What makes baseball more athletic than cricket?

Faster pitches, not a gigantic paddle, and running even when you may not have liked how well you hit it.

> running even when you may not have liked how well you hit it.

How many times are you expected to run in baseball though? In cricket, it could easily be 100+ (22-yards a time).

Same with bowlers - a 10-20 yard run up for potentially hundreds of balls is a not insignificant amount of work.

I feel like you are comparing two things that are _different_, and just deciding one is lesser for no clear reason (both sports seem quite athletic to me). I'm also not sure what difference the size of the bat makes to athleticism (they also aren't _that_ much different in size: <4.25in width vs. ~2.7in for baseball, <38in length vs. ~42in for baseball, and weigh roughly the same: ~1.2kg for a cricket bat, ~1kg for a baseball bat).

I'm just joking around, but I think it was taken very seriously.

Cricket deliveries are similar speeds to baseball pitches, aren't they?

Also, outs are cheap in baseball, but very expensive in cricket - so playing more conservatively is optimal.

Yes - 95-100mph is very common in fast bowlers. Also the bounce gives a much larger variety of angles and spins.

Plus the ball is a LOT harder. A lot.

The quality of the ball also becomes very important later in the game. I don't think baseball/rounders has the New Ball aspect.

If I remember my baseball enough (I'm a casual fan) they rotate the balls regularly in baseball to actually specifically avoid that factor.

And the bat is a LOT bigger. A lot.

Oh absolutely, but the game is very very different in so many ways.