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Yankees vs Indian Cricket team
Baseball vs Cricket: Which is bigger?
April 21, 2006
Forbes reported today that Yankees touched the one Billion US Dollar mark in terms of its value. This brings back to memory the recent news that appeared in Indian newspapers "Indian cricket team now worth a billion dollars". Taking into account the humongous transfer fees in the American Baseball league and what the players earn, the reports in Indian newspapers about Indian team being the richest seems to be more sensationalism, than journalism.
The relation between cricket and baseball goes back to the 17th century. The English who migrated to the United States brought along the earliest form of cricket called rounders. Rounders was played in the cricket mould, with a pair of stumps and two bases. The bowler used to bowl under arm and the batsman used cricket bats to protect their stumps. However, with the advent of time, more Americans took to the game and it was changed to suit the increasing participation. This is how Baseball briginated in its earliest form.
Rediff Blog: Cricket better than Baseball?
Effect of Cricket and Baseball on economy.
Read this interesting article published in the Royal Economic Society Newsletter 90, July 1995
"Countries that played neither cricket nor baseball tended to grow 104% in real terms over the period of 1960-1990. Cricket-playing caused the rate of growth of cricket-playing countries to be pushed to 43% lower than this. However, this effect of cricket on growth was not statistically significant. Most strikingly, baseball-playing caused countries to have growth rates that were 80% above what they would have been if the countries did not play baseball, and 123% above what they would have been if they instead played cricket! This large estimated positive effect of baseball on growth is statistically significant at the 5% level"
Cricket versus Baseball as an Engine of Growth
by Howard J. Wall, Department of Economics, University of London
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Let's hear what cricket fans say..
In cricket, batsmen have the advantage of being able to hit the ball anywhere on the field, and use a bigger wider bat, but have to deal with the uncertainties of the pitch, and the uncertainties that the bowler can bowl to a greater area (so the batsmen doesn't have as much clue as to where the ball will be headed towards when he is batting) and also in cricket the batsman has to cope with the fact that that it is legal to bowl a ball aiming for his head, or body (after bouncing of course).. baseball batters really dont have to worry to much about that.
A cricket fan from Keighley,West Yorks
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Baseball
Top Baseball Players
Forbes.com / Major League Baseball Players Association
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Cricket
Top Cricketers
Wisden / Deepthi.com
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#1 Alex Rodriguez
Third base, New York Yankees
Age: 29
Pay: $27.5 million
Internet Searches (whole word, March 06): 23,687
Google records: 2,510,000 pages
A-Rod is in the fifth year of his historic 10-year, $252 million contract. Yankees players typically don't get All-Star bonuses in their contracts, but the contract A-Rod originally signed with the Texas Rangers calls for a $100,000 bonus for making the team. Since he arrived in New York last year, he's signed deals with Colgate-Palmolive, Nike and PepsiCo.
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#1 Sachin Tendulkar
Team India
Age: 33
Pay: $27.5 million
Internet Searches (whole word, March 06): 6,489
Google records: 2,350,000 pages
Canon India has elected Sachin Tendulkar  to be its global ambassador for three years beginning Jan 2007. Tendulkar currently manages to get Rs 6.5-7 crore per sponsorship compared to the Rs 1-1.5 crore charged by Rahul Dravid, Virendra Sehwag or Sourav Ganguly. In recent times, Tendulkar has not signed any high profile sponsorship. His association with big brands such as AirTel, Pepsi and Boost began a few years ago when he was in good form.
Last year, Tendulkar was associated with German mobile phone firm G-Hanz and phone content provider Nazara Tech.
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#2 Derek Jeter
Shortstop, New York Yankees
Age: 31
Pay: $25.5 million
Internet Searches (whole word, March 06): 60,501
Google records: 3,250,000 pages
Jeter is baseball's biggest Web star in terms of Google hits. Among longtime Yankees, his .314 career batting average is bested only by guys with names like Ruth, Gehrig and DiMaggio.
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#2 Brian Lara
Captain, West Indies
Age: 37
Pay: $27.5 million
Internet Searches (whole word, March 06): 1,679
Google records: 1,440,000 pages
Lara "The Prince of Port-of-Spain" or simply "The Prince" is acknowledged as one of the world's greatest batsmen, having several times topped the Test batting rankings and being the current world record holder for the highest individual innings score and the all-time leading run scorer in Test cricket. Brian Lara signed a sponsorship endorsement with Cable and Wireless in 2003.
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U.S. players participated in the very first international cricket match -- United States vs. Canada, 1844.
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