The longest international cricket match was played between England and South Africa in March 1939. The game lasted 13 days and ended in a draw. This was in era when the game was played until a winner emerged and the reason that the game ended in a draw was that the English players had the leave the next day in order to catch their ship back to England, which leaves once a month. The legend goes that one of the English players remarked “another half hour more and we would have won the match”. So much so for a match that did not see a result in 13 days. The game of cricket, however, has been reinvented over the last century to suit the fast pace and the changing taste of the audience. From an unlimited duration, it was modified into the 5-day format and then to the one-day format. In India, the one-day format took center stage when India won the 1983 World Cup lead by Kapil Dev. The next major change in the game came with the introduction of the twenty-twenty format. And again, with India winning the inaugural Twenty20 World Cup, the game got its next upgrade. With each reinvention of the game, there have always been critics in each camp (5-day, one-day, T20) who believed that their format carried the spirit of the game. However, the fact remains that the spirit of the game is carried by those all young kids who play this gentleman’s game in their crooked bylanes, creating stumps out of stones or plastic drums, playing whether its scorching heat or drenching rain. They play it for the pure love of having fun and not anything remotely monetary.
In keeping with the spirit of the game, Association for India’s Development, Tempe, a well-known non-profit organization in the valley organized the third edition of the AID cricket cup over the weekends from September 25th to October 2nd, at Daley Park in Tempe. The AID cricket cup has become popular fixture among the cricketing fraternity in Arizona with 24 teams competing for the cup each year. The tournament is known for upsets especially in the finals stages where little known teams beat well-established teams that play in the Arizona Cricket league tournaments. The secret lies in the fact that with only 6-overs per innings and 6-players per side, the format of the game is a very short and a couple of lusty hits from a batsman or conversely a couple of quick wickets can alter the face of the game drastically, in a matter of minutes. The tournament has been produced 3 different winners and runners-up in the last 3 editions although the majority of teams played all the 3 editions of the tournament.
This year, the ‘Kings’ team lead by Akshay Pulipaka won the AID cricket cup by beating team ‘Jilpanx’ lead by Babu C.K. Parimal of the ‘Kings’ team was adjudged The man of the match for the finals for his tight bowling figures (2 overs/3 wickets/8 runs). An interesting fact to be noted is that the ‘Kings’ team were in fact close to being eliminated in their Quarterfinals against ‘Psychos’. The best batsman trophy was awarded to Dhananjeyan Tirumalai from ‘Jilpanx’ team, scoring a total of 111 runs in the entire tournament. Karan Whittke of the ‘Kings’ team, who scrapped a total of 8 wickets was adjudged the best bowler of the tournament. The trophy for the maximum sixers was shared by Sashi Kaladhar (‘Kings’) and Maheshwaran Sadasivam (‘Jilpanx’) for hitting 7 sixes each in the tournament.
Another aspect of the tournament has been the interesting names that the teams come up with themselves. ‘Derror Mosquitoes’ (team from Chennai), ‘Psychos’, ‘Inglorious Basterds’ are some of them, adding extra element of fun to tournament. The tournament was also in high spirits by the background music that played (as requested the teams that were playing the respective matches) for each boundary and wicket taken. This small twist in the scene amplified the upbeat cheering of the spectators.
The tournament was organized as a fundraiser by AID Tempe towards its development projects in India. The proceeds of the funds raised from this cricket cup tournament will be used for grassroots development projects being funded by AID Tempe in India. These projects are spread across various fields and various states in India. The details of these projects can be viewed at tempe.aidindia.org. The website can also be reached by googling “AID Tempe”.
Donations to AID are tax-deductible in the USA. It is a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit charitable organization with tax ID 04-3652609. Please click to contribute.