BY DC CUEVA
Many years back, someone who's established himself as a leading podcaster on this site's primary beat of the MTV Challenge over the past decade, Brian Cohen posted a phone screenshot of an alert from one of his sports apps that read, "Sri Lanka beats India by 6 wickets with 13 balls remaining to win ICC World Twenty20 cricket title." In the caption Brian wondered, "I don't know what any of these words mean...", and this one responded in the comments on the former Twitter platform, "I know more than you about the sport of cricket," and gave the fellow Yankees fan a brief primer of what the sport is about...a sport that some fans here would like to refer to as "That Other Bat N' Ball Game."
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| All Photos Courtesy Wikipedia Commons |
When the International Olympic Committee gave the green light to the sport program for the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles last fall, so much attention was deservedly given to the inclusion in the Games' return to America of flag football. There, a number of NFL players stated their intention to go for gold... same went for the return of baseball and softball to the Games and the inclusion of lacrosse and squash for the first time. But lost in the hoopla of that announcement was that the changes to the slate that will be included on sports' greatest stage will have a greater benefit outside of the United States. It's most especially the case in the British Commonwealth countries, and particular one nation that hosted the latest edition of its biggest championship event in a sport most of us don't follow at all.
As one of the world's most-followed sports, cricket is a sport that's totally different than the one we take for granted here in America. Unlike the World Series and baseball, cricket is a true world game that is played in all six continents instead of just primarily the Americas and Asia. The premise is the same in both cricket and baseball: hit a ball with a wooden bat on a grassy field, fielders and those tossing the ball to those batters, and score more runs than your opposition. But when one looks at the game much more closely, there are many differences between these two games... which is why the international game is so much different in many ways than our national pastime.
In addition to its upcoming Olympic appearance in L.A., this past month it hosted by far the biggest event that's ever been held on the North American continent -- and a preview of coming attractions in four years: a bite-sized version of the game that once again revolutionized this once genteel game played by privileged British gentlemen. And all it took for this sport to finally gain at least a footstep in the biggest sports market on earth: a team against the odds taking down a Goliath of the game that made sporting headlines everywhere with shades of what happened in upstate New York a generation ago.
