A few Groundouts over the years have posted updates from various baseball game experiences. Recently, I was in India and had the privilege of attending an Indian Premier League cricket match which in many ways feels like a sister sport. You might be surprised to know that the IPL is bigger than MLB... it generates in the hundreds of millions of views per match and is only second in worldwide sporting draw to the English Premier League in soccer. One of the teams was just purchased for $1.8 Billion and keep in mind it is a 2-3 month season. 

So what exactly is the IPL and how did it become so popular. The format of the sport itself is an iteration on classic cricket--the cricket many people think of lasting days on end. It is called T20 cricket because the length of the match has been significantly reduced to be able to be completed in 4 hrs. Cricket is a fascinating sport. In T20 each team is given 120 balls (pitches) to hit. There aren't really balls and strikes generally, the bowler (pitcher) bowls (throws) 6 balls in an over (inning) and then then switches out. There are two wickets instead of a home plate or bases. Two batters are in the game at a time and each stands at one of the two wickets. If the batter puts the ball in play, the batting team scores a run by running to the other wicket safely. They can score 1 or more runs this way if they can run back and forth more than one time. Usually 2 would be the most. There is a giant circular ring around the field and if the batter hits the ball and it bounces or rolls to that ring it is an automatic 4 runs. If the batter hits it over the ring in the air all the way it is called a 6 and scores 6.  

In traditional cricket, the reason why the game goes forever is because there aren't the same limitations on how many balls are thrown. Therefore the game is about not getting out. The batters are very conservative. But in T20, each ball is a countdown and so you have to take risks meaning you swing big. This makes it very exciting. How does a batter get out? Two ways. First, if the pitch hits the wicket behind the batter without his bat touching it he is out. This can either be clean (he just misses it) or if it hits his body/pads but is determined that it would have hit the wicket. The second way a batter can be out is if he puts the ball in play and it is either caught in the air (like a fly out) or the fielder throws it and hits the wicket before the runner makes it back to the wicket line. 

In order to mix it up, bowlers (pitchers) have two general style categories: pace and spin. Pace bowlers are all speed and have those long runups. Spinners generally don't have a run up of more than a couple steps and spin the ball. This matters because in cricket you can bounce it. There is all sorts of strategy to how shallow or deep you bounce it in order to trick the batter or induce weak contact or even a wicket. The rule is simply that the bowler has to keep a straight elbow and throw overhand. It actually makes for a much healthier situation where there aren't generally the elbow issues you see in baseball. Each bowler (pitcher) is allowed to go for a maximum of 4 overs (innings) in a match and never back to back. So your team is made up of lots of players who can both bowl and bat. A few specialists are carried, but you need a handful of "allrounders" who can do both. Ohtani wouldn't be much of an anomaly in T20 cricket... 

The other major difference to baseball is that each team "bats out" at once. One team goes first and does all their batting--20 overs (innings) 6 balls each over, 120 total chances to hit. When they finish they post their score. The team that bats second is then the "chase" team and attempts to pass their score before they run out of balls to hit. It can make for wildly exciting finishes where the math determines that a team needs to swing for the fences to have a chance. Why doesn't a team just swing for the fences all match? Well, you only have 11 active players in a match, so if you are giving up wickets (outs) then you are running out of players and generally moving into your worse hitters by the end. If a team runs out of players before they have seen all of their balls then they stop at that score and it is referred to as :all out" and they leave potential runs on the board which makes their score easier to chase. So there is a ton of strategy. 

Last year I attended my first match when I saw a game in Mumbai, India between the Mumbai Indians and the Royal Challengers, Bangalore teams. Royal Challengers Bangalore are one of the most popular teams because they have the most popular Indian player, Virat Kholi. They have just this year won back to back championships. But my favourite team is the Kolkata Night Riders because of my ties to the city over the years. A few weeks back I finally had the chance to attend a Kolkata match at home in their stories cricket ground, Eden Park. Eden Park is like the Fenway/Wrigley/Old Yankee Stadium of Indian cricket and hold over 60,000 fans. It was 115 degrees with very high humidity... The team lost, but it didn't matter. It was such a unique experience. 

You may see something called Major League Cricket in the USA advertised and wonder what that is. It is a recent attempt to build a 2 month tournament league like the IPL in the United States and the teams are affiliates of the IPL teams (there is a Los Angeles Night Riders team for example that is affiliated with the Kolkata Knight Riders). 

Anyways, not baseball, but pretty close! Or should I say, baseball isn't T20 cricket, but pretty close!