Cricket in USA

I always thought if only Americans play cricket they can beat the heck out of Indians and Australians. Now I am glad to say cricket has come to America in the form of MLC (Major League Cricket). 

To paraphrase Neil Armstrong “This is one small step for USA, one giant leap for the game of Cricket”. 

Major League Cricket in USA, similar to IPL, has 6 teams this year. These are the teams and their current standing as of July 21. 

Los Angeles Knight Riders (NO win and 4 loss) (Owned by KKR) 

MI New York (1 win and 2 loss) (owned by Mumbai Indians) 

San Francisco Unicorn (2 wins and 1 loss) 

Seattle Orcas (2 wins and NO loss) 

Texas Super Kings (2 wins and 1 loss) (Owned by CSK) 

Washington Freedom (2 wins and 1 loss) 

These matches started on July 13. The final will be played on July 30. 

These six teams have recruited, in addition to local Americans, players from all over the world. Some of the famous names are: 

Faf du Plessis, David Miller, Devon Conway, Kieron Pollard, Tim David, Rashid Khan, Nicholas Pooran, Unmukt Chand, Martin Guptill, Corey Anderson, Lungi Ngidi, Sunil Narine, and many others. 

I am confused. I read somewhere that Indians who want to play in MLC has to sever all connections with BCCI and IPL. I don’t know how far this is true. 

Tickets to all matches are sold out. 

Eagerly waiting for the final on July 30.

Video Game Love Affair

A 27-year-old married Pakistani woman used to play the popular game PUBG with a 22 year old Indian guy. After playing this game together for many hours each for many days, they both fell for each other. The woman, along with her 4 children, entered India illegally via Nepal. They both lived happily near New Delhi. Their lawyer came to know about this and alerted the police. They were arrested. 

This news was reported prominently in the American newspapers. What I found interesting was how the readers reacted through their comments. Most of the times, reader comments are more interesting than the story itself.  Want to share some of their comments.  They are:

In America, the lawyer would have been in trouble for revealing privileged information.

Common on, they have to let her stay there and let them get married. She cannot go back anyway; she will be either killed either by her husband or the government. Sweet story, wish them well.

People in Pakistan both men and women would do anything to leave their country, they would even risk drowning 

I'm amazed that a 22-year-old man would want to marry a woman who has four kids! 

Nice starter family. 

You mean they actually ENFORCE their laws against illegal entry. What a novel concept. Maybe Brandon* could contemplate doing that. 

I think this country should adopt India's immigration laws. 

India Government should give her an Indian equivalent of H1B visa. 

The lawyer proved they are not to be trusted. 

Love is strong but beware of rats. 

Hindus can call this reverse love jihad. 

How does she have so much time playing a game with 4 children, all under the age of seven? 

This is such a crazy story. He is suddenly the dad of four little kids and she’s with a guy who’s basically unemployed. 

I’ll wait for the Disney movie to explain it all. 

They should have met in America, would received a home, transportation, food, clothing, child care, health care, and anything else their hearts desire at a cost of NOTHING. Good old USA, we’ll care for anyone except our own citizens and we’ll use their money to do it. 

I kept waiting to read they had a go fund me** open. 

This story is better than mine and I am jealous. 

So that’s the secret. Let’s get Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy to play PUBG: Battlegrounds. 

What does a woman want? We finally have an answer.

*Brandon is a nick name for President Biden.  How he got that name? I will let you know in my next blog post.

**GoFundMe is a personal crowdfunding site designed to help ease the financial stresses of life for families and businesses.

World Cup Cricket Experience

In the past, we bought tickets to see the World Cup Cricket matches in 3 different countries. I want to share my experience. I learned a lesson also that will be provided at the end of this post. 

We bought 3 tickets to watch a double header at the Oval in England, 8 tickets to watch a match in Chennai, India, and 3 tickets to watch a match in Colombo, Sri Lanka. 

Because of a scheduling problem, we were unable to attend the Colombo match. I wrote to the organization from where I bought the tickets and explained my problem. They immediately refunded my money. 

Oval Match in England. 

It was a T20 double header. First match was South Africa vs West Indies. Second match was Pakistan vs New Zealand. We had reserved seats with row and seat numbers. We were a little bit late. By the time we reached our reserved seats, national anthems of both South Africa and West Indies had already sang. (or is it sung? Since I did not go to Harvard, I do not know which one is correct.) 

The whole stadium was jam packed. Our seats were not occupied by anyone else. It was in a very comfortable place. It was next to where Pakistani players sat. One usher came and said that this place is for Pakistani supporters and, if we want, he could give us an alternative better seat to watch. We thanked him and said “no thanks” and remained in our seats for the entire double header. We even shook hands with Shahid Afridi 

Both matches were very enjoyable. The more beer consumed the more enjoyable the matches were. HeHeHe.

Match in Chennai. 

It was an ODI. India vs West Indies. We bought 8 tickets, each at a very high price. We got the reserved tickets with row and seat numbers. We went to the stadium one hour before the start of the match. Surprise. Surprise. The whole stadium was jam packed. Our 8 reserved seats were occupied by unknown people. We told them these are our seats and they just ignored us. We called this to the attention of the ushers and the police security. They both said: Koottam jasthiya irukku sir. Konjam adjust pannikinga sir. Enga kaaliya seat irukko anga utkarunga sir. (Today too much crowd sir. Please have some adjustment sir. Please sit where you can find an empty seat sir.) 

There was nothing we could do. Finally, we sat in the Bob Uecker seat*. There was no organized place to sell soft drinks and water. They were at random places and spectators were mobbing those sellers. 

So the lesson is never ever watch a world cup cricket match in person in India. Better to watch them in TV. 

* Bob Uecker was a professional baseball player in USA. He acted in a Miller Lite Bob Uecker commercial. In that commercial he boasted he got a special ticket to watch a baseball game and finally ended up sitting in the last seat at the top most upper deck. The ad has become so famous that if people get a “not so good” seat at sporting events, they call it a Bob Uecker seat.