What cricket can teach pesäpallo (and the other way around)

Cricket Finland introduce Joensuu players to a straight bat
Photograph from Cricket Finland Facebook (c) Cricket Finland 2020

As the start of the men’s Superpesis season is a few weeks away, there is another bat and ball sport in Finland whose top league has already started - Cricket. With a significant rise in interest this year, including larger than normal viewing figures and exposure to a vas number of foreign markets, Superpesis may soon face a similar fate. Whilst i would love to explore the realities of what this has meant for Cricket Finland, this is a topic perhaps best for a discussion rather than opinion piece.

What I have decided to talk about however is the benefits of having a grounding and understanding of both sports. It is often said that “travel broadens the mind” and enriches a person’s viewpoint on the world. In my view (and in my experience) the same can be said with sport: in looking at other similar sports we can in fact understand our own sport much better.

When I was at school the government of the day had banned the teaching of grammar (I have no idea why), but the result has meant that there is now a generation of people who do not understand the English language or how it works. I have always been keen on learning languages and in my later years I decided to learn a bit of Old Norse - just in case I fell into a time machine or bumped into a 6th Century Viking... but mostly because I thought it was cool. What I discovered was far more than I expected; I started to understand my own language far better and grammar in particular.

What has this got to do with pesäpallo?

My friend and podcast co-host Mikko Pirhonen and I were talking about his experiences coaching in Nepal and Bangladesh last year in the period leading up to the Pesäpallo World Cup in Pune, India. He was explaining how the vast majority of players coming to play pesäpallo in the Indian sub-continent have a background in cricket (with some with baseball and softball backgrounds too). As someone who has never followed cricket it became rather difficult for Mikko to explain and express pesäpallo concepts in terms that made sense to them, never the less he did an outstanding job and is now hosting regular training sessions via Zoom for the Asian Pesäpallo federation. 

Our conversation focused on some of the areas that seemed to trip people up and I can completely understand why. From my perspective, one of the reasons I believe I have been able to grasp pesäpallo has been due to my (almost ludicrous) obsession with many different sports. So now there is an opportunity for pesäpallo to hit the world stage I thought it would be a good idea to look at what cricket has to offer pesäpallo and indeed what pesäpallo has to offer cricket.

What can pesäpallo learn from cricket

Despite many people’s views on cricket, it is actually a very accessible sport and very easy to pick up a bat and play. Cricket can be played anywhere and often is in the back garden’s and streets of the UK to public spaces and alleyways of the Indian sub-continent. One of the biggest drawbacks at exporting pesäpallo outside of Finland has been a lack of English language content and analysis- that is now changing. The other problem seems to be equipment. To play at a high level the equipment is staggeringly expensive and can mean that it is impossible for people in poor and developing nations to buy. To expand this would Ned to change.

In terms of the game itself, one of the great things that separates cricket from most other bat and ball sports is the variation in hitting techniques that a batsman can use to score runs. In pesäpallo the mechanics of hitting are of course very different to cricket; however there are a few pesäpallo players who have perfected a number of different ways to hit the ball in order to advance runners - one of the most difficult to master and sometimes very effective is the bouncing hit. Shot selection by a cricketer comes almost instinctively after a while, as the batsman becomes skilled enough to know what shots will work and which ones won’t based on where the fielders are stood and the speed, direction and spin/swing on the ball. The decision is made in fractions of a second and the mark of a skilled batsman is by how effortless these shots seem to look. Pesäpallo players may well benefit from this style of thought, giving them greater depth and skill to place the ball in the field of play. After all - both cricket and pesäpallo are games where the decisions when to run and where to hit the ball are fundamental.

Another key skill learnt by cricket players is accurate throwing. A large portion of my youth was spent learning to throw the ball with speed and accuracy to the right place for a wicket keeper to gather the ball or (if necessary) directly at the wickets. This narrow target can sometimes mean a “make or break” situation in games and it is crucial that throws are accurate and that the fielder knows where they are going to throw it. One of the biggest problems in pesäpallo games comes when a throw is made under pressure to home plate to stop a run - sometimes this is well placed and the runner is out, other times the throw is wild and the runner scores. This is also true around the bases and KPL’s 4th run in the first jakso in their training game against Hyvinkää on 13th June proves the point. In cricket, fielders train specifically for this situation and some tips and thoughts on training could be very helpful.

A final point that springs to mind is one that Mikko and I talked about in the bonus podcast episode on the “Rules of Pesäpallo”. We were discussing the roles of fielders and how a well placed hit can spell disaster for the fielding team. As a fielder you will never be able to cover every part of the field ad stop every ball. This philosophy is very much a part of cricket where sometimes the aim of fielding positions is not to stop the run, or try and produce a wicket (out), but actually to stop larger amounts of runs from being scored (such as 4 o 6 runs). As well as fielding position and philosophy, tactically players are always told to “back up”, meaning that they form a second chance to stop the ball if the first fielder misses it. The phrase is also used when the ball is being thrown to a wicket keeper (or someone else at the wickets) in order to make sure that if the throw to the wicket is off target, someone will be ale to stop it and prevent more runs. When I have been watching pesäpallo games, most of the fielders remain fairly static when there are few runners on base and even when the bases are loaded some fielders could be in better positions when it is clear where the ball has been struck. If fielders learnt to instinctively cover “backing up” roles (in particular when there are fewer runners on base), then it could become very difficult for runners to gain advantages from errors in fielding or wild throws.

I will give an example of what I mean: let’s start with the scenario that there is a runner on 2nd base (the only runner on base) and the batter hits a bouncing hit down the right foul line. The Sieppari (Catcher) is well positioned and able to field the ball no problem as it falls from the sky. Meanwhile the runner is sprinting to 3rd base and has a good chance of making it. The Sieppari has a huge amount of pressure to throw the ball quickly to 3rd base, not helped by the slow descent from the bouncing hit. The throw goes wide of 3rd base and the runner takes a chance to reach home and score. In most games this is a foregone conclusion and the runner scores, but what if the left shortstop or left outfielder had foreseen the pressure point and looked to damage limitation? If such a player had not remained static in the field and positioned themselves behind 3rd base in a “back up role”, all of a sudden the runner’s option to reach home is removed. 

What can cricket learn from pesäpallo

One of pesäpallo’s strongest points is its use of signals to ensure runners and batters are both aware of what is happening and when they are running etc. In my youth i used to keep score for a local cricket team and the Captain used to shout to the other batsmen when they were going to run - this is not unusual and in fact is a very important part of the game; the problem was that it was what he was shouting. He kept shouting different things and often “wait there” when there was no handed to run and “yeah” when there was. Sadly the two different calls often sounded the same and resulted in confusion. In pesäpallo clarity on signals ensures that such confusion does not arise. If cricketers focus on this and even introduce non-verbal signals uniformly within teams then confusion may be a thing of the past.

Knowing where you stand in relation to a base is also a fundamental skill for runners. In cricket batsmen are often criticised for staying in the crease at the non-striker’s end (the player not hitting the ball) or coming too far out and leaving themselves exposed. If cricketers learn some training tips from pesäpallo players they may be more instinctive as to how far they stray from the crease (or in other words safety at the non-striker’s end).

One of the more nuanced and interesting parts of pesäpallo is the role of the Lukkari (pitcher) in controlling the tempo of a game; sometimes rushing the batting side and forcing an error, or sometimes taking a moment to allow the fielders to regroup or reposition. In cricket the tempo of the game is often set generally by the speed at which overs must be bowled without incurring a penalty; however there is scope to control the game even here. After a bowler bowls a ball it must make its way back to the bowler for the next one (unless it is the end of an over); the start of this process is usually the wicket keeper (a role in my opinion similar in some respects to that of Lukkari). If a batsman is rattled by a “bouncer” or a particularly quick ball, the fielding team may want to keep the pressure on and quickly get the ball back to the bowler. The process starts with the wicket keeper and they will have to read the situation (much like the Lukkari does). If a batsman seems to “have their eye in” and is hitting the ball well, the wicket keeper may want to consider slowing the ball down in getting back to the bowler and try and throw the batsman off their rhythm or even agitate them. Training with a Lukkari may be useful in understanding ways to make subtle changes in the game that may throw opponents out of their stride. 

Is all of this of any use?

I can’t say for sure whether any of this will be a “game changer”, but sometimes its the little things that make big changes to overall performance. The Rugby League team I support calls it “the 1%”, meaning its the 1% changes that can add up to make a big difference. An example of this was that Rugby League players learnt wresting techniques in order to break tackles and stay on their feet etc.

But even if all of this is just gibberish and random thoughts, the exercise of getting people to think about other sports in order to understand their own is surely worth while pursuing.