In cricket it is rare for a batsman to miss the ball. In baseball it seems rare the batter can hit the ball. Is there something I am missing here?
Baseballs go much faster, and the bat is a little smaller.
Difference in bat size is one thing (also, a cricket bat is flat, a baseball bat round), game play is another. A batter in baseball is usually trying to hit the ball hard, because there is no option but to run if the ball is hit fair. A weakly hit fair ball is almost always an out. You can try to foul off pitches that are on the edges of the strikezone, but there is a limit to this. In cricket you’re never required to run (as far as I know), so a weak little dribbler isn’t really a problem; just wait for the next one. Always swinging hard makes it harder to hit the ball.
From wikipedia
The average major-league pitcher can throw a fastball around 90 miles per hour (145 km/h), and a few pitchers have even exceeded 100 miles per hour (161 km/h)
On cricket- A typical fast delivery has a speed in the range 136 to 150 km/h (85 to 95 mph). The fastest delivery that has ever been officially recorded clocked in at 161.3 km/h (100.2 mph)
Correct, unless you’re playing “tip and run” in the backyard. I’d say this is the main reason.
Isn’t the pitcher in cricket trying to hit the wickets? In baseball, the pitcher is exploring the edge of the strike zone. Am I wrong in thinking that the baseball has a larger area it could be in?
Cricket batters rarely take full swings. It seems that they mostly try to block the ball in a specific direction. Their swings are more like swinging bunts in baseball.
The bowler in cricket is not always trying to hit the stumps, and in some forms of the game the primary motivation of his bowling might not even be to get the batsman out. Also the fact that the ball is allowed to bounce in cricket means that a legal delivery can be anywhere from the batsmans toes to his head. The legal area for a ball in cricket is much larger than for one in baseball.
Are any kind of breaking balls possible in cricket? It seems to me that would make a huge difference in how easy it is to hit the ball.
Also, in baseball a ground ball or a fly ball is pretty much always an out. Is that the case in cricket?
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Yes, lots. The ball can swerve in flight, and in the case of a technique called “reverse swing” this can be quite pronounced even on the fastest deliveries. There are also several ways to make it deviate when it bounces - spinning it, “cutting” it (like spinning, but with a technique that allows it still to be bowled fast) or landing it directly on the seam. All are subject to the state of the pitch, which can magnify the effects or make them unpredictable.
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A ground ball is safe - remember there’s no requirement to run, so if it goes straight to a fielder, no harm is done, and if it doesn’t, there’s a scoring opportunity. A fly ball is often an out, but the fielding side does have to cover the whole outfield so in many cases it won’t be caught. It is still normally a higher-risk option.
While it is possible to curve a cricket ball in the air, the much greater effect with spin bowling is the changes in trajectory caused when a spinning ball bounces.
Many cricket shots, whether a defensive block or an attempt at a boundary, deliberately ground the ball to prevent the risk of being caught out. Take a look here.
This cricket thing makes my feeble brain weep.
Watching England play New Zealand in the current Test Match is making me weep. 
Here’s a great example of how much the ball can turn: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnRbdfB2syw&feature=related
Yes, and in quite a number of different ways too since the ball can bounce.
Getting the ball to move through the air is called swing bowling in cricket, and would be similar to breaking balls in baseball. In cricket, the condition of the ball is a major factor in play. Since it is a leather ball and allowed to bounce on a hard surface, you can imagine it would get quite roughed up after a lot of bowling. A major part of swing bowling is allowing one side of the ball to stay roughed up, but shining the other side of the ball, and bowling so as one side of the ball travels faster than the other, causing swing. There is a good explanation of the physics involved at the start of this video and some excellent examples of swinging deliveries in this one. As you can see in the latter video, the batsmen just let the ball go as they were not expecting the ball to swing as much as it did. These are among the best batsmen in the world too, so it’s not like it was an amateur error. It was just very good swing bowling that made them look so.
There are two main ways of getting the ball to change direction off the ground. One is seam bowling, where the bowler bowls the ball with an upright seam so it hits the ground on an uneven spot on the ball and changes direction. The change of direction is often subtle, so this kind of ball is bowled by fast bowlers.
The second method is spin bowling. This is where the bowler makes the ball spin as it leaves his hand, so it changes direction when it bounces. In this case, the slower the better so there is a bigger ratio of sideways movement to forward movement, so spin bowlers are usually slow bowlers with a short run up. There are a number of methods to spin bowling in terms of which direction it spins, and sometimes fast bowlers put spin on the ball too, but I won’t complicate matters too much. Here are a couple of famous balls from one of the best spin bowlers in recent history:
You’re kidding. I’ve seen the baseball threads on this board and it seems impossible to play without being not only an athlete but a lawyer and an actuary into the bargain. Something or other may or may not be out according to how many players are out already or whether there’s a man on some base or other… and you play this for fun.
While in spin bowling the predominant concern is to make the ball deviate off the pitch, there’s still plenty of scope for spin-swerve in flight. Also, many slow bowlers have been experts in what’s called “flight” - making the batsman misjudge where the ball’s going to pitch. Shot selection’s influenced by whether the batsman can reach the ball just as it bounces, or should let it bounce and step back to give himself the extra moment to see how much it’s spun. If the bowler can beat the batsman “in the air”, as it’s called, the batsman can find himself playing the wrong shot.
Spin isn’t the only way to make a ball swerve in flight, though, nor the most important; use of the seam and keeping one half of the ball shinier than the other can create swerve through the air. Though with no great pretensions as a bowler, I’ve been able sometimes to make a cricket ball swerve literally two or three feet in flight. (The trick is to do it at 85mph and land it within a foot of where it’s wanted, time after time; that’s the part I couldn’t do.)
Limited-over cricket came after my time in Australia. What stops a bowler from bowling unhittable balls all day?
The laws for what constitutes a wide are much less forgiving in limited overs cricket. For example, pretty much anything going down leg side that the batsman doesn’t hit is a wide in limited overs cricket. Not necessarily so in tests. Also, a bowler is only allowed one ball over shoulder height per over.
I think the distance from pitcher (bowler) to batter makes a difference as well. In Baseball, the pitcher begins his throw 60’ 6" from the center of the plate, strides forward on delivery, so let’s say he’s about 57 feet from the batter when he throws.
In cricket, if I have this diagram right, the bowler is 22 yards from the wickets, 66 feet, and he must bowl before the line, not stride from the line call it 66 feet exact. That’s a 15% increase in distance thrown, it’s a big difference.
Make baseball pitchers throw behind a line 6 feet further back than the rubber is today, and batting averages will skyrocket.
22 yards is the distance between the stumps, but the batsman is roughly lined up with the batting crease and can step forward of it, and the bowler is only required to be behind the popping crease (not the bowling crease), example. Deduct four feet for each of these, and the 15% disappears.
