International Week Sports Kicks Off with Cricket Tournament

By Connect2Mason Writer Rahul Sharma

Mason has a large section of International Students coming from the cricket playing regions like Asia, Australia and Britain where Cricket is a very popular sport.

This year nine teams competed against each other for the coveted Champion’s Trophy in the Eighth Annual International Cricket Tournament (ICT) held at Intramural Field 3 at the Field House on April 5.

Cricket, like baseball, comes from the family of bat-and-ball games with some differences, but in both the sports one team hits the ball to score a run while the members of the other team field the ball in an attempt to prevent scoring and out opponents.

Though international cricket has fifty rounds of over, each compromising the six balls, but due to shortage of time, teams played six overs each during in the ICT.

This sport was made more popular by the Academy Award-nominated film Laagan (a Colonial Tax System) in which a bet was placed between a poor village cricket team against a flourishing British team on the condition that if the village team wins the match then it wins the freedom for the whole village, otherwise they will pay double the taxation.

The tournament started at 8:00 a.m. with pizzas provided by the organizers. Opening matches were between teams Avatar and the Indian Association (IA). It was a knock out tournament, in which the defeated team would not play further. Spectators filled with excitement and cheered their teams while enjoying the favorable weather. This tournament saw some melting of old revelry as players of some teams were ethnically mixed.

“My country was not the consideration for selecting team. The major consideration was good cricket and friends. Most friends from high school are from Pakistan, so I chose the Pakistan team [Lahore Badshah] though I am wearing the Team India t-shirt," said Mohan Manthena, MS computer science major, who is from India but played for Lahore Badshah.

The final match was played between India and Pakistan in which team Pakistan had a comfortable win.