Cricket and baseball find common ground

The Lord's pavilion is hosting an unusual exhibition - one which celebrates the similarities and differences between cricket and baseball - two sports that have for long been disparaged by fans of the other. John F. Burn of the New York Times reports on how the exhibition "conveys the unmistakable theme that what many Americans view as their national game was originally an English sport, played by children nearly 300 years ago".

Curators say, baseball — or base-ball, as it was known then — originated in England at least as early as the first decades of the 18th century, perhaps even earlier, and was taken to the United States by 19th-century immigrants.

The exhibit also makes the case that cricket, played in America from as early as 1709, was America’s principal bat-and-ball game until the eve of the Civil War, with thriving cricket clubs in many major East Coast cities, including New York, Brooklyn, Newark, Boston and especially Philadelphia.