If you've never seen cricket but you enjoy baseball, give it a shot. I watched it for the first time a few years back with some Indian guys I worked with (helps if someone can explain the rules) and it is a lot of fun. Try T20, it's about the length/pace of an MLB baseball game.
I would explain it as "hit by pitch" in baseball, but it counts against the batter instead of the pitcher (bowler). In baseball terms, both the batter and pitcher are more mobile, so the batter has a responsibility to get out of the way or reposition to make the hit / protect the wickets, so it makes sense in both cases.
I've had some success explaining it as "baseball, but 360 degrees and most things are a hit instead of an out". In MLB the best batters have a batting average of something like north of .300 while in cricket you're probably looking at something above .900
I can't watch test matches or even ODI, but T20 is super fun. The limited overs encourage action in a way the other formats don't. Batters are aggressive, death bowling is a thing, way better than baseball IMO.
It's essentially not limited overs because of how long each innings is though. The threat of losing all your wickets is too high resulting in extremely defensive batting and extremely boring matches.
Innings are limited by both time and number (2 maximum each, but could technically be zero for one side), but I'm pretty sure overs are limited only by time.
In one day, on statistcal average, ~90 overs are bowled. The day can be safely divided into 3 sessions equally. If spinners are bowling in majority, this number could extend to 100 overs per day as well.
On a strategic aspect, the players have to change their styles from slow to fast or fast to slow given these hidden limits.
Test cricket is going through its best phase in a long time with a lot more results than draws. Even when draws happen, they are usually very entertaining which wasn’t the case before.
There is no such thing as test matches being "real" cricket, at least not anymore. T20, ODI and Test cricket are just different flavours of the same sport, differing slightly in rules and duration of matches. T20s, the shortest versions of cricket, have taken over as the more entertaining and palatable form of the game.
It's not just about duration. It's the hardest format in every sense. Test cricket is the format which provides an opportunity for players to reach their full potential. It's what separates great players from the good.
Indian batting great Sachin Tendulkar was going through a bad phase in 2003-04 Test series in Australia. In the first 3 Test matches his scores read 0, 1, 37, 0, 44. He was dismissed consistently playing cover drive outside the off stump. There was a lot of pressure on him going into the final Test match in Sydney. He showed why he is one of the greatest to ever play cricket. He played a genius of an innings for two days where he didn't play a single cover drive shot outside the off stump as planned by him. He scored 241 and remained not out. This is not something you get to witness in an ODI or a T20. Test is indeed the real cricket.
You can compare T20, OneDay and Test cricket to Classical, Rapid, Blitz and Bullet chess. At the highest level, players consider them to be completely different games needing different strategies.
Test cricket is real in the sense that it is the original game and what we have been calling as cricket until the relatively recent introduction of ODIs and T20s. The shorter formats eliminate the aspects of playing with changing conditions (ball, pitch and weather) which deeply characterized the original game.
I agree with the fact that there is no "real" cricket but it is not as simple as different rules and duration. T20 relies on momentum, a bit of luck and different set of skills compared to Test matches. That is why you often see teams like West Indies or Afghanistan which can compete with any big teams in a T20 match struggle in Tests.
