Cricket: not just an insect, also a popular game

This will come as a surprise for anyone who remotely knows me, but I attended a sporting event yesterday. An actual sporting event LIVE! For those of you who don’t know me – the only reason I even know the mere basics of baseball, football and hockey are because of dear patient friends of mine who are kind enough to listen to my ignorant questions and respond back to me with very simple analogies. Hey, I spent my childhood reading as many books as possible, visiting the city library, attending summer art camps, and watching Wishbone on PBS (you know the cute dog that solves mysteries and talks). Anything that involves motion and some type of sporting equipment is entirely foreign to me.

Anyways, it was the twenty20 world cup in St. Lucia, and Sarah and I attended the much anticipated India vs Sri Lanka match. Cricket is very important to the people of St. Lucia. The entire country was in attendance. Roads were blocked and stores were closed. (Also a very fun professor of ours urged us to go.)

This version of the game is a shortened version of the traditional British game which can take 4 to 5 days to complete. Can you imagine a game that takes that long? Whaaaaaaat? This shorter version lasts about 3 hours because each team bowls 20 balls.

Don’t ask me about the rules or any pertinent information about the game. (Read Sarah’s blog for a better deconstruction of the game). It was my first ever cricket match and I was trying hard just to keep up with it. My initial thoughts were:

1. Why do cricket players wear uniforms which look like pajamas? Can’t they incorporate a little more spandex? Give a girl something to work with!

2. Sri Lanka and India both are very into the sport of cricket. No doubt this is directly due to British colonial rule. For India in particular (a country that fought hard for its independence) – what is it like to break free from British customs and rules, but embrace its sports?

It was a close game. India batted (is that what you call it?) first and played a mean game. Sri Lanka came up to bat and initially I was doubtful they could win. Who scores over a 160 points with 20 balls? I mean, right?! Well not only did Sri Lanka slowly creep up to that score, but their final bat (worth 6 points) was instrumental to their win.

Here are a few photos of the fans near us.