Cricket Not Baseball

Historians can say what they want. Researchers can produce facts to support their case. But I don’t care. To me the resemblances between baseball and cricket are about as limited as comparisons between the mountains and the ocean. You might like to vacation in either spot, but that’s all they have in common.

This year the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown mounted a massive, detailed, splashly exhibit on cricket, part of reaching across the sea to embrace Great Britain in one great big loving hug, no doubt. OK, give the English a tip of the cap to thank them for using the words “run” and “batsman” in their game first, but since before the Boston Tea Party the average person has known there are distinct differences between England and the United States and not just that they have a king or queen and we don’t.

It has often been wittily stated that Americans and English are two peoples separated by a common language. They are also separated by coffee drinkers and tea drinkers. And absolutely by cricket and baseball.

Besides receiving email announcements and brochures hyping the opening of the cricket exhibit at the Hall, I actually saw it in person. After walking through the displays I can unequivocally state that it was big. Some of the old pictures were funky, too. But it was also dull. I tried to appreciate it all, but couldn’t fool myself. Cricket did not speak to me from the nicely arranged photographs or the detailed explanations. The Hall of Fame went to considerable trouble to arrange this exhibit and all I could think of as I moved from glass case to glass case was, “When does the baseball stuff start again?”

Right through those doors? Thank you very much. At the risk of being labeled a cultural troglodyte, I admit I was unmoved. Perhaps if I attended a live match (and it lasted less than six hours), I would be captivated.

Flash forward to about a week ago when a big India vs. West Indies match occurred. I stumbled upon a story highlighting record-setting offensive production by a player named Virender Sehwang, who may be the Babe Ruth of cricket. There is little question that the guy can score runs since early in December he set some type of huge record that I am still trying to understand. He set a record in ODI cricket (don’t know what that means) of scoring 219 off 149 balls. Sehwang is described as “a right-handed opening batsman and a part-time, right-arm, off-spin bowler.” That suggests versatility in any language. As an aside, Sehwang also spent two years as captain of the Delhi Daredevils in a club league. All of those words lumped together hint that the cricketeers would get along famously with softball players at the post-game refreshment gathering.

On his big scoring day, as his team crushed the West Indies, the story I found characterized Sehwang thusly: “Sehwang ran amok, plundering everyone. He got to his hundred with a fierce cut, hit in the air, grazing the fingertips of the leaping fielder at point before speeding to the boundary.”

Sounds like a thrill a minute, but what was that bit about being separated by a common language?