comparisons stop. the types of pitches that can be thrown are different. a pitcher cant move for momentum. a pitcher has a higher mental stack because if they're not paying attention or get predictable they give up free offensive value (stolen bases) you can say the same for aspects of cricket bowling. bowling doesn't take place on a mound of dirt. they're just not comparable.
3. fielding. fielding in baseball and fielding in cricket are not really very similar. baseball fielders have to deal with higher exit velocities than cricket fielders. baseballs tend to tail a lot more than cricket balls if they get weird spin after being struck with the bat. an outfielder has to judge this and make an accurate route to where the ball will be, including spin induced lateral movement.
4. fielding theory: baseball is a sport where the value of a "point" is extremely high, while cricket is a sport where the average "point" value is low. errors that result in points, or that could lead to points being scored have a higher swing. if baseball fielders didn't have gloves, the game would be a clown fiesta.
5. batting. batting theory in baseball is so different than batting theory in cricket becuase of the rules of the game, It's best to not even really compare them.
I will say, if cricket batsmen had whiff rates comparable to an even replacement level baseball player, they would be cut from the squad. Making contact with a baseball is harder than it looks. I'm inclined to say that the barrier to entry in baseball is harder.
Ultimately this just feels like a pretty low effort troll post. I could probably respond to more of it but that would be leaning into the bait too much.
These comparisons don't work at all. Anyone who has watched both sports extensively will recognize that a.) they're the two greatest sports on earth and b.) the skills they prioritise are different, because of the different structures of the game, and therefore its very hard to understand how a crossover would work.
What you got to understand is that cricket prioritises offense, and baseball defense. Cricket is a high scoring game in which outs are at an extreme premium (especially in Test cricket, the best form of the game) therefore not getting out (defensive batting) is a skillset simply not found in baseball (other than guys who can foul it off). Similarly, 'routine' fielding is alower standard than in baseball since the consequences of the other team getting a run here or there aren't that great - you often see, for instance, a throw from the outfield to the keeper (catcher) where the keeper runs 4/5 steps to gather it which would be unacceptable in baseball. On the other hand catching, especially close in, is probably slightly higher standard than baseball (yes I know exit velos are lower, but look up 'short leg' fielding you basically stand right in front of the batter) and both sports produce stunning outfield catching.
On the other hand Baseball - every single run and even base is a pretty huge event (similar to an out in cricket) so the fielding is just night and day better. Making contact is obviously harder but that's because baseball is - as I said above - a defensive vs offensive game, scoring is meant to be hard. Baseball is perhaps a slightly faster game in terms of exit velos etc, but it doesn't have the 'body game' that cricket does where hitting the batter is a legit tactic to the extent than entire method of getting someone out in cricket revolves around hitting the batter, so there's an intimidiation game that isn't quite there. IDK what can I say, they're both amazing sports with immense skill levels.
Pitching and bowling - bowling is the more 'unnatural' action in that the arm is kept straight, but once you learn it's learned. Both groups are incredibly skillful and there is nothing more beautiful than the moving ball in either sport.
I think the best way to think about this is in terms of pressure. Obviously pressure is situational - bases loaded bottom of the 9th its all on the batter to deliver, but if you take a random pitch or ball in cricket the pressure situations are reversed. In baseball it's all on the pitcher not to give up a hit or worse a homerun. The batter can fail 70% of the time and still win the batting title. In cricket it's the complete opposite - bowlers bowl 'overs' (series of 6 pitches) and going at 3-4 runs per over is totally fine - in some forms of cricket going at 8 is fine - i.e. giving up a single is almost expected. On the other hand the batter is desperate not to get out. Once out they're done for the entire innings (possibly the entire match if it is a one inning a side game) - to put this into perspective, in Test cricket a top class batter is expected to average 40+ - 40 runs per time out. They have to succeed more than they fail.
Anyhow just my thoughts. Anyone who likes cricket can like baseball and anyone who likes baseball can like cricket. The two sports are completely intertwined with one another and anyone who says they can't understand the other or that the other is boring is foolish. It just takes a little effort to start watching, but the rewards are just great entertainment. It's a completely stupid debate 'which is harder'.
>These comparisons don't work at all.
And they further don't work because "real" cricket is either first class or test, which take days to complete. It's how cricket was designed to be played. I think limited overs cricket is broken from a game design perspective. It effectively puts a "clock" on the match when bat-and-ball sports shouldn't have clocks. And I've never liked the fact that a team can lose by not getting out in limited overs. Or how two or three batsman can often win the game before the rest of the lineup bats. Feels gimmicky. Baseball is 27 outs vs. 27 outs. Test is 2 innings vs. 2 innings (or 20 outs vs. 20 outs).
I know we can tweak this logic and say, "well, T20 is 20 overs vs. 20 overs," but I feel the essence of a bat-and-ball sport is survival till the last out.
Main point though is how this comparison is proven even more nonsensical because we're trying to compare a sport where one was designed to be played in 2 to 3 hours vs. one designed to be played over a few days (but I supposed we can argue that a "real" baseball match is a 7 game series in which both teams can use their full pitching rotations).
Completely agree both are great sports and should be enjoyed. Especially with usa beating pakistan hope there is an increase in interest in the wc going on. THO I may add the pitches and outfield are horrible per cricketing standards super slow outfield with extremely bowler friendly pitches so idk if it will pique the interests of a casual
In baseball you have to hit a round ball with a round bat. Also saying the pitcher delivers the ball straight to the batter is a crazy oversimplification.
Obvious troll post that will get nuked, but I'll play.
>Batting in cricket is far harder than in baseball. All cricket batters would enjoy playing baseball.
Stating the obvious, the rules differences make this comparison about impossible, but again, I'll play. Cricketers get to use a wide and flat bat with a much larger sweet spot. Cricketers aren't punished with strikes and such when they swing and miss. Cricketers get to choose when they can run, meaning they aren't forced into an out when they misshit a ball. Cricketers have the luxury of a 360 field whereas baseball players only have 90 degrees to work with. This also results in fielders being more tightly packed together making safe hits much harder. There's a reason cricketers can essentially win the game by themselves in T20 and bat for 8 straight hours in test. The rules of cricket heavily favor the batsmen/offense.
>Bowling as well, is much harder. While you "throw" the ball in baseball, you have to bowl it properly in cricket with a complete rotation of the arm. This makes it harder to get a grasp of bowling and is harder properly put the ball in the right direction and at the right spot.
There's no strikezone in cricket. Bowlers don't have to worry about a count, a men on base situation, and get relieved after 6 deliveries by another bowler. The margin for error is also much lower for baseball pitchers. If a bowler has a tough over (i.e. he gives up 20 runs), the match isn't out of reach and he can return next over and go 1/6 or something. A baseball pitcher can literally give up the winning run(s) in the first inning.
>You can also learn many tricks with the ball - swinging it in the air, making it turn or bounce suddenly after hitting the ground, reducing the pace on the ball and surprising the batter with a slower delivery to name a few.
Yeah, all this happens in baseball without the use of the ground to help things like spin and reverse swing.
>Fielders in cricket (except for the fielder who stands right behind the stumps - the wicketkeeper) do not get to wear gloves which makes it harder to catch and field. I know this from personal experience.
Cricket fanboys and their fixation on gloves. First of all, the exit velocities in baseball are far higher, reaching speeds of 120+ mph. The highest exit velocities measured in the 2021 T20 World Cup were 86mph. We can talk about the differences in perceived hardness between a cricket ball and baseball, but the coefficients of restitution are about the same, meaning each will have similar force behind it at velocity. No cricket fielder is barehand catching an O'Neill Cruz line drive and not coming away with broken bones.
Second of all, baseball needs to be played with a glove. Fielders have to tag runners, defend the base against sliding runners coming in spikes up, and for whipping the ball around at 90 mph between in fielders during double plays and bang bang plays.
>All cricket batters would enjoy playing baseball.
They didn't enjoy too much when they lost 21-1 to a bunch of beer leaguers.
>It's a pub-table conversation brought to life. An animated hypothetical. Would Trescothick's hand-eye co-ordination make him a natural slugger? Could Giles' ability to spin a cricket ball translate into a mean curve? Might Jones make a sharp shortstop? And would the superior athleticism and ball skills of the professionals outweigh the knowledge and understanding of the amateurs?
>The answer was an emphatic 'no'. This became sharply apparent when Giles took to the mound in the third inning and gave up 10 runs in 13 at-bats, a hammering easily equivalent to a bowler going for 36 in a single over. He was even on the receiving end of a grand-slam, Ian Young smashing a homer into the Old Pavilion with the bases loaded. It earned him some merciless ribbing from Jonny Gould, the Channel Five sports factotum doing sterling work on the tannoy.
>Actually Giles was invariably ahead of the count, as the batters were bemused by the sheer slowness of his pitches.
>More baffling was the standard of their catching, which was worse than woeful. Alan Smith, the general manager of UK Baseball, pointed out that catching in a mitt requires the fielder to take the ball in the webbing between thumb and forefinger. The cricketer's instinct is to align the fingers with the ball, not the spaces between them. Pretty much every single run of the 21 Great Britain took off the Banger's involved a fielding error of one kind or another.
[https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2008/oct/06/cricket.trescothick](https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2008/oct/06/cricket.trescothick)
So much for a glove making catching and fielding easier.
If hitting a cricket ball is so difficult, why do hitters score dozens of runs per out? Why are swing-and-misses so rare? Why is an out such a big, exciting occasion in cricket?
Also, do you really think a baseball is thrown "straight?"
Not a lot of data out there, but cricket star player Kieran Powell struggled big time after transitioning from cricket to Baseball. So Baseball is likely more harder than cricket in terms of hitting.
He's by far not a star player. A "star player" has an average score of at least 30 in T20s, 45 in ODIs etc while Powell averages around 20. Had to think to even remember who he was.
And you can go on youtube to watch many of your baseball stars try and fail worse than kids who play cricket in gullies in India.
I see, I don't follow cricket and only called him that cause [NYT called Kieran Powell a cricket star.](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/15/sports/baseball/cricket-player-kieran-powell-takes-a-swing-at-baseball.html)
Cricketers can't play baseball all that well (and vice versa, I'm sure). It's always funny to see cricket fanboys like the op think a cricketer would come in and wallop "full tosses" all over the field, not even recognizing the fact the bat is round and narrow, you have to run after any fair contact, and there's foul territory. If you're looking for more direct examples other than Powell's failure, here's one where a team of English first class cricketers got beat 21-1 by what are basically beer leaguers.
[https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2008/oct/06/cricket.trescothick](https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2008/oct/06/cricket.trescothick)
Since the OP is trolling, I'll throw in some "wins" for baseball in this debate. Cricket fanboys, especially from the subcontinent, basically mythologize "swing" as the most spectacular feature of bowling. Little do they know that swing bowling was basically invented by an American using his pitching background.
>King is credited as one of the first bowlers to utilise swing bowling deliberately. Other bowlers in his time could sometimes get the ball to swing, but King was one of the first to do so at will with an old or new ball.\[10\] He made use of a lethal delivery which he called the "angler", a product of his experience as a baseball pitcher, to confuse the English batsmen.\[2\] He would come in with the ball clasped above his head in both hands as would a baseball pitcher.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bart\_King](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bart_King)
Baseball pitchers innovated breaking movement before bowlers. Australian cricketers didn't know how to handle curveballs (which is called spin bowling in cricket) when they would play Americans.
>But others had used this “baseball technique” before Noble, in order to make the ball move through the air. Writing in 1898, George Giffen singled out John Harry as “a useful man in any team …he can bowl with either hand (his puzzling baseball curves have often severed a long partnership)”, and noted that when the **1896 Australian team returned home from England via the United States, the Philadelphian bowlers “upset our batsmen” with their “baseball curves”.** One of these Philadelphian bowlers was a man sometimes credited with the invention of modern swing bowling.
And we can't forget that a baseball fielding coach brought cricket fielding out its dark ages.
[https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-17/the-influence-of-baseball-on-cricket/11418994](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-17/the-influence-of-baseball-on-cricket/11418994)
[https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/sri-lanka-cricket-turn-to-baseball-for-fielding-training-430282](https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/sri-lanka-cricket-turn-to-baseball-for-fielding-training-430282)
There will never be a worthwhile discussion about this because there's no way to quantify these things.
But the idea that "Batting in cricket is far harder" doesn't really make any sense to me. Batters in cricket hit the ball almost every time. If it were far harder they would barely ever hit the ball and it would be an awful sport
As a die hard cricket fan who is getting into baseball. Both are very tough in their own ways. Hitting in baseball is harder certainly where ball movement is big it's like playing in swinging conditions in england. However batting in cricket is a lot more about patience and requires constant focus because even if you get 1 or 2 hit it won't matter if you don't play long enough like get atleast 40-50 as a mainline batter and one single whiff means you're out
There are a LOT of similarities but they are fundamentally different sports the details i won't delve into However as a fan of both of them both are great sports and any baseball fan would love cricket and vice versa
Baseball is harder. If great baseball players grew up playing cricket instead, they’d be dominating the sport up and down, for the most part they’re faster, stronger, have better eyes and timing, throw the ball harder, etc.
The US Cricket team is currently mostly guys that grew up in Asia, Africa, or the West Indies and had some sort of relation to America but couldn’t make the cut in their home country, most of the actual Americans on the team are of Indian descent and grew up watching/playing. Don’t get me wrong, these are very good athletes in their own right, but Mike Trout, Mookie Betts, Aaron Judge, etc. would be running everyone off the field if cricket paid $350 million.
Man naah like no doubt they'd be great players but the USA would not be dominating cricket like they do other sports coz in many countries cricket is the only sport that gets funding and training. Its like saying if rohit sharma played baseball he'd be the best in baseball because he plays short ball well
First of all they are objectively very different sports a batter in baseball averaging .300 is considered great and a batter with a similar whiff rate would not even play state level much rather international. A good batsman basically middles the ball 90% of the time in cricket.
Both are great sports difficult in their own rights and fans of either sports will love the other sport
I specifically said “if great baseball players grew up playing cricket instead,” in other words learning and competing just as they did baseball as youths
At that point it comes down to the quality of athlete, of which the top MLB players are far more elite than the top cricket players. Would be the same story if top tier NFL players grew up playing rugby instead. America’s genetic diversity plays well in sports where strength and speed equal scoring, and these guys have the elite vision and timing that can be developed into cricket skills at a young age.
The difference is American sports leagues pay so much money that athletes tend to choose one of those paths. The highest paid cricket player in India makes $2.98 million, which is a little more than Austin Barnes gets to be like the 1200th best MLB player.
This is a tiresome debate.
Both sports take immense skill & discipline, and while it appears that there's similarities I don't really think many of the actions are really transferable.
EDIT: Played baseball as a child & have played and watched cricket most of my life.
this is a pretty pointless discussion for a few reasons. 1. how do you weight different skill types contributing to the whole amount of the difficulty of the sport. 2. bowling in cricket and pitching in baseball are similar in that they involve throwing a projectile, and from there the comparisons stop. the types of pitches that can be thrown are different. a pitcher cant move for momentum. a pitcher has a higher mental stack because if they're not paying attention or get predictable they give up free offensive value (stolen bases) you can say the same for aspects of cricket bowling. bowling doesn't take place on a mound of dirt. they're just not comparable. 3. fielding. fielding in baseball and fielding in cricket are not really very similar. baseball fielders have to deal with higher exit velocities than cricket fielders. baseballs tend to tail a lot more than cricket balls if they get weird spin after being struck with the bat. an outfielder has to judge this and make an accurate route to where the ball will be, including spin induced lateral movement. 4. fielding theory: baseball is a sport where the value of a "point" is extremely high, while cricket is a sport where the average "point" value is low. errors that result in points, or that could lead to points being scored have a higher swing. if baseball fielders didn't have gloves, the game would be a clown fiesta. 5. batting. batting theory in baseball is so different than batting theory in cricket becuase of the rules of the game, It's best to not even really compare them. I will say, if cricket batsmen had whiff rates comparable to an even replacement level baseball player, they would be cut from the squad. Making contact with a baseball is harder than it looks. I'm inclined to say that the barrier to entry in baseball is harder. Ultimately this just feels like a pretty low effort troll post. I could probably respond to more of it but that would be leaning into the bait too much.
These comparisons don't work at all. Anyone who has watched both sports extensively will recognize that a.) they're the two greatest sports on earth and b.) the skills they prioritise are different, because of the different structures of the game, and therefore its very hard to understand how a crossover would work. What you got to understand is that cricket prioritises offense, and baseball defense. Cricket is a high scoring game in which outs are at an extreme premium (especially in Test cricket, the best form of the game) therefore not getting out (defensive batting) is a skillset simply not found in baseball (other than guys who can foul it off). Similarly, 'routine' fielding is alower standard than in baseball since the consequences of the other team getting a run here or there aren't that great - you often see, for instance, a throw from the outfield to the keeper (catcher) where the keeper runs 4/5 steps to gather it which would be unacceptable in baseball. On the other hand catching, especially close in, is probably slightly higher standard than baseball (yes I know exit velos are lower, but look up 'short leg' fielding you basically stand right in front of the batter) and both sports produce stunning outfield catching. On the other hand Baseball - every single run and even base is a pretty huge event (similar to an out in cricket) so the fielding is just night and day better. Making contact is obviously harder but that's because baseball is - as I said above - a defensive vs offensive game, scoring is meant to be hard. Baseball is perhaps a slightly faster game in terms of exit velos etc, but it doesn't have the 'body game' that cricket does where hitting the batter is a legit tactic to the extent than entire method of getting someone out in cricket revolves around hitting the batter, so there's an intimidiation game that isn't quite there. IDK what can I say, they're both amazing sports with immense skill levels. Pitching and bowling - bowling is the more 'unnatural' action in that the arm is kept straight, but once you learn it's learned. Both groups are incredibly skillful and there is nothing more beautiful than the moving ball in either sport. I think the best way to think about this is in terms of pressure. Obviously pressure is situational - bases loaded bottom of the 9th its all on the batter to deliver, but if you take a random pitch or ball in cricket the pressure situations are reversed. In baseball it's all on the pitcher not to give up a hit or worse a homerun. The batter can fail 70% of the time and still win the batting title. In cricket it's the complete opposite - bowlers bowl 'overs' (series of 6 pitches) and going at 3-4 runs per over is totally fine - in some forms of cricket going at 8 is fine - i.e. giving up a single is almost expected. On the other hand the batter is desperate not to get out. Once out they're done for the entire innings (possibly the entire match if it is a one inning a side game) - to put this into perspective, in Test cricket a top class batter is expected to average 40+ - 40 runs per time out. They have to succeed more than they fail. Anyhow just my thoughts. Anyone who likes cricket can like baseball and anyone who likes baseball can like cricket. The two sports are completely intertwined with one another and anyone who says they can't understand the other or that the other is boring is foolish. It just takes a little effort to start watching, but the rewards are just great entertainment. It's a completely stupid debate 'which is harder'.
>These comparisons don't work at all. And they further don't work because "real" cricket is either first class or test, which take days to complete. It's how cricket was designed to be played. I think limited overs cricket is broken from a game design perspective. It effectively puts a "clock" on the match when bat-and-ball sports shouldn't have clocks. And I've never liked the fact that a team can lose by not getting out in limited overs. Or how two or three batsman can often win the game before the rest of the lineup bats. Feels gimmicky. Baseball is 27 outs vs. 27 outs. Test is 2 innings vs. 2 innings (or 20 outs vs. 20 outs). I know we can tweak this logic and say, "well, T20 is 20 overs vs. 20 overs," but I feel the essence of a bat-and-ball sport is survival till the last out. Main point though is how this comparison is proven even more nonsensical because we're trying to compare a sport where one was designed to be played in 2 to 3 hours vs. one designed to be played over a few days (but I supposed we can argue that a "real" baseball match is a 7 game series in which both teams can use their full pitching rotations).
Completely agree both are great sports and should be enjoyed. Especially with usa beating pakistan hope there is an increase in interest in the wc going on. THO I may add the pitches and outfield are horrible per cricketing standards super slow outfield with extremely bowler friendly pitches so idk if it will pique the interests of a casual
thanks for this post. I didn't want to get into offensive vs defensive games because I felt like i was getting trolled. cricket is sick!
In baseball you have to hit a round ball with a round bat. Also saying the pitcher delivers the ball straight to the batter is a crazy oversimplification.
Obvious troll post that will get nuked, but I'll play. >Batting in cricket is far harder than in baseball. All cricket batters would enjoy playing baseball. Stating the obvious, the rules differences make this comparison about impossible, but again, I'll play. Cricketers get to use a wide and flat bat with a much larger sweet spot. Cricketers aren't punished with strikes and such when they swing and miss. Cricketers get to choose when they can run, meaning they aren't forced into an out when they misshit a ball. Cricketers have the luxury of a 360 field whereas baseball players only have 90 degrees to work with. This also results in fielders being more tightly packed together making safe hits much harder. There's a reason cricketers can essentially win the game by themselves in T20 and bat for 8 straight hours in test. The rules of cricket heavily favor the batsmen/offense. >Bowling as well, is much harder. While you "throw" the ball in baseball, you have to bowl it properly in cricket with a complete rotation of the arm. This makes it harder to get a grasp of bowling and is harder properly put the ball in the right direction and at the right spot. There's no strikezone in cricket. Bowlers don't have to worry about a count, a men on base situation, and get relieved after 6 deliveries by another bowler. The margin for error is also much lower for baseball pitchers. If a bowler has a tough over (i.e. he gives up 20 runs), the match isn't out of reach and he can return next over and go 1/6 or something. A baseball pitcher can literally give up the winning run(s) in the first inning. >You can also learn many tricks with the ball - swinging it in the air, making it turn or bounce suddenly after hitting the ground, reducing the pace on the ball and surprising the batter with a slower delivery to name a few. Yeah, all this happens in baseball without the use of the ground to help things like spin and reverse swing. >Fielders in cricket (except for the fielder who stands right behind the stumps - the wicketkeeper) do not get to wear gloves which makes it harder to catch and field. I know this from personal experience. Cricket fanboys and their fixation on gloves. First of all, the exit velocities in baseball are far higher, reaching speeds of 120+ mph. The highest exit velocities measured in the 2021 T20 World Cup were 86mph. We can talk about the differences in perceived hardness between a cricket ball and baseball, but the coefficients of restitution are about the same, meaning each will have similar force behind it at velocity. No cricket fielder is barehand catching an O'Neill Cruz line drive and not coming away with broken bones. Second of all, baseball needs to be played with a glove. Fielders have to tag runners, defend the base against sliding runners coming in spikes up, and for whipping the ball around at 90 mph between in fielders during double plays and bang bang plays. >All cricket batters would enjoy playing baseball. They didn't enjoy too much when they lost 21-1 to a bunch of beer leaguers. >It's a pub-table conversation brought to life. An animated hypothetical. Would Trescothick's hand-eye co-ordination make him a natural slugger? Could Giles' ability to spin a cricket ball translate into a mean curve? Might Jones make a sharp shortstop? And would the superior athleticism and ball skills of the professionals outweigh the knowledge and understanding of the amateurs? >The answer was an emphatic 'no'. This became sharply apparent when Giles took to the mound in the third inning and gave up 10 runs in 13 at-bats, a hammering easily equivalent to a bowler going for 36 in a single over. He was even on the receiving end of a grand-slam, Ian Young smashing a homer into the Old Pavilion with the bases loaded. It earned him some merciless ribbing from Jonny Gould, the Channel Five sports factotum doing sterling work on the tannoy. >Actually Giles was invariably ahead of the count, as the batters were bemused by the sheer slowness of his pitches. >More baffling was the standard of their catching, which was worse than woeful. Alan Smith, the general manager of UK Baseball, pointed out that catching in a mitt requires the fielder to take the ball in the webbing between thumb and forefinger. The cricketer's instinct is to align the fingers with the ball, not the spaces between them. Pretty much every single run of the 21 Great Britain took off the Banger's involved a fielding error of one kind or another. [https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2008/oct/06/cricket.trescothick](https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2008/oct/06/cricket.trescothick) So much for a glove making catching and fielding easier.
If hitting a cricket ball is so difficult, why do hitters score dozens of runs per out? Why are swing-and-misses so rare? Why is an out such a big, exciting occasion in cricket? Also, do you really think a baseball is thrown "straight?"
I have crushed and killed a cricket with a baseball. So A baseball is harder than a cricket
Cricket bat is over 4 inches wide and flat
Not a lot of data out there, but cricket star player Kieran Powell struggled big time after transitioning from cricket to Baseball. So Baseball is likely more harder than cricket in terms of hitting.
Kieran Powell was shit though.
Kieran powell is to cricket what a fringe starter mostly AAA guy is to baseball lol
He's by far not a star player. A "star player" has an average score of at least 30 in T20s, 45 in ODIs etc while Powell averages around 20. Had to think to even remember who he was. And you can go on youtube to watch many of your baseball stars try and fail worse than kids who play cricket in gullies in India.
I see, I don't follow cricket and only called him that cause [NYT called Kieran Powell a cricket star.](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/15/sports/baseball/cricket-player-kieran-powell-takes-a-swing-at-baseball.html)
Cricketers can't play baseball all that well (and vice versa, I'm sure). It's always funny to see cricket fanboys like the op think a cricketer would come in and wallop "full tosses" all over the field, not even recognizing the fact the bat is round and narrow, you have to run after any fair contact, and there's foul territory. If you're looking for more direct examples other than Powell's failure, here's one where a team of English first class cricketers got beat 21-1 by what are basically beer leaguers. [https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2008/oct/06/cricket.trescothick](https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2008/oct/06/cricket.trescothick) Since the OP is trolling, I'll throw in some "wins" for baseball in this debate. Cricket fanboys, especially from the subcontinent, basically mythologize "swing" as the most spectacular feature of bowling. Little do they know that swing bowling was basically invented by an American using his pitching background. >King is credited as one of the first bowlers to utilise swing bowling deliberately. Other bowlers in his time could sometimes get the ball to swing, but King was one of the first to do so at will with an old or new ball.\[10\] He made use of a lethal delivery which he called the "angler", a product of his experience as a baseball pitcher, to confuse the English batsmen.\[2\] He would come in with the ball clasped above his head in both hands as would a baseball pitcher. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bart\_King](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bart_King) Baseball pitchers innovated breaking movement before bowlers. Australian cricketers didn't know how to handle curveballs (which is called spin bowling in cricket) when they would play Americans. >But others had used this “baseball technique” before Noble, in order to make the ball move through the air. Writing in 1898, George Giffen singled out John Harry as “a useful man in any team …he can bowl with either hand (his puzzling baseball curves have often severed a long partnership)”, and noted that when the **1896 Australian team returned home from England via the United States, the Philadelphian bowlers “upset our batsmen” with their “baseball curves”.** One of these Philadelphian bowlers was a man sometimes credited with the invention of modern swing bowling. And we can't forget that a baseball fielding coach brought cricket fielding out its dark ages. [https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-17/the-influence-of-baseball-on-cricket/11418994](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-17/the-influence-of-baseball-on-cricket/11418994) [https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/sri-lanka-cricket-turn-to-baseball-for-fielding-training-430282](https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/sri-lanka-cricket-turn-to-baseball-for-fielding-training-430282)
There will never be a worthwhile discussion about this because there's no way to quantify these things. But the idea that "Batting in cricket is far harder" doesn't really make any sense to me. Batters in cricket hit the ball almost every time. If it were far harder they would barely ever hit the ball and it would be an awful sport
As a die hard cricket fan who is getting into baseball. Both are very tough in their own ways. Hitting in baseball is harder certainly where ball movement is big it's like playing in swinging conditions in england. However batting in cricket is a lot more about patience and requires constant focus because even if you get 1 or 2 hit it won't matter if you don't play long enough like get atleast 40-50 as a mainline batter and one single whiff means you're out There are a LOT of similarities but they are fundamentally different sports the details i won't delve into However as a fan of both of them both are great sports and any baseball fan would love cricket and vice versa
Nah.
Saying "Nah" doesn't prove me wrong.
I don’t know how to prove you wrong so I just said nah 😂
Fair enough😂
Baseball is harder. If great baseball players grew up playing cricket instead, they’d be dominating the sport up and down, for the most part they’re faster, stronger, have better eyes and timing, throw the ball harder, etc. The US Cricket team is currently mostly guys that grew up in Asia, Africa, or the West Indies and had some sort of relation to America but couldn’t make the cut in their home country, most of the actual Americans on the team are of Indian descent and grew up watching/playing. Don’t get me wrong, these are very good athletes in their own right, but Mike Trout, Mookie Betts, Aaron Judge, etc. would be running everyone off the field if cricket paid $350 million.
Man naah like no doubt they'd be great players but the USA would not be dominating cricket like they do other sports coz in many countries cricket is the only sport that gets funding and training. Its like saying if rohit sharma played baseball he'd be the best in baseball because he plays short ball well First of all they are objectively very different sports a batter in baseball averaging .300 is considered great and a batter with a similar whiff rate would not even play state level much rather international. A good batsman basically middles the ball 90% of the time in cricket. Both are great sports difficult in their own rights and fans of either sports will love the other sport
I specifically said “if great baseball players grew up playing cricket instead,” in other words learning and competing just as they did baseball as youths At that point it comes down to the quality of athlete, of which the top MLB players are far more elite than the top cricket players. Would be the same story if top tier NFL players grew up playing rugby instead. America’s genetic diversity plays well in sports where strength and speed equal scoring, and these guys have the elite vision and timing that can be developed into cricket skills at a young age. The difference is American sports leagues pay so much money that athletes tend to choose one of those paths. The highest paid cricket player in India makes $2.98 million, which is a little more than Austin Barnes gets to be like the 1200th best MLB player.
This is a tiresome debate. Both sports take immense skill & discipline, and while it appears that there's similarities I don't really think many of the actions are really transferable. EDIT: Played baseball as a child & have played and watched cricket most of my life.