Baseball vs Cricket

Revision as of 08:42, 18 January 2016

See BaseCricket for a discussion of baseball style batting average in the context of Cricket.

Cricket is a sport of statistics. So is baseball.

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cricket_statistics
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baseball_statistics

Modern baseball even has "Sabermetrics" - being the field of empirical analysis of the sport. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabermetrics

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_baseball_and_cricket

Comparing the two sports, then, requires finding either directly comparable numbers (eg, bowls per minute vs pitches per minute), or equivalents (can you create a cricket equivalent of a baseball Batting Average? Or a baseball equiv of a cricket Strike Rate or Economy Rate?

I'm coming to this from familiarity with Cricket, so I'm going to take some baseball statistics, and try to work out cricket equivalents.

There are numerous statistics, and the value of each is debatable, but there seems to be three for batters, and three for pitchers which have been exalted in the form of the "triple crown". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_League_Baseball_Triple_Crown

• Batting

1. Batting Average - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batting_average#Major_League_Baseball
2. Home runs - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_run
3. Runs batted In - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Run_batted_in

• Pitching

1. Wins - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Win%E2%80%93loss_record_%28pitching%29#Winning_pitcher
2. Strikeouts - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strikeout
3. Earned Run Average - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earned_run_average

I believe rough cricket equivalents would be as follows:

• Batting Average - count of scoring strokes (not counting noballs and free hits) / total balls faced (ie, opportunities to get out)
• Home runs - sixes (because "over the fence")
• Runs batted in - no equivalent (because a batsman's efforts never count to someone else's runs)

• Wins - no equivalent (because cricket has a range of bowlers, rather than one pitcher central to the 'attack')
• Strikeouts - no equivalent I think?
• Earned Run Average - something similar to economy rate?

Misc

397 feet (121metres) is average home run distance - I am certain that the average 6 is shorter than that (90-110 metres for a guess) - but I'd also suspect that baseball batting action is more inherently powerful than the normal cricket batting action - combined with a (usually?) faster ball too, it is not surprising.

• http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-hidden-minimalism-of-home-runs/

• A 20/20 has 240 balls bowled (120 per team), plus extras from noballs, wides, etc.
• A baseball game has no set number of pitches, but the average apparently is rising, and is at around 150 per team.
  • http://www.baseball-reference.com/blog/archives/7533

MLB vs BBL

I'm planning a bit of an in-depth "objective" statistical comparison of Major League Baseball (US Baseball) to the Big Bash League (AU T20 Cricket). See MLB vs BBL