Cricket is an international sport that originated in England a few centuries ago. It is considered to be one of the oldest sports on earth, well-known for its rich history and traditions.
The sport is played with a bat and a ball, with two teams that face off against one another. The field used for cricket, called the pitch, is large and oval. Moreover, there are two sets of sticks called wickets facing one another in the center of approximately 22 yards.
Cricket is one game that is said to have two or more similar sports. They are all considered bat-and-ball games and are played by both men and women. There are also mini cricket games to warm you up for the next cricket tournament. These help at building your skills whether batting, bowling, or fielding.
The game most similar to cricket is baseball. The two sports are the best-known members of a family of related bat-and-ball games. Both have fields that are 400 feet (120 m) or more in diameter between their furthest endpoints.
Offensive players in both need to score runs whilst the defense aim is to strike them out or catch the ball.
Nonetheless, there are others like cricket too, and below we discuss all five:
Soft ball
Softball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of 10 players. It is a direct descendant of baseball although there are some key differences.
Notably, softballs are larger than baseballs, and the pitches are thrown underhand rather than overhand. Also, softball is played on a smaller diamond than baseball.
Baseball
To begin with, both are considered summer sports. In America, the professional baseball season runs from March until October. It is not dissimilar to the cricket season in the UK, which runs from April until September.
This is largely due to the fact that both sports are heavily dependent on the weather. In both cases, rain is regularly a reason for the interruption and prevention of play. Therefore, sports are associated with long summer days; sitting in the sun, drinking beer, and enjoying a sporting spectacle.
To that end, the watching experience of both sports is – for the most part – relatively similar. Fans will often turn up at a cricket ground and expect to sit and watch several hours of play in one sitting. Therefore, there is often a subdued and relaxed atmosphere associated with watching cricket. It comes in stark contrast to those experiences in sports where the action is more intense, such as football or rugby.
It is generally also the case for baseball. However, it is worth mentioning that in the shorter forms of cricket such as T20 and ODIs (and occasionally important Test Matches) cricket crowds can have a real party atmosphere.
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Oină
Regarded as the ancestor of baseball, oină is a Romanian bat-and-ball sport played since at least 1370. The game consists of two teams of 11 on a rectangular field.
A complicated set of rules govern proceedings, but basically, a pitcher throws the ball to the batter who then tries to hit the ball away from the opposing team’s fielders. The batter can then run the lanes until he’s thrown out by an opposing player who tries to hit him with the ball.
Gilli Danda
A bat-and-ball game that looks a lot like cricket but is native to India and is over 2,500 years old. Gilli Danda played throughout the subcontinent and even has a following in Southeast Asia and the Caribbean.
Even-numbered players (sometimes as many as 100) play on two opposing teams, with one person batting while the other team fields. After striking the ball (“gilli”), the batter attempts to touch a predefined point outside the batter’s circle.
Rounder’s
Rounders is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams. It is a striking and fielding team game that involves hitting a small, hard, leather-cased ball with a rounded end wooden bat. The players score a rounder by running around the four bases on the field.
