Why baseball lovers should take a closer look at cricket

Cricket’s grand finale, the 2015 World Cup final, will take place on Sunday in Melbourne. Hosts Australia trounced reigning champions India to set up a clash with their neighbor and co-host New Zealand. The match is expected to be watched by hundreds of millions the world over, with the winner to gain bragging rights as the best cricketing team in the world for next four years. The World Cup is a pretty big affair when it comes to audience numbers. The 2011 World Cup final in Mumbai, India was viewed by 135m people in the host country and approximately 60m more were watching globally. Cricket developed as a national sport in England in the 18th century and is currently played in 105 countries including the US. Cricket continues to have its strongest fan following in South Asia, Australia, Europe and Africa.

Runs. Pitches. Wickets. Hundreds of runs are scored in a game, several home runs are hit, each pitch offers something new as the prepared surface and weather conditions determine the ball’s behavior, and wickets – batsmen getting out – can fall in many different ways. “Apart from athleticism, cricket is a very mental game. It requires focus and tremendous concentration,” said Robert Daguillard, of Bethesda, Maryland. Daguillard was first introduced to cricket while visiting London more than two decades ago and later joined a local league in Germany before moving back to the United States

Related: How Philadelphia became the unlikely epicenter of American cricket

“Cricket has a deep cultural meaning for people from former British colonies. It’s a common language, a common thread,” said Mark Demos, an entrepreneur and cricket coach from Dallas, Texas. When Demos moved to Seattle, he didn’t know anyone, but was easily able to find people to play cricket with and made several friends who shared a similar passion for the sport.

Cricket is a no-contact sport. During the early days of the game, players were expected to maintain a certain level of decorum that banned sledging, cheating, targeting the opponent’s body while bowling (pitching), etc. Aggressive sledging has become common in the modern era and new rules restrict ballers from bowling deliveries (pitches) directed at the batsman’s body.

New gear has also made it much safer and there is limited stress on the body, so players remain free of serious injuries – although there have been a few incidents where players lost their lives due to lack of proper gear. In 1998, Indian cricketer Raman Lamba died after slipping into a coma after being hit by a ball while fielding close to a batsman. Most recently, Australian player Philips Hughes lost his life due to a freak accident after being hit on his neck by an 80mph ball.

Cricket doesn’t require the players be of a certain body type, in fact some of the greats of cricket were not the conventional ‘athletic’ variety. “Cricket is one of most viral sports I have seen in my life: If 100 kids try it, 75 will end up playing it,” said Jamie Harrison, chief of the American Cricket Federation. Harrison feels that for most American sports it’s easy to determine who the best players would be based on their body type; the biggest, the strongest, and the fastest kids mostly do better. “Cricket rewards patience and technique, often times even smaller kids do well,” he said.

Jim Hill, a senior television producer from Tampa, is clueless about the Cricket World Cup. He is focused on the ongoing NCAA tournament and the Chicago Cubs preparing to climb out of the bottom of the National League. “I think it’s similar to baseball but scoring runs confuses me. Do you get a run every time you hit the ball and make it to the opposite wicket? Why is it called a wicket?” Hill feels that America’s participation and nominal understanding of the rules would take a minute for him to get into it. Demos feel that the shorter version (T-20) with only 120 pitches is much easier for baseball fans to enjoy. Witnessing some exhibition games with world’s best talent would also help. “Explaining rules while watching a game would certainly help. It’s a bat and ball or pitch and home runs, so should be pretty easy for a baseball lover,” he said. This Sunday’s final would be a good opportunity for cricket fans in America to educate their baseball loving friends about the game that is claims more than billion fans world over.

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