The Indian Student Association will try to bring a little taste of India to the Parade Ground this weekend with its second-annual cricket tournament. Games will be Saturday and Sunday from 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., weather permitting.
The ISA cricket league is made up of six Indian teams, one Pakistani team and one team whose members were raised around Dubai, United Arab Emirates, said Ashok Darisipudi, ISA president and engineering science Ph.D. student.
Meyya Palaniappan, a computer science graduate student and a member of the league, said the ISA was planning games for last weekend, but they were rained out.
Srinath Ekkad, an associate mechanical engineering professor and ISA advisor, said the cricket league is a way to “get the spirit going.”
“Cricket is the most popular sport in India,” Ekkad said. “It is a very enjoyable game.”
Ekkad said members of the league divide themselves into teams. Some teams join around friendships. Others form around geographic boundaries, such as Indian states or other countries.
Ekkad said he hopes the tournament will stir an interest in the game among students.
“If people spent some time watching it, they might actually appreciate it,” Ekkad said.
Cricket is a team sport, similar to baseball, for two teams of 11 players.
Both teams bat in successive innings and try to score runs while the opposing team fields the ball and attempts to end the batting team’s innings.
After each team has batted an equal number of innings, the team with the most runs wins the game.
A game can last anywhere from an afternoon to several days.
“Cricket is much more fun than baseball,” Ekkad said. “There’s a lot more happening.”
The ISA teams play a similar version of cricket, Ekkad said. The rules are the same, but the players use tennis balls instead of the traditional hard cork-and-string cricket balls, because playing with the traditional ball requires heavy padding.
Other equipment includes cricket bats and wickets.
“It’s like playing tag football instead of regular football,” Ekkad said.
Kailash Upadhyaya, an electrical engineering graduate student, said this weekend’s games will determine who plays in the semifinals, which will be held next weekend.