AHC: Swap the fates of Football and Cricket

King_Arthur

IOTL, Football has become the most popular sport in the world and played in 200 countries while Cricket, the second most popular sport, is played in a small number of mostly Commonwealth countries.

Probably using a Pre-1900 POD, how could Football be a sport popular mainly in ex-British colonies like Cricket or Rugby but the second most popular sport while Cricket is as dominant as OTL Football.

For bonus points, have club competition as irrelevant in Cricket as it is in Football.
 
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Nivek

King_Arthur said:
IOTL, Football has become the most popular sport in the world and played in 200 countries while Cricket, the second most popular sport, is played in a small number of mostly Commonwealth countries.

Probably using a Pre-1900 POD, how could Football be a sport popular mainly in ex-British colonies like Cricket or Rugby but the second most popular sport while Cricket is as dominant as OTL Football.

For bonus points, have club competition as irrelevant in Cricket as it is in Football.
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Too hard for a simple detail, for soccer-football you just need a cheap ball and some rock for a makeshit goal post, for cricket you need bats, ball,etc. And Baseball is superior anyway.

The true question is how to make cricket a fringe nobility sport(like polo) and remplaced it with baseball
 

King_Arthur

Nivek said:
Too hard for a simple detail, for soccer-football you just need a cheap ball and some rock for a makeshit goal post, for cricket you need bats, ball,etc. And Baseball is superior anyway.

The true question is how to make cricket a fringe nobility sport(like polo) and remplaced it with baseball
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For a cricket you need a ball, a stick and more sticks. For football you need a ball and improvised goalposts. Not a huge difference and a lot less equipment needed than baseball. There's a reason why Cricket is so popular in many poorer countries. Baseball is too confusing anyway.
 

Nivek

King_Arthur said:
For a cricket you need a ball, a stick and more sticks. For football you need a ball and improvised goalposts. Not a huge difference and a lot less equipment needed than baseball. There's a reason why Cricket is so popular in many poorer countries. Baseball is too confusing anyway.
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here we play baseball with sticks and bottle caps, there no place to place cricket at all, maybe people think so much. still yeah football is cheaper to learn, and more rewarding a sport almost no one knew how is even scored
 

King_Arthur

Maybe if Rugby is never invented and football is a complicated hybrid of the association and Rugby rules and never quite takes off while the northern working class take to Cricket in the 1880s it is possible. The same British people who spread football to the continent and South America could easily spread Cricket instead, no or delayed Civil War probably makes it more popular than Baseball in the US (along with some other changes). Cape to Cairo railway or some other infrastructure projects spread it into the African interior and various occupations spread it to the Middle East, Korea and Japan. That just leaves Eastern Europe and China.
 

Riain

Banned
Sticks? What rubbish!

Almost any upright thing will do; rubbish bins are traditional but an Esky, a chair or even chalk on a brick wall are very common. It's standard that cricket is played against a wall with stumps drawn on it and the rule is 'automatic wicket keeper' so that any snick of the ball that hits the wall is out. There are all sorts of informal rules to allow cricket to be played in adverse circumstances, like if you hit the ball into my Uncle's fruit tree you're out, tip'n'run where you have to run whenever you hit the ball, once hand catch after a bounce, so on and so forth.
 

King_Arthur

Riain said:
Sticks? What rubbish!

Almost any upright thing will do; rubbish bins are traditional but an Esky, a chair or even chalk on a brick wall are very common. It's standard that cricket is played against a wall with stumps drawn on it and the rule is 'automatic wicket keeper' so that any snick of the ball that hits the wall is out. There are all sorts of informal rules to allow cricket to be played in adverse circumstances, like if you hit the ball into my Uncle's fruit tree you're out, tip'n'run where you have to run whenever you hit the ball, once hand catch after a bounce, so on and so forth.
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Yeah I can see street cricket being played in poor areas of Rio and Buenos Aires, in rural Africa and in urban park type things in Japan and South Korea.
 

Orangecar

Banned
Change the Imperial Cricket Board. They ensured that Cricket remained in the hands of the small anglophile elite playing cricket countries. Before 1920 any country that wasn't England, South Africa and Australia was considered unworthy of Test playing status. Its almost a mircale that cricket developed into a huge sport in India, Pakistan and the West Indies.
Cricket like Associatio football and Rugby Football was played everwhere the British settled, including places like Italy and Argentina. The best thing to do I think is to delay the formation of the FA and the formalisation of the rules of Football. If the rules of football remain uncodified you will get a sitatuin where multiple football codes exist in England instead of the two we got in OTL(Rugby and Association football are both football) and at the same time there will be no oppurtunity to create national competitions like the FA cup which is what actaully made association football popular not the rules as many people wrongly assume.
So lets delay the existence of any of the football codes and then have Cricket in England Develop some kind FA cup style competition early on. Without competition from any of the Football codes cricket is able to take the place of football throughout South America, Africa, european countries such as Italy, Belguim, the Netherlands and South East Asia.
Football evolves into multiple different codes of football such as Sheffield football, Association Football, Rugby Football, etc. Each football develops its own niche world wide and in most cases other countries simlply "nationalise" their own football codes like America, Australia and Canada did to Rugby and as a result while football is played all around the world every country has its own code thus preventing international play.
As a result of this cricket with its long history of international play and tours becomes the defacto international sport of the world where every country can compete
 

Paragon

King_Arthur said:
For bonus points, have club competition as irrelevant in Cricket as it is in Football.
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???

Orangecar said:
Change the Imperial Cricket Board. They ensured that Cricket remained in the hands of the small anglophile elite playing cricket countries. Before 1920 any country that wasn't England, South Africa and Australia was considered unworthy of Test playing status. Its almost a mircale that cricket developed into a huge sport in India, Pakistan and the West Indies.
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This. Invite America and Canada would likely follow.

Orangecar said:
Cricket like Associatio football and Rugby Football was played everwhere the British settled, including places like Italy and Argentina. The best thing to do I think is to delay the formation of the FA and the formalisation of the rules of Football. If the rules of football remain uncodified you will get a sitatuin where multiple football codes exist in England instead of the two we got in OTL(Rugby and Association football are both football) and at the same time there will be no oppurtunity to create national competitions like the FA cup which is what actaully made association football popular not the rules as many people wrongly assume.
Click to expand...

Perhaps a more acrimonious split between professionalism and amateurism in association football as occurred a few years later with rugby? If the *FA puts pressure against professional club to the level the RFU did to rugby league - bans of players, restricting access to grounds, institutional limitations - it would strangle football in the cradle. Cricket, with a long history of (reluctantly accepted) professionalism, would be the natural sport to fill the vacuum.
 

Schlock

Riain said:
Sticks? What rubbish!

Almost any upright thing will do; rubbish bins are traditional but an Esky, a chair or even chalk on a brick wall are very common. It's standard that cricket is played against a wall with stumps drawn on it and the rule is 'automatic wicket keeper' so that any snick of the ball that hits the wall is out. There are all sorts of informal rules to allow cricket to be played in adverse circumstances, like if you hit the ball into my Uncle's fruit tree you're out, tip'n'run where you have to run whenever you hit the ball, once hand catch after a bounce, so on and so forth.
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Over the fence is six and out in back yard Cricket.
 

Orangecar

Banned
S
Paragon said:
???



This. Invite America and Canada would likely follow.



Perhaps a more acrimonious split between professionalism and amateurism in association football as occurred a few years later with rugby? If the *FA puts pressure against professional club to the level the RFU did to rugby league - bans of players, restricting access to grounds, institutional limitations - it would strangle football in the cradle. Cricket, with a long history of (reluctantly accepted) professionalism, would be the natural sport to fill the vacuum.
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There was a split in association football with formation of the AFA in 1907 but it ended just before the first world war with the AFA basically being given more representation on committees. We need to go back before 1900. I think keeping the football association split from the sheffield league and having them develop different rules and become regional sports could work. Also AFA's heartland was basically London so its conciveable for the amatuer clubs to break away earlier if the FA is still small and weak
 

Sam R.

So you're asking what if cricket was a slow boring awful to televise sport, and what if football was a highly commercialised TV extravaganza? You'd have to stop British media barons attacking test cricket in the 1970s and 1980s, and correspondingly the insipidity of European (including in the islands immediately west of continental Europe) football clubs and their strangulation of the game.
 

Deleted member 94680

Orangecar said:
Change the Imperial Cricket Board. They ensured that Cricket remained in the hands of the small anglophile elite playing cricket countries. Before 1920 any country that wasn't England, South Africa and Australia was considered unworthy of Test playing status. Its almost a mircale that cricket developed into a huge sport in India, Pakistan and the West Indies.
Cricket like Associatio football and Rugby Football was played everwhere the British settled, including places like Italy and Argentina. The best thing to do I think is to delay the formation of the FA and the formalisation of the rules of Football. ...
So lets delay the existence of any of the football codes and then have Cricket in England Develop some kind FA cup style competition early on. ...
As a result of this cricket with its long history of international play and tours becomes the defacto international sport of the world where every country can compete
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Like @Paragon said, to the achieve the OP (swapping the fates of Cricket and Football) how about swapping the fates of the ICC and the FA?
 

Gannt the chartist

Well given the most popular sports in the world by fan base are Soccer and Cricket ( 3.5bn, 2.5bn) then Field hockey ( 1bn) its not doing so badly.

For all Americans if you add up the fan base of Baseball, Football and Basketball you are about a Billion behind cricket.

For all non Americans. Barca WTF?!!!

For all in the civilised world Jimmy Anderson 600 test wickets.
 

Orangecar

Banned
Paragon said:
A billion people behind but billions of dollars ahead 🙃.

Could a Twenty20-like format be invented a century earlier?
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No and there wouldn't have to be anything like that. Cricket is the most popular sport in India and Pakistan long before Twenty20. Though it is possible to make other formats like a Declaration game in which is basically like a test match except its played in one day. Another format that could be popular would be Single Wicket cricket. Basically like a normal cricket game except each team is just made up one player who both bat and bowl with the fielders all being neuatral and serving for both players at the change of each innings. This could actaully become a really popular format as it makes cricket stars the center of attention. In fact single wicket cricket was the most popular form of the game in the 18th and 19th century but died out because of its association with match fixing and gambiling as well as the formation of the Englanish national team
 
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