What cricket can learn from baseball

Thursday, 25 August 2005, 14:25

My coach with the Brighton Buccaneers, Craig Savage, gets a mention in the Indy’s Ashes coverage today:

Fielding has been a key part of Australia’s success, dating back to Bobby Simpson&rsqou;s reign as coach. This summer, however, there has been criticism of the management for not practising catching enough. England, meanwhile, have worked hard on their fielding, but have not used a specialist coach since Trevor Penney worked with the squad for the one-day internationals.

Australia are touring with only two coaches, Buchanan and Jamie Siddons. Mike Young, a baseball coach who has worked with the team in the past, believes they are paying the price for not bringing a specialist fielding coach.

Craig Savage, another baseball coach, has been working with Sussex for the last three years and believes cricket can learn much from his sport. “Fielding is a huge part of cricket but teams don’t spend enough time on it,” he said.

“Technique is hugely important. If you get your hands to the ball there’s no reason why you shouldn’t catch it, but you need to learn to read how the ball comes off the bat, how to catch the ball on the run, how to run into position before making a catch. Above all, you need to have soft hands. If you hands are hard and tensed up, there’s every chance you’ll spill the ball.”

Absolutely. From a baseball player’s perspective, fielding in cricket appears sloppy and even lazy. This has nothing whatsoever to do with the lack of gloves; it’s all about technique and, perhaps more importantly, what might be described as the economic logic of the game.

Fielding is far more valuable in baseball than in cricket. Why? because the relative value of the two objectives in each sport are reversed. In baseball, unlike cricket, runs are rare and valuable while and outs are common and should be routine.

An error in the field might cost the fielding team just one run in both games, but while this is usually no more than a minor irritant in a cricket, it’s a catastrophe that could cost a team the game in baseball.

Consequentially, baseball players spend more time practicing fielding and have developed more graceful techniques. It’s wonderful that cricket is adopting some of them.

Incidentally, the reversed economics of outs and runs also affects the different informal etiquette of the two games: A baseball player who celebrates an out like a cricketer taking a wicket is guilty of very poor form and liable to have a pitch placed squarly in his ear the next time he comes to bat.

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Entry Filed under: Baseball, Cricket

Viewing 4 Comments

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    Fair enough, but I am not so sure about baseball fielding standards in general being superior (given the basic divergence in a basis for comparison), Admittedly I am not best person to alk about baseball, but most times I have had a baseball following person watch cricket with me, there are oohs and aah about how the fielding is so athletic and committed (esp without gloves).
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    Ok, this is an exceptionally old post, but this needs to be said. I think this could be yet another one of those comments that has been made without a proper understanding of the game of cricket.

    Granted, baseball coaches are becoming more and more prominent in the game of cricket (in my opinion this is largely due to baseball's superior throwing techniques), but to almost ignore that fact that baseball players carry around massive gloves in their hands is ludicrous. Baseball technique is very important, and is therefore well rehearsed, but when you add a glove into the equation, regardless of technique, catching the ball becomes easier. Cricketers have no mits - catching the ball is undoubtedly more difficult.

    You make a valid point pertaining to relative value of fielding in the two games, but if any player, be he a baseball player or a cricketer drops the ball, the result is catastrophic. As you rightly mentioned, in cricket, runs are far more prevalent. Conversely, outs are far less likely to come by, meaning that a completed catch in cricket is MORE important than its equivalent in baseball. If you drop a baseball batter he runs to the next base (or further) and will not be seen again until his next 'at bat' and catching him would not give him fewer subsequent turns to bat.

    In cricket, batters only get one turn to bat so dropping a batter may result in allowing a batter another 2 days batting - dropping a batter not only gives him a run, but effectively another turn to bat.
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    I've never had a comment on such an old post. Interesting points.

    However, I think you misunderstand how outs work in baseball. You can only end the game on outs, not on number of batters like in cricket. Getting any particular individual batter out doesn't matter -- the batting team gets three outs to score in each inning, regardless of how many batters hit to reach that point. The game ends after 9 lots of 3 outs for each time, regardless of how many batters it takes.

    Because runs can only be scored within those 3-out spells, failing to obtain an out at a particular moment in a baseball game is (usually) more important than obtaining an out at a particular moment in a cricket match.

    Of course, there are exceptional moments in both games where these situations are reversed. In bsaeball, there are situations where a fielding team might concede a base to a batter (in order to set up force plays later on, or to avoid a dangerous batter in the order), and in very close cricket matches, the result can turn on halting a particular batsman at a particular moment. But in both games, those are the exceptions, not the rule.
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    Shorter version of the above: 1-nil is a common final score in baseball. It is extremely exceptional in cricket.

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