photo from icc-cricket.com
April is a beautiful time for sports: basketball and hockey are beginning the playoffs, baseball is starting back up, and soccer is winding down with the Champions and Premier Leagues concluding. While soccer has begun to grow in fame among American spectators, there’s another sport coming from Europe which people should start to learn. Though you may have thought cricket was a phone service or an animal you use as fishing bait, here are five reasons you should start to care about the sport known as CRICKET:
First, cricket has some real ballers. Of the world’s top 100 athletes according to ESPN, 11 of them were cricketers, which ranked higher than baseball (1) and American football (7). Cricket also placed 2 athletes in the top 13 with Virat Kohli ranked 7, and MS Dhoni ranked 13.
Second, cricket is a well-rounded sport. Cricket takes many different skills, from hand eye coordination in throwing and catching the ball, to quick reflexes when batting. Batters also need to be fast when sprinting between the wickets. You must be a truly versatile athlete to succeed in cricket.
Third, cricket takes patience. Games in cricket can last up to five days, depending on the amount of time it takes for both of the teams to bat. Games last for six hours each day, and last over a period of three to five days, which can be trying, but in a culture where we need to learn some patience, cricket can be a big help.
Fourth, cricket is popular everywhere else. Especially in India, cricket is one of the most popular sports around the world, with attendance in the Indian Premier league averaging almost 30,000 people, larger than MLB, NBA, and NHL crowds. Cricket, like soccer, is a worldwide game which is popular is England, Asia, and Australia, and may soon come to America.
Fifth, the World Cup is coming. Like the soccer world cup, the cricket world cup is coming to England and Wales in the summer of 2019. Though you won’t find America on the list of nations heading to the World Cup (this sounds familiar), favorites Pakistan, India, and defending champion Australia will all converge in England vying for the title.
The rules of cricket can be quite confusing, so you may want to watch the Netflix episode of “Explained” in order to figure out the specifics of the game. It’s similar to baseball and tennis, with a touch of the class of soccer. However, whether or not cricket makes it big in the U.S is not life-or-death for the sport, because cricket is one of the most popular sports around the world and is only growing as the World Cup approaches this summer in England.