How anyone can even stay awake watching cricket is beyond me. Most checkers games are more exciting.
Well maybe if checkers games took three or four days to finish, it would be comparable.
Cricket is not as boring as you think. You probably have impression from 70's footage. Back then I agree that Cricket used to be really slow. Cricket has transformed into exciting game, especially in One-day games. Those games are almost same length as baseball, but very fast paced and a LOT of runs and excitement. In baseball, 2 runs can win you the game(YAWN), but in Cricket, less than 200 runs and your team is in serious trouble.
Check out all these videos(short ones, no need to download, plays directly)
Bowling videos: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7592892620927664236
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2782775718930968972
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1151850517439779900
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8452989030204036720
Batting videos:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2654507752318175602
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2622774802229026856
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=9175699262769547045