Next stop: Mumbai!!

A very thrilling India-Pakistan semifinal that absolutely lived up to its enormous pre-game hype. So much so that even ESPN's main page was forced to take notice of this puny sport I love and cherish. This is a fairly long piece, but very insightful and manages to capture the essence of cricket and its place in India very accurately.

I stayed up all night to watch this (let me remind you that a one-day game lasts ~9 hours) and this picture summarizes all the emotions and thrill:

Lanka calling [source: cricinfo.com]

Friday night, co-hosts Sri Lanka and India will battle it out in Mumbai. I cannot wait. I am sure a billion plus Indians will agree with me as well.

UG Sports - 14: Cricket world cup round up

Boy oh boy. What a world England's been having. Normally, watching England play is like watching paint dry - dull, boring and cliched. But something has happened to the team this world cup. Maybe it's the fresh, sparkling Indian water they are drinking.

First came their thrilling match against India. The harsh lights of Bangalore, a rabidly partisan home crowd, and a century by Sachin Tendulkar - perfect recipe for a disaster of colossal proportions. And yet, the English fought back in style. The target was seemingly unreachable - 338. But Andrew Strauss played a captain's knock and England made it....just. They tied. A last ball tie. That night, hospitals across India and England were flooded with cardio patients, I bet.

Whew, that was a close game [bbc.co.uk]

Next they played their cross-channel rivals, Ireland. The Irish are newbies to cricket and on an island obsessed with rugby, cricketers usually get second billing, if at all. An easy match practice for England, right? Wrong. England chose the wrong day to take it easy. They amassed 327 runs and took the rest of the day off. Minnows Ireland were floundering at 115-5 when a flamboyantly pink-haired Kevin O'Brien decided to take matters into his own hands. A frighteningly powerful pair of arms, those. Clearly thinking this was just another net practice session, KO clobbered every English bowler all across the park with utter ruthlessness and dangerous ease. He scored his half century in just 20 balls and his century in 50. And just like that, the Irish engineered one of the greatest upsets of cricket. As England were left cursing "Oh Brien", the handful of Irish fans who dared to attend the match went wild. Accolades poured in from the home island, congratulating the team. KO has arrived.

Showed those pesky English a thing or two, didn't we?[perthnow.com.au]

You'd think a team beaten that badly would be demoralized and deflated like a day-old balloon. Judging by their performance against formidable South Africa, England is an exception. Although South Africa got them out cheaply for just 171 runs, England's bowlers won them yet another thriller. The proteas were in a very commanding position at 123-3, but over the next few overs, their middle order collapsed like the financial markets of 2008. James Anderson and Stuart Broad went on a rampage, a venture in which they were ably supported by slower bowlers like Swann. In the end, South Africa fell short by 6 runs. Hats off to these resilient English.

Yeah that's the way home, buddy. [stuff.co.nz]

That's it for this week. More next week.

UG Sports - 13: Weekly roundup of the cricket world cup

Hokay so...the last two sports posts dealt with the ins and outs of the good sport of cricket. I mentioned too that the cricket world cup is currently being held in India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

Now let's do a roundup of significant events from last week. In order to minimize the actual amount of cricket you need to know to understand these posts, I am going to deal with the juicy parts:

• Kenya, Zimbabwe and Canada showed, yet again, why they are constantly referred to as the minnows of world cricket. All three of them lost in a spectacular fashion, their teams folding and crashing like a cheap and completely unstable house of cards. Compared to this terrible trio, the Cavs are magnificent winners. There, that should put things in perspective.

• A historic crowd turned out to watch Bangladesh take on India in the opener. In the recent years, Bangladesh has gone from sucking terribly to sucking slightly less terribly. The team went in with oversized expectations thrust upon their shoulders. And they lost. Quite badly. Sucks for the jubilant home crowd.

• England bowler Graeme Swann took a brief paternity leave to witness the birth of his son and then promptly flew back to join his team's "crucial" match against part-time cricketers Holland. When asked about the reaction of his son years from now, he quipped that he will tell Swann Jr. that he had to beat Holland. Good luck feeding him that pill, guvnah.

• You'd think that when Australia conveniently crushed Zimbabwe last week, their captain would be all smiles and hugs and tears. Nope. Big man Ricky Ponting got out in a poor fashion and was seen exiting the stadium muttering to himself. The next thing we know is that he went mental in the locker room and smashed a brand-new LCD TV with his bat. RIP Sony Bravia. You are a martyr to your brethren. Ricky, may I suggest anger management?

That's it for this week. More matches this weekend, meaning more tidbits next week.

UG Sports - 12: Cricket! (part dos)

So last post we looked at the general aspect of the noble sport of cricket and its three forms. In this post, we will go over what the heck actually happens during the game.

The objective:Like all sports, there are two sides. One side elects to bat, the other side elects to bowl. The order is decided by a coin toss. The objective of the game is to outscore your opponent to win. If you are batting first, you want to post a high-enough total so you can defend it. If you are batting second, you want to chase the target. Unlike baseball, a one-day game has only one inning a side. Test matches function a little bit differently, but we will not worry about them in this post. Every thing said in this post will implicitly assume we are talking about one-day games. Simple so far?

As the diamond is to baseball, the pitch is to cricket. The pitch is a rectangular patch of soil/mud/grass in the middle of a stadium. On two ends of the pitch are three wooden stakes driven into the ground, called stumps. The bastsman's goal is to protect these stumps; the bowler's to blow them away. Since a picture says a thousand words (or whatever), here is a graphical representation

 

 

A bunch of old fogies playing cricket on a pitch

Dramatis personae: Two batsmen, one bowler, and a bunch of fielders. The bowlers bowl overs (each over is six balls) and each side gets 50 overs an inning. Their job is to get outs. The bastmen's job is to outfox these wily rascals and score runs. Oh, and umpires. I guess they are pretty important. Two on-field umpires, one TV umpire. There is also someone called the match referee but I don't think anyone (including the said official) knows what his job actually is. There is some suspicion the job is entirely made-up. Moving on.

How to score: Every time the batsman reaches the other side (and correspondingly, his partner at the other end reaches his end), a run is scored. Other ways to score runs are to hit the ball to the boundary (the edge of the field). If the ball goes into the stands (like a home run), that's six runs. If it crosses the boundary any other way, that's four runs.

How to out: Each side has 11 wickets (or outs, if you will) and a batsman is out if any of the following things happen:
1. The stumps get knocked out
2. The ball he hits is caught (by any player on the field)
3. He is trying to run a run and fails to reach the other end safely

There are  few other ways as well, but they are not as important.

A bit haphazard I realize (let's blame my smashing birthday party last night for this disorganization), but I think the information is all solid.

More parts to follow, as I feel like it.

Now I am off to enjoy the kickoff of an absolutely awesome and spectacular world cup opener and co-hosts India and Bangladesh clash in Dhaka. Woot Woot.

UG Sports - 11: Cricket!

Part 1 of a very audacious and charitable multi-part series explaining the game on the eve of the world cup.

What has eleven players a side, two batsmen on the field at a time, one bowler, one wicketkeeper, is generally awesome AND has a very exciting world cup just around the corner?

If you answered cricket, you get a klondike bar and a permanent place in my hall of legit people.

A very nice cricket brawl in progress[world-cup11.tk]

Most Every American gives me a blank look when I bring up the sport of cricket. I usually hear crickets chirping every time I mention anything remotely connected with this all-around badass sport. The brave ones usually manage to sputter something like "Isn't that kindaaa like baseball?" or "The one where games last for days, right?"

Well fear not. Before the cricket world cup fever gets crazy, I will give you a very pleasant crash course on cricket. By the time you are done reading this post, you will know the different between a wide-ball and a no-ball and between a silly point and a silly mid-on. And no I am not making these terms up, nor am I pulling them out of thin air.

First, what's all the fuss about the world cup? Unlike the superbowl, the cricket world cup is held every four years. This very scarcity makes it a high-demand good. The first edition of the world cup was held in 1975 and Australia has won the most - 4. They are the Pittsburgh Steelers of cricket. By that logic, the West Indies would be the Oakland Raiders, both because they were very very good in their prime but suck a colossal amount these days. This year's world cup is being hosted jointly by India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

This discussion of countries lets us segue into discussing the norms of the sport. Unlike the "big three" American sports, the most watched and prominent form of cricket is played between nations. As can be expected for a sport that originated in the land of the Queen, nations playing it are former colonies or dominions of the said land: India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and the West Indies (you geography nerds may point out that West Indies is actually an artificial name foisted upon a group of islands, but in cricket these islands play as one "nation").

There are three forms of the game: Test, One-day and 20/20.

Test: The granddaddy of them all. This form lasts for five days, with about 9 hours of play each day. Two breaks a day, for lunch and tea. Yes you read that right. Cricket has a tea break. Outrageously enough, even after five days' worth of play, it is possible to have a draw game. You'd think spectators would throw bottles, bags full of worthless pennies or old cell-phones but no. Sometimes a draw is a moral victory for a side. Other times, it's just plain boring.

One-day: As its name suggests, this form takes a day - about 10 hours of play. The most popular form today, and the world cup is played in this form. Draws a lot of crowds and a ton of TV audience. Not possible to have draws, so no chances of riots. There have, however, been legendary riots because teams didn't perform to meet expectations of home crowds.

20/20: For those with the attention-span of a goldfish. The newest version of the game (which takes about 3 hours to finish) is also its loudest and the most controversial. The grumpy old fogies steadfastly cling to their romantic notions of the purity and the nobleness of the game - whatever the hell that means. Me? I like this version just fine. So do millions of other cricket-lovers, thank God.

I think I will stop here. As with all drugs, one must limit the dosage to avoid side effects.