It’s fascinating that we call the final championship in Major League Baseball “The World Series” when it is only America’s national pastime and other sports like cricket are vastly more popular in most other corners of the world.
Cricket is a huge deal on several different continents including Europe, Asia and Australia. England and India probably make up the largest collection of fans. People in India really tend to go nuts for the ball-and-bat sport.
But what is cricket exactly? How does it differ from baseball? Well, they are very different sports but share a very similar objective – to score more runs than the other team. How they go about this is quite different.
Besides the use of a ball and a bat (which themselves are quite different), you won’t see too many other similarities if you compare games side by side. Baseball is played on a diamond with an outfield, while cricket is played on a pitch. In cricket there are two different wickets on either end of the pitch.
When it comes to the various positions, they have different names and play slightly different roles. In baseball, you’ve got a pitcher and in cricket you’ve got a bowler. The bowler is allowed a running start before he bowls the ball toward the batter “guarding” the opposing wicket. He may make the ball bounce so it’s harder to hit, unlike in baseball where it must fly through the air only.
The batter wants to hit the ball and guard the wicket so he can score a run. He or she needs to do this before they are dismissed or “out.” A home run is known as a “six” in cricket and allows the batting team to rack up six runs.
There are 11 players on each team inside and surrounding the pitch. Depending on what team they are on, they want to either aid in a run or dismiss the batter by catching the ball before it hits the ground or catching it and throwing it to stop the run. Yes, just like baseball.
You can write a book about the sport, and many have, but these are the basics. Now, just like any other popular sport like soccer or football, it’s a popular one to bet on, especially in India. Online betting has been experiencing a significant uptick thanks to the ease of certain platforms.
This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do your due diligence before diving into the cricket betting pool. Sites like cricketbetonline.in are a great resource for finding reputable betting platforms that’ll allow you to place your bets safely.
So don’t be fooled, sports like cricket command a larger worldwide audience than baseball and so have more opportunities for online betting. Just make sure you do your research first.
