Random Impulse: Week 3-1

I was talking to some of my friends back home in Sri Lanka and I realized I will be missing out on one of the most exciting events this year. In a few days the World Cup Cricket tournament will be starting and Sri Lanka is one of the three host countries. Sri Lankans are crazy about cricket, but I realize many people in the US probably have no idea what it is about. So I thought I’ll write this random impulse on cricket.

Cricket is the national sport in Sri Lanka. Actually I’m not sure if it is officially the national game but it is definitely the most popular sport.  It is played between two teams and the matches are mostly held outdoors. I think there is one indoor stadium in Australia but they’ve probably played twenty odd games there. It requires a bat and a ball and there are eleven players in each team and they could be specialized batsman, bowlers or all-rounder’s. It is a bit like baseball but a cricket match usually takes so much more time. A match usually takes over eight hours and consists of fifty overs and an over is six balls. My sister calls cricket a waste of time. It probably is because I know how much time I’ve wasted watching matches, but it is also so much fun. Sri Lankans literally stop their work when our national team plays a match. People are so crazy about the game that if a match is going on you’ll see groups of people stopped on the sidewalks cheering and watching the game in a TV that’s in an electronic showroom. That reminds me, one of my cousin’s was getting married on a day that an important cricket match was to be played and some of the invitees were actually thinking about leaving the wedding early that my cousin got a TV screen in the wedding reception. Okay, so that was a little bit over the top but that’s just an example to show how much people love the game. This year’s world cup is especially exciting because Sri Lanka has a very good chance of winning. It’ll be starting in about a week’s time and I don’t think anyone will get any work done back home. But it’s terrible for me because I am missing out on all the excitement, and now I’m feeling sad again so I’m going to stop writing. Hope you’ll at least understand a bit about this sport though.