The point is that there are more potential buyers in North America than in England, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. India is a giant cricket market, but they won't make a profit there, they have to price too low to compete with rampant piracy.
Like it or not, those other US sports offer a much easier entry point for gamers, possibly because they need to be simple for Americans to understand them, but driving around in a circle, bouncing a ball while running then throwing, hitting something with a stick into a goal and running forwards while holding a ball; are all very simple ideas for sports, and can appeal to people who don't know much about the sport.
I can't stand watching NFL on TV, but have Madden, because it makes a pretty good video game. Cricket doesn't do that, at least no one has done that yet. You can't get someone who doesn't like cricket to pick up a cricket game in a store, you can do that with the other sports.
As I've said before, when you are playing cricket in a park or something, everyone wants to bat, that's because as a game to play, all anyone wants to do is smash the ball as hard as they can.
Working out a bowling mechanic that works well and isn't horrible compared to batting is the first step in to getting cricket to a wider gaming audience. As it stands now, EA's audience for Cricket games is basically people who'd end up on a site like this. Codemasters have gone for the broader audience, created a game that isn't as much of a cricket simulation, but more a smash the ball around game, and it has worked well for their bottom line.
EA's move towards Twenty20 is part of this, but isn't the end. For the long term survival of EA's cricket game series, they need to sort out fundamentals that can bring in a new audience, without destroying the cricket faithful. Unfortunately this means investing a lot of money into development, money EA don't have because they have been complacent (and screwing around customers with $100 roster updates each year).
Feel free to show me EA's Baseball game.
:
