# Cricket vs. Baseball: What's bigger? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 15, 2006, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cricket-vs-baseball-whats-bigger/344594 "2006-02-15T04:24:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![jabiru](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/bbce88/32.png) [@jabiru](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jabiru)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2006, 9:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cricket-vs-baseball-whats-bigger/344594/61 "2006-02-16T09:22:44Z")
Damn. Hit ‘post’ too quickly. I guess Jardine wasn’t the name, so Larwood seemed to me to be the closest. ---
**Author:** ![Scissorjack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c67d28/32.png) [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2006, 10:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cricket-vs-baseball-whats-bigger/344594/62 "2006-02-16T10:37:06Z")
> [@don't ask](#): > > Larwood wasn’t the villain, he was the poor working class laddie induced by even-more-evil-than-Hitler Douglas Jardine, to bowl “leg theory” to nullify the brilliance of Don Bradman. Larwood emigrated to Australia after he retired and no one ever blamed him for being the actual hitman, however no Aussie would ever have pissed on Jardine if he was on fire. Of course, there’s always the infamous underarm bowling incident, which will _never_ be forgotten on this side of the Tasman. **aankh** , I can think of a few non-US sporting movies, but they seem to focus more on individual athletes such as boxers or runners: _Chariots Of Fire_, that boxing one with Daniel Day Lewis - hell, there was even a boxing movie recently starring Orlando Bloom, of all people. The US, however, seems to have the market in feel-good, “win one for the coach” team sports movies sewn up. ---
**Author:** ![jabiru](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/bbce88/32.png) [@jabiru](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jabiru)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2006, 10:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cricket-vs-baseball-whats-bigger/344594/63 "2006-02-16T10:46:09Z")
> [@Case Sensitive](#): > > Of course, there’s always the infamous underarm bowling incident, which will _never_ be forgotten on this side of the Tasman. It didn’t do Trevor Chappell’s career any good, either. ---
**Author:** ![manx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/65b543/32.png) [@manx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/manx)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2006, 11:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cricket-vs-baseball-whats-bigger/344594/64 "2006-02-16T11:03:58Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Plus there’s more variety in cricket -test, one-day, 20/20 (although the last is a farce) I deny 20/20. DENY! We drew, dammit, we drew. It happens! There is no need for a ‘bowl-off’! The sooner it sinks without a trace, the better. ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2006, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cricket-vs-baseball-whats-bigger/344594/65 "2006-02-16T12:36:06Z")
…talking about 20/20 cricket, New Zealand and the West Indies just played, and for the first time ever in an international, there was a tie and they had a “bowl-off!” Five bowlers from each team got two deliveries at the wicket, and the most wickets at the end of the “bowl off” wins that game. Seven players couldn’t hit the stumps until Shane Bond (who earler, had been practicing against a single stump and hit it every time) took the stumps out twice. Styris hit the wicket one more time for a fun end to a pretty average game… :: tips hat to Chris Cairns :: enjoy your retirement! > **[An unfitting farewell](https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/an-unfitting-farewell-237360)** > > Dylan Cleaver watches the curtain come down on Chris Cairns' international career ---
**Author:** ![Kyla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eada6e/32.png) [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2006, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cricket-vs-baseball-whats-bigger/344594/66 "2006-02-16T18:15:58Z")
> [@Case Sensitive](#): > > Following movies about baseball works pretty much the same way: we’ve been pretty well exposed to at least the general idea of how most American sports work via TV and movies, although the quasi-mystical reverential regard in which baseball is held in American movies is somewhat baffling: I’d be hard pressed to name a single cricket movie. > > _snip_ > > Kevin Costner, however, remains an unfathomable cultural mystery. Kevin Costner remains a mystery to many Americans, too. Clearly, he appeals to the portion of audiences who prefer poorly-acted glurge. As for the mythical ideal of baseball in movies, one could probably write a thesis paper on this for a film or anthropology course. There are other sports that are popular in the US, but for whatever reason, baseball occupies a special spot in the American psyche. More than in any other sport, important events in baseball history are often seen as important events in _American_ history. ---
**Author:** ![Jeff\_Lichtman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jeff_lichtman/32/1531_2.png) [@Jeff\_Lichtman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jeff_Lichtman)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2006, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cricket-vs-baseball-whats-bigger/344594/67 "2006-02-16T18:33:59Z")
> [@Case Sensitive](#): > > Of course, there’s always the infamous underarm bowling incident, which will _never_ be forgotten on this side of the Tasman. Can someone explain this to those of us in baseball land? ---
**Author:** ![Jeff\_Lichtman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jeff_lichtman/32/1531_2.png) [@Jeff\_Lichtman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jeff_Lichtman)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2006, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cricket-vs-baseball-whats-bigger/344594/68 "2006-02-16T18:49:07Z")
There are baseball movies that aren’t dripping with sentiment. [Eight Men Out](http://imdb.com/title/tt0095082/) is about the 1919 World Series, in which eight members of the Chicago White Sox threw the series in a gambling conspiracy. [Major League](http://imdb.com/title/tt0097815/) is a comedy about an attempt by the (fictional) owner of the (non-fictional) Cleveland Indians to put together a terrible team by populating it with misfits, so that attendance will suffer and she can move the team to another city. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Lance\_Murdoch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/47e85d/32.png) [@Captain\_Lance\_Murdoch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Lance_Murdoch)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2006, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cricket-vs-baseball-whats-bigger/344594/69 "2006-02-16T19:02:14Z")
> [@Jeff Lichtman](#): > > Can someone explain this to those of us in baseball land? Even I heard about that. The guy gently lobbed an underhand pitch (or whatever) to the batter (or whatever) so there was no way he could hit it hard enough to score the points (or whatever) his team needed. Techincally legal, but not very sporting. One knock against the “bigness” of cricket is that the U.S. qualified for the last World Cup. How hard up are they to round out the field if they have to put the U.S. in there? I’ve never met anyone here who has played the game even once. Or knows how it is played for that matter. ---
**Author:** ![Jeff\_Lichtman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jeff_lichtman/32/1531_2.png) [@Jeff\_Lichtman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jeff_Lichtman)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2006, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cricket-vs-baseball-whats-bigger/344594/70 "2006-02-16T19:16:11Z")
> [@Captain Lance Murdoch](#): > > The guy gently lobbed an underhand pitch (or whatever) to the batter (or whatever) so there was no way he could hit it hard enough to score the points (or whatever) his team needed. Techincally legal, but not very sporting. I assume that time for the match was running out, and that this was a way of running out the clock. Otherwise, what good would it have done, since the striker (?) wasn’t put out? Am I right? Were the rules changed to prevent this from happening again? The Major League Baseball rulebook is full of rules to prevent players from doing things that aren’t in the nature of the game. Every so often a sport makes a major rule change to bring the practices of the sport back into line - for example, college basketball introduced the shot clock to eliminate the four corners offense, which was a way of stalling once a team got a lead. How often to the rules (laws?) of cricket change? ---
**Author:** ![MelCthefirst](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eada6e/32.png) [@MelCthefirst](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MelCthefirst)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2006, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cricket-vs-baseball-whats-bigger/344594/71 "2006-02-16T19:23:14Z")
> [@Case Sensitive](#): > > snip **aankh** , I can think of a few non-US sporting movies, but they seem to focus more on individual athletes such as boxers or runners: _Chariots Of Fire_, that boxing one with Daniel Day Lewis - hell, there was even a boxing movie recently starring Orlando Bloom, of all people. The US, however, seems to have the market in feel-good, “win one for the coach” team sports movies sewn up. What about ‘Bend it Like Beckem’ and that soccer one with the guy from The Full Monty - can’t remember his name. But generally not that schmaltsy Hollywood crap. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2006, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cricket-vs-baseball-whats-bigger/344594/72 "2006-02-16T20:23:02Z")
> [@MelCthefirst](#): > > What about ‘Bend it Like Beckem’ and that soccer one with the guy from The Full Monty - can’t remember his name. But generally not that schmaltsy Hollywood crap. > **[There's Only One Jimmy Grimble (2000) - IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0238660/)** > > There's Only One Jimmy Grimble: Directed by John Hay. With Lewis McKenzie, Jane Lapotaire, Gina McKee, Ben Miller. Jimmy Grimble is a shy Manchester school boy. However, through football, and some special boots, he manages to gain the confidence to... Good call on the existence of the film - but it still had a veneer of Hollywood crap, underneath the Ken Loach-ish ‘northern realism’ ---
**Author:** ![Scissorjack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c67d28/32.png) [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2006, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cricket-vs-baseball-whats-bigger/344594/73 "2006-02-16T21:10:24Z")
> [@Jeff Lichtman](#): > > I assume that time for the match was running out, and that this was a way of running out the clock. Otherwise, what good would it have done, since the striker (?) wasn’t put out? Am I right? It was a one day match back in 1981, and on the last ball of the last over NZ needed six runs to tie the score: Brian McKechnie {a double international, incidentally: he was an All Black as well} was the last man, and being well down in the batting order where the bunnies go, there was little chance he could hit a six, which requires the ball to be hit _over_ the boundary. A cliff-hanger, in other words: could this lowly batsman do the near impossible and snatch the draw with a mighty shot on the last ball? This would have been the stuff of legend. However, in order to stymie even the small chance he had, Greg Chappell, the Aussie captain, ordered his brother Trevor, the bowler, to bowl underarm, just trickling it down the pitch: this wasn’t technically illegal at the time - no-one had thought to clear up the rules, since underarm bowling just _wasn’t done_, especially at an international level - but it was a disgracefully unsporting tactic, denying NZ the draw and McKechnie even the faintest chance of glory McKechnie just blocked the ball, which was all he could do, and then threw down his bat in disgust and stalked off, followed by the rest of the NZ team - and we haven’t stopped talking about it 25 years later. The rules were changed shortly thereafter. ---
**Author:** ![Askance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askance/32/8281_2.png) [@Askance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askance)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2006, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cricket-vs-baseball-whats-bigger/344594/74 "2006-02-17T02:28:45Z")
> [@](#): > > However, in order to stymie even the small chance he had, Greg Chappell, the Aussie captain, ordered his brother Trevor, the bowler, to bowl underarm, just trickling it down the pitch: this wasn’t technically illegal at the time - no-one had thought to clear up the rules, since underarm bowling just wasn’t done, especially at an international level - but it was a disgracefully unsporting tactic, denying NZ the draw and McKechnie even the faintest chance of glory Not that it’s an excuse, but Greg Chappell had been in a team (possibly captain?) that had been beaten by a 6 on the last ball of the game, and presumably did this because he really didn’t want that to happen again. ---
**Author:** ![Scissorjack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c67d28/32.png) [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2006, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cricket-vs-baseball-whats-bigger/344594/75 "2006-02-17T05:01:05Z")
> [@Askance](#): > > Not that it’s an excuse, but Greg Chappell had been in a team (possibly captain?) that had been beaten by a 6 on the last ball of the game, and presumably did this because he really didn’t want that to happen again. Still a rotten lousy thing to do: if you’re beat or tied with a six off the last ball, well, good on the guy that managed to pull off a stunt like that. ---
**Author:** ![Neurotik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/91b2a8/32.png) [@Neurotik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neurotik)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2006, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cricket-vs-baseball-whats-bigger/344594/76 "2006-02-17T12:32:03Z")
Why was it the last ball? How come he doesn’t get to bat until he’s out? ---
**Author:** ![Dervorin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Dervorin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dervorin)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2006, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cricket-vs-baseball-whats-bigger/344594/77 "2006-02-17T12:47:38Z")
> [@Neurotik](#): > > Why was it the last ball? How come he doesn’t get to bat until he’s out? Cricket is played for a fixed number of “overs” (an over consisting of six bowled balls). One-day cricket currently consists of two innings of 50 overs each; each team bats their 50 overs and tries to make as many runs as they can. If you don’t beat the other team’s score in your allotted 50 overs, tough; the match is over. Test cricket has slightly more flexible rules about the number of overs, and unofficial matches in schools do often go on until everyone is out. ---
**Author:** ![TheLoadedDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/35a633/32.png) [@TheLoadedDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheLoadedDog)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2006, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cricket-vs-baseball-whats-bigger/344594/78 "2006-02-17T14:16:29Z")
[Cricket explained](http://usa.cricinfo.com/db/ABOUT_CRICKET/EXPLANATION/CRICKET_EXPLAINED_AMERICAN.html) for Americans, by an American (and I think he does a good job of it too). ---
**Author:** ![Neurotik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/91b2a8/32.png) [@Neurotik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neurotik)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2006, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cricket-vs-baseball-whats-bigger/344594/79 "2006-02-17T14:35:25Z")
> [@Dervorin](#): > > Cricket is played for a fixed number of “overs” (an over consisting of six bowled balls). Following **TheLoadedDog’s** link (most of which I knew, but thanks anyway, it did clear up some issues), that’s only one day matches, though. Most matches have the five day limit, right? ---
**Author:** ![TheLoadedDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/35a633/32.png) [@TheLoadedDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheLoadedDog)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2006, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cricket-vs-baseball-whats-bigger/344594/80 "2006-02-17T14:44:37Z")
> [@Neurotik](#): > > Following **TheLoadedDog’s** link (most of which I knew, but thanks anyway, it did clear up some issues), that’s only one day matches, though. Most matches have the five day limit, right? Well, test matches do. These are the BIG internationals, as you’re aware. The one day matches are, surprisingly enough, one day, or “limited overs”. Now these two forms of cricket represent pretty much all televised versions of the sport. Most of the rest is played on the weekends in the lower grades, or socially, or as school sport, or even in the backyard with a tennis ball, a plank, and some beer cans for the wicket. This is the great grey area of cricket, which is not usually of five days’ duration. As the link said, it’s “whatever”. Cricket rules are known as “laws”. They are very complex. However, social cricket often deviates wildly from the proper laws, and you can have wild things like “six and out” which is popular in schoolboy matches: hit the ball over the boundary, and you get the glory of having hit a six, but you’re also out. This speeds up the game to the point of often being able to fit into a high school lunch hour. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cricket-vs-baseball-whats-bigger/344594.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cricket-vs-baseball-whats-bigger/344594.md?page=5)