Comparison of baseball and cricket

Statistics

Both games have a long history of using a vast array of statistics. The scorers are directed by the hand signals of an umpire. Every play or delivery is logged, and from the log, or scoresheet, is derived a summary report. Baseball commonly uses times at bat, base hits, RBIs, stolen bases, errors, strikeouts and other occurrences. These are then often used to rate the player. Although cricket uses detailed statistics as a guide, owing to the variety of situations in cricket, they are not always considered a true reflection of the player. Ian Botham is an example of a player who, despite relatively poor averages, was particularly noted as one of England's greatest cricketers for his ability to dominate games.^[15]

In baseball, questioning of the validity and utility of conventional baseball statistics has led to the creation of the field of sabermetrics, which assesses alternatives to conventional statistics. Conclusions are sometimes drawn from inadequate samples – for example, an assertion that a batter has done poorly against a specific pitcher, when they have only faced each other a handful of times, or that a player is "clutch" due to having more success with runners in scoring position or during the late innings with rather small sample sizes.