As some may know, T20 cricket and baseball (among others) are being considered for inclusion in future Olympic Games. Were it to come down to a choice between the two, the decision should be a no-brainer and here are some reasons why.Imagine a cricket match in which every ball is thrown (pelted, chucked) and every good ball is a juicy full-toss. Imagine that the only stroke which a batsman can play is an ungainly swipe.
Imagine that the fieldsmen are all sissies that they need gloves to catch the ball. Imagine all that, and you would have a good idea of the game of baseball.In 1975, I was playing a cricket match for the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. I was fielding near the boundary and there were two little Canadian boys (about 10 years or so) throwing frisbees nearby.
They ran to one of their friends and exclaimed in disbelief, "Come, look at this! They are catching the ball with their bare hands!" Poor kids, they grew up thinking that the only way a baseball superstar can catch a ball is with a glove.Many years ago, I was in Toronto and a friend asked me if I wanted to go to a baseball match. My first instinct was to say no but, on second thoughts, I decided to go and make a genuine effort to understand what baseball fans found so exciting. Two incidents stood out.
The pitcher threw a ball that was angled at the batter's body. If it was cricket, any decent batsman would have hit it out of the ground for six. (Proof: the last ball of the recent ODI against Zimbabwe, bowled by Dwayne Bravo, was similar and it got hit for six!)Here, the batter was so incensed at this "attempt to hit him" that he ran towards the pitcher with his bat raised. Can you imagine what this guy would do if Dale Steyn or Ravi Rampaul was bowling bouncers at his head?
Next, a ball was hit in the outfield. A fielder ran in and caught it with his gloved hand. The crowd erupted at this "brilliant" play. In cricket, this catch "with bare hands" would be considered regulation. At the end of the game, I understood baseball a lot better but it did nothing to change my early impression that it was just like "rounders," a childhood game played by little girls.
With a worldwide trend for eschewing challenging activities in favour of easier ones, some are turning to baseball.It seems that cricket is too hard. A batsman has to learn how to play pace, leg-spin, off-spin, googly, doosra, yorker, bouncer and even full-toss.He has to learn how to drive through the covers, mid-on, mid-off, how to play the sweep, reverse sweep, scoop and helicopter shots. He has to learn how to cut, glance, take the pace off the ball, how to cope with variations in bounce and turn and much more.
In baseball, all he has to learn is how to hit a sometimes-swinging full-toss and when to leave the ball alone. Baseball is just too simplistic compared with cricket.There is a growing trend nowadays to "dumb down" everything so that mediocre people can become "high achievers."Baseball is the ultimate "dumbed down" version of cricket (one type of ball, one type of shot).
All things considered and without the politics, the International Olympic Committee should have no problem choosing cricket over baseball. But I'm not very hopeful. These are the same people who thought that beach volleyball should be an Olympic sport.
Noel Kalicharan
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