# Will cricket catch on in the USA? **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Tags:** cricket\ **Created:** [July 14, 2023, 9:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-cricket-catch-on-in-the-usa/987016 "2023-07-14T09:33:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2023, 8:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-cricket-catch-on-in-the-usa/987016/101 "2023-07-18T08:50:28Z")
> [@DKW](#): > > never mind quirks like players having to call their own outs The Aussies have decided that’s not necessary 😁 ---
**Author:** ![SanVito](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sanvito/32/2805_2.png) [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2023, 9:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-cricket-catch-on-in-the-usa/987016/102 "2023-07-18T09:08:35Z")
> [@EllisDee](#): > > I agree, but aren’t there countries where there are two different variations of rugby, and both are popular? I’m not sure of the names. Maybe rugby league and rugby union? Or rugby sevens? Yes, but they tend to be popular in different places. Rugby Union is the game watched/played in southern England, for example, whereas Rugby League is popular in Northern England. People tend to watch one or the other, not both. It’s quite tribal. ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2023, 9:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-cricket-catch-on-in-the-usa/987016/103 "2023-07-18T09:50:36Z")
> [@SanVito](#): > > Yes, but they tend to be popular in different places. Rugby Union is the game watched/played in southern England, for example, whereas Rugby League is popular in Northern England. People tend to watch one or the other, not both. It’s quite tribal. And weirdly, as the sport drifts even further north and east in England and into the Scottish borders it becomes Union-based again. Go figure. Like you say, it is often quite tribal (though my late dad was a semi-pro union player and still watched and supported league, he was originally from the North-West of England) ---
**Author:** ![Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slow_moving_vehicle/32/291_2.png) [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2023, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-cricket-catch-on-in-the-usa/987016/104 "2023-07-18T12:22:37Z")
> [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > > [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](#): > > > > Likewise, a hitter who’s not _quite_ good enough for the bigs might find success using a bat with three hitting surfaces > > Three hitting surfaces? Forgive me if I speak in ignorance, but the former Barbadian semi-pro cricketer who explained the game to me said that occasionally, albeit not intentionally, batsmen can get hits off the side of the bat, yes? In any case, I would have made my point better if I had said, “using a flat bat”, since that is the one unequivocal area in which baseball is more difficult than cricket - hitting a round ball with a round bat. Which probably underlies the fundamental difference between the games - batting drives cricket, pitching drives baseball. ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2023, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-cricket-catch-on-in-the-usa/987016/105 "2023-07-18T12:32:14Z")
> [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](#): > > Forgive me if I speak in ignorance, but the former Barbadian semi-pro cricketer who explained the game to me said that occasionally, albeit not intentionally, batsmen can get hits off the side of the bat, yes? No problem, it is true that any surface or part of the bat is valid when it comes to scoring runs or indeed being caught out, but only one face of the bat is used for purposeful striking. > [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](#): > > In any case, I would have made my point better if I had said, “using a flat bat”, since that is the one unequivocal area in which baseball is more difficult than cricket - hitting a round ball with a round bat. Yes, it is harder to hit the ball cleanly in baseball. The cricket bat has a flat face that is about 50% wider than a baseball bat and that difference brings about the hugely greater variety of batting strokes and styles in cricket. > [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](#): > > Which probably underlies the fundamental difference between the games - batting drives cricket, pitching drives baseball. It isn’t quite so straightforward actually. Batting plays a greater role in cricket than baseball but certainly, in test cricket, you cannot win the game unless you take all 20 opposition wickets on offer. An ideal cricket game comprises a fair balance between bat and ball. ---
**Author:** ![Mighty\_Mouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mighty_mouse/32/7776_2.png) [@Mighty\_Mouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Mouse)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2023, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-cricket-catch-on-in-the-usa/987016/106 "2023-07-18T12:38:16Z")
> [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > certainly, in test cricket, you cannot win the game unless you take all 20 opposition wickets on offer. Not if the opposition is captained by Stokes or Cronje! ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2023, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-cricket-catch-on-in-the-usa/987016/107 "2023-07-18T12:39:14Z")
> [@Mighty\_Mouse](#): > > Not if the opposition is captained by Stokes or Cronje! harsh but fair ---
**Author:** ![Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slow_moving_vehicle/32/291_2.png) [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2023, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-cricket-catch-on-in-the-usa/987016/108 "2023-07-18T13:09:54Z")
> [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > It isn’t quite so straightforward actually. Batting plays a greater role in cricket than baseball but certainly, in test cricket, you cannot win the game unless you take all 20 opposition wickets on offer. An ideal cricket game comprises a fair balance between bat and ball. I was being a bit simplistic, yes. But when I spent an evening with my Barbadian friend, listening to him explain the game, that’s what I came away with; that on a fundamental level, cricket and baseball are almost the same game, save that one is slanted more towards batsmen and the other toward pitchers. Indeed, that’s one of the reasons why I _don’t_ think cricket could catch on in the U.S., or baseball in the U.K. for that matter; I suspect neither population has mental space to pay attention to more than one similar, highly complex bat-and-ball game. ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2023, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-cricket-catch-on-in-the-usa/987016/109 "2023-07-18T13:36:21Z")
> [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](#): > > Indeed, that’s one of the reasons why I _don’t_ think cricket could catch on in the U.S., or baseball in the U.K. for that matter; I suspect neither population has mental space to pay attention to more than one similar, highly complex bat-and-ball game. I fancy you may be right, unlikely it’ll reach the heights of baseball but there may well be a big enough population with enough discretionary spending power to make it a mid-level success. ---
**Author:** ![Mighty\_Mouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mighty_mouse/32/7776_2.png) [@Mighty\_Mouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Mouse)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2023, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-cricket-catch-on-in-the-usa/987016/110 "2023-07-18T13:58:12Z")
There would need to be a change in how immigrants assimilate in the US. Right now it seems like second or third generation South Asian immigrants aren’t any more interested in cricket than the general population. Most of my generation’s kids have never played cricket and watching cricket is something dad and grandad do. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2023, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-cricket-catch-on-in-the-usa/987016/111 "2023-07-18T16:21:36Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > They have not been in my kitchen. Golf clap. ---
**Author:** ![Wallaby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/dc4da7/32.png) [@Wallaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wallaby)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2023, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-cricket-catch-on-in-the-usa/987016/112 "2023-07-18T22:17:11Z")
The biggest difference between baseball and cricket is one that is difficult for baseball fans who are new to cricket to understand. You don’t have to run. Suppose in baseball, you hit a weak grounder straight to the second baseman - you are going to be out at first by 30 feet. In cricket, you have a look, quickly sum up the situation and decide “I’m not running”. That’s the end of that play. No strike is recorded, no ‘ball’ is counted, there is no change to the score. Nothing actually happened. The bowler goes back to do it again, the batsman shapes up again, and off we go. The record for the longest individual innings in Test cricket (ie - the longest at-bat without going out) is 847 deliveries - the batsman (Len Hutton) was finally out on Day 3 of the match. When baseball fans say ‘hitting a baseball is the hardest thing to do in sports’, they really mean ‘hitting a ball safely, so that it isn’t caught by any of the 9 opposition players, travels only the 90-degree arc from home plate, and enables the batter time to get from home plate to first base before the fielders get the ball there’. ---
**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2023, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-cricket-catch-on-in-the-usa/987016/113 "2023-07-18T22:27:48Z")
Back in the late 90s, early 00s I was living with a friend who had a satellite dish. One day I sat and watched a cricket match on what I presume to be an Indian channel and tried to figure out the rules just by watching with the sound off. I watched for a solid 4 hours at least and at certain times I thought I more or less understood what was happening and why, but then suddenly something, or _seemingly nothing_ would happen and the score would change for reasons I could not account for. I’d be willing to give it another try with a little guidance. ---
**Author:** ![Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulf_the_Unwashed)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2023, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-cricket-catch-on-in-the-usa/987016/114 "2023-07-18T22:31:37Z")
Purely anecdotal, but to back this up involving a different ethnic group: My small city in NY State has a significant though not huge Caribbean community, including a lot of people from Jamaica. When I came here a few decades ago, the members of this community had banded together to create a cricket pitch (field? zone?) outside of town. I’d bicycle by on occasion and see matches going on. It was kind of neat. There’s been no drop in the size of the Caribbean community, but the field is gone–not replaced by housing or businesses, note, but just abandoned. That was pre-pandemic and probably closer to ten years ago than to five. I bike by today and it’s just an overgrown lot. I imagine the people who built it aged out of playing, and the next generation was more interested in soccer, basketball, or baseball than in keeping the place going. But I don’t know for sure, only that it used to be a thing and isn’t any more. ---
**Author:** ![Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slow_moving_vehicle/32/291_2.png) [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2023, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-cricket-catch-on-in-the-usa/987016/115 "2023-07-19T03:25:09Z")
> [@Wallaby](#): > > When baseball fans say ‘hitting a baseball is the hardest thing to do in sports’, they really mean ‘hitting a ball safely, so that it isn’t caught by any of the 9 opposition players, travels only the 90-degree arc from home plate, and enables the batter time to get from home plate to first base before the fielders get the ball there’ Well, yes. That’s what we mean when we say that baseball is slanted towards pitching, while cricket is slanted towards batting. It’s also why baseball fans will say that getting a hit off a major league pitcher, in the specific manner you described (and you forgot to mention that all of those nine players are wearing big leather gloves, to catch the ball. And you’re using a round bat) can be argued the most difficult act in pro sports. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2023, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-cricket-catch-on-in-the-usa/987016/116 "2023-07-19T22:04:52Z")
> [@Wallaby](#): > > No strike is recorded, no ‘ball’ is counted, there is no change to the score. Nothing actually happened. In test cricket true but in a 20 over match there are only 120 good balls (6 balls per over) so in your situation the innings is one ball closer to the end. ---
**Author:** ![ISiddiqui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/97f17d/32.png) [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2023, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-cricket-catch-on-in-the-usa/987016/117 "2023-07-19T22:36:35Z")
> [@Mighty\_Mouse](#): > > There would need to be a change in how immigrants assimilate in the US. Right now it seems like second or third generation South Asian immigrants aren’t any more interested in cricket than the general population. > > Most of my generation’s kids have never played cricket and watching cricket is something dad and grandad do. As a second generation South Asian, I sign on to this whole heartedly. And my father is a massive cricket fan - I was named for Imran Khan for one! It was something dad watched or sometimes (strangly) played with other middle aged distant family members when they got together. I watched a few T20 games on ESPN+ in the last few years, and it’s interesting enough… but I’m far more a soccer and baseball fan. ---
**Author:** ![TheCuse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thecuse/32/2854_2.png) [@TheCuse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheCuse)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2023, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-cricket-catch-on-in-the-usa/987016/118 "2023-07-19T22:54:24Z")
When I was in the USAF and stationed in Australia,I watched and didn’t care for cricket, though I did like Aussie rules football. I just didn’t care for cricket. ---
**Author:** ![peccavi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peccavi/32/388_2.png) [@peccavi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/peccavi)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2023, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-cricket-catch-on-in-the-usa/987016/119 "2023-07-19T23:24:11Z")
> [@Love\_Rhombus](#): > > > [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > > > What do those three super-powers have in common? > > They all have McDonalds? Not so fast… [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/y0qTrqTJtIs/maxresdefault.jpg "TASTY PERIOD: Russia's McDonald's replacement, is it really that bad? w/ @DepressedRussian") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0qTrqTJtIs) ---
**Author:** ![Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de053/32.png) [@Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackknifed_Juggernaut)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2023, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-cricket-catch-on-in-the-usa/987016/120 "2023-07-20T03:14:37Z")
> [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](#): > > That’s what we mean when we say that baseball is slanted towards pitching, while cricket is slanted towards batting. I’m not sure this is entirely true if seen from another perspective. From a batter’s perspective, getting out in cricket is an immensely more severe outcome than anything in baseball. In a test match, you can be an opening batsman and get out on a blinder and be done for the day. You may not bat again for 3 days. Meanwhile bowlers can come at you all day long, over and over again. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-cricket-catch-on-in-the-usa/987016.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-cricket-catch-on-in-the-usa/987016.md?page=7)