Cricket Week – Pt. 1

(Source: DLF/IPL)

So the Indian Premier League is back for its second year. I followed it last year to its thrilling conclusion, as my favorite team, the Rajasthan Royals went through to victory. This year, it’s being held in South Africa instead of India (pick a reason you’d like, but the short story is that there were breakdowns in negotiations between DLF/Lalit Modi [the company and chairman of the IPL] and the Indian government, due to concurrent elections going on across India at the same time and lack of guarantee of security). It was slated to be in either England or South Africa, but eventually they went with South Africa on account of expectations of better weather–of course in a beautiful bit of irony, 2 matches have already been rained out thus far, while England is enjoying a rather sunny spring. (But if you ask me, South Africa is a far better location anyway, and crowd turnout has seemed pretty good so far.)

What’s New

Besides the venues, there are a few things different this year. Notably, none of the Pakistani players are in the IPL–likely due to the incident in March where the Sri Lankan cricket team was attacked in Lahore, prior to a Sri Lanka – Pakistan match (article). Now, I’m upset about that mostly because it seems as if it’s punishing the cricketers, when it’s really a failure of the government for being unable to fulfill their guarantees of security. And, some of the best players as a result are absent–mostly, Umar Gul and Sohail Tanvir (the latter of whom was the leading wicket-taker in last year’s IPL season, and on the Rajasthan Royals, no less).

Additionally, I think the ICC has wisened up to how silly the “bowl-out” looks as a way to resolve a tie game. So, they’ve replaced it with a “Super Over”, similar to a sudden death round of overtime in soccer. Basically, each side gets one over to score as many runs as possible; the fielding side can only use one bowler for the over, and the batting side has three batsmen–if two wickets are taken, then the over is ended. It ends up being a lot more exciting, and less anticlimactic, than the bowl-out (which happened for the first India-Pakistan match of the Twenty20 World Cup in 2007–mentioned here).

Also, while not new, this season has sort of highlighted one of the more interesting aspects of the IPL: what team to support? I mean, my favorite players are scattered across all the eight different teams. And oddly enough, Rajasthan has the least number of players that I really like. The reason why it’s my favorite team, though, is because the team, and captain Shane Warne, have a way of pulling out previously-unknown talent from within their ranks, and bringing themselves together as a team, despite the lack of big-name stars. That happened last week.

Week 1 of the IPL

So the first week… A few matches rained out, a few shortened by rain, and me of course getting up to watch the games which come on at 6:30am and 10:30am Eastern Time. For full details, I suggest the following:
- CricInfo IPL Home
- CricInfo IPL Fixtures/Results
- and, a good week-in-review at CricInfo Page 2

Thus far, it looks like the Deccan Charges, who last year had a lot of talent but was lousy at putting it together, have gotten their act together and are pretty good this time around. The Delhi Daredevils and Mumbai Indians also seem to be having a better year.

Unfortunately, my favorite team, the Rajasthan Royals, hasn’t been faring so well. The first match, with Bangalore vs Rajasthan, had Rajasthan restricting Bangalore to only 133 runs, which seemed an easy target to get. Rajasthan then proceeded to have an atrocious innings, and was bowled out for only 58 runs in 15 overs, to lose by 75 runs… I don’t know what happened–they kicked ass at bowling, but did the entire team get food poisoning or something?

Anyway, their second match was rained out. But their third match, with Rajasthan vs Kolkata, was absolutely brilliant. Rajasthan bat first, putting up 150 runs, and managed to keep Kolkata’s run rate down. Through it all, there was one new guy, Kamran Khan, an Indian bowler who’s only 18 years old, virtually unheard of until that day, coming in and taking 2 wickets with an amazingly good economy rate (conceding only 4.5 runs an over).

(Source: AFP/CricInfo)

It came to the last over… and Warne goes up to Kamran Khan, and says that Khan should be the one to bowl it. If you can picture this: the entire game is riding on the last over, and the veteran cricketer (Shane Warne) puts his trust in an 18-year old kid (Kamran Khan) to bowl this over, while one of the best batsmen is at the crease (Saurav Ganguly, for Kolkata). As Khan put it himself: “‘Before the final over of the match, Warne asked me to bowl. I was stunned after seeing his faith in my ability,’ he said. … ‘Warne handed the ball to me and advised not to get tensed and do my job freely as I was going to bowl to Ganguly. I listened to his advice and did not try to do any extra bit and bowled my normal deliveries.’” (source)

And, Khan, who signed for $24,000, manages to take the wicket of Ganguly, a player signed on for $1 million.

But it didn’t end there! The match ended in a tie! Almost as if it were fated, so soon after the ICC introduced new guidelines for resolving tie T20 games with the Super Over instead of the Bowl-Out, we get a tie game in a major tournament. So, Kolkata put their best batsmen forward, while Warne yet again puts his trust in Khan. And… Rajasthan goes on to win the match.

See, this is why Rajasthan is my favorite team, even despite their losses. With everyone else, you can figure out who their major players are going to be, and who the match will come down to. I mean, you know Punjab will rely on people like Yuvraj Singh and Mahela Jayawardene, and Kolkata will rely on Ganguly or Ajit Agarkar. But with Rajasthan, you never know who’ll be the next big thing.

Anyway, besides that, Kolkata finally debuted one of my favorite players, Ajantha Mendis. So, that gets back to the whole conflicting loyalties thing: my favorite team as a whole, versus my favorite players on another team.

Rajasthan’s latest match, this weekend, didn’t go so well… Again, their bowling is great, but their batting leaves much to be desired.

In Other News

I’m also following the Pakistan-Australia series in Dubai (no matches will be held in Pakistan for the foreseeable future, for obvious reasons, so they’re moving venus to the UAE for the time being). Thus far, Pakistan won the first ODI (with some killer bowling by Afridi, though Misbah-ul-Haq was taking an annoyingly long time with the run chase), and Australia won the second. I’m hoping Pakistan wins out the ODI series, though I seriously doubt if they’ll pull off winning the Test match at the end.

So… I’m done for now. I’ll try to give another cricket update at the start of each week of the IPL. In between then, I’ll post up regular, life-related updates. KF

A Disney Wedding

On March 28, two of my friends, CG and DA, got married. It was pretty clear early on that this would happen eventually–they’ve been together as long as I’ve known them. Anyway, they had the wedding in Orlando, at Disneyworld. So six of us went down there for the weekend for the wedding, and took a much-needed vacation on the side.

We stayed at the Port Orleans French Quarter resort:

It’s a really nice resort, by the way. As the name implies, it has a New Orleans theme, so while it’s themed it still has some class about it (a few of the other themed resorts are kind of… kitschy by comparison–the Polynesian is really nice, though). Plus, it’s just a short boat ride up-artificial-stream from Downtown Disney:

We were only there Friday to Sunday, so we passed on the theme parks since there wouldn’t be much time to really enjoy them. We did take the chance to go to Downtown Disney (plus DisneyQuest of course), eat out quite a bit, and generally relax for the weekend. Saturday afternoon was the wedding, so we went down to the pavilion near the Floridian:

The wedding was nice and small (about 60-70 people total, I think). So it felt very comfortable being there. We sat on the groom’s side for the ceremony itself. It was very sweet (and I managed to avoid tearing up). After that, they left the wedding chapel…

…and entered a white pumpkin-shaped coach drawn by six ponies and three people in powdered wigs:

Lastly, the reception was held at the Boardwalk. It was fun, and all of us, including CG and DA (or DG now?) had a chance to catch up. There were more very cute moments:

That’s it. The next day we went out for a bit before heading back home in the afternoon. I also took Monday and Tuesday off (where I pretty much stayed up and played video games all day), so this turned into a five-day weekend with a wedding right in the middle. All in all, a great time, I’d say. Here’s wishing all the best to CG and DA on their life together. KF

Quick Holdover and 25 Things

So the last month or so has been pretty busy. A couple of things that’ve gone on:

• I got accepted to Georgetown’s Master in Public Policy program. I should be starting this fall.
• One of my friends came down to visit for a week.
• Two of my friends since college got married last weekend (March 27th) at Disneyworld. I went, and I have pictures.

I’m going to make another post this Wednesday, exclusively devoted to the wedding and Orlando vacation. Since it’ll be a bit lengthier, it’ll take a bit more time to put together. In the meantime…

25 Things

There’s this list of 25 things that I was tagged with by Onigiriman. I’ve been meaning to get around to it, though the above things, plus plenty of work, getting sick for a week, etc., sort of got in the way. Anyway… the idea is that you write a note with “25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you.” Since I don’t know that many people who still update their Xanga, the response rate may be a bit low. But in any case, here goes:

(Background)

1. When I was little, my dream job was an astronomer. When I took an economics course in high school I found I had two subjects I liked, and I opted for the one that I liked and would be more lucrative. I still love astronomy, though.
2. I grew up playing tons of video games. I still play a lot, though I have more of an affinity for older games.
3. I got interested in Japanese culture starting with video games, then anime, and finally studying Japanese when I was 14. I did self-study in high school, and then formal classes in college.
4. I did two summer stays abroad with AFS in high school: Nagoya in 1999, and Rio Cuarto, Argentina, in 2000. I went back to Nagoya for a semester in 2004–completely coincidental.
5. I did three years of speech and debate in high school. I was pretty good at it, too–went to Nationals twice (once in Lincoln-Douglass Debate, once in House). I’m pretty comfortable speaking in public as a result.
6. I was valedictorian of my high school (class of about 270, school of about 1600). We had our graduation in the Grand Ole Opry, which is where I gave the speech.
7. During my graduation, there was a part called the benediction that was a thinly-veiled school-led prayer. I was on stage, so when they asked everyone to stand for the benediction, I remained seated. (The year after that, they quit doing the benediction at graduations.)
8. George Washington University was my 4th choice for colleges; the three before that (UPenn, University of Chicago, and Brown) all rejected me. In retrospect, I’m really glad things turned out how they did.
9. I’ve been to 22 different countries. Most were for brief vacations; the longest stays were in Japan, Argentina, and Bangladesh.
10. I speak both Japanese and Spanish to a reasonable degree (enough to get around). I understand a tiny bit of Bengali (never actually learned it), and briefly studied Chinese for a year.

(Interests/Entertainment)

11. I’m the foremost expert on the Lunar series, an RPG series with its first installment in 1992-1993. I’ve played all the games (English and Japanese versions), read the manga (even translated two of them), read all the novels (and summarized/translated 8 out of 9 of them–working on the 9th), and have my name in the credits of the latest game for the Nintendo DS (Lunar: Dragon Song–unfortunately, it’s not very good).
12. Science fiction has always been my favorite genre of entertainment. I grew up watching Star Trek: The Next Generation, and really like TNG, Deep Space 9, Enterprise, Battlestar Galactica, Firefly (top choice), and a few others I’m sure I’m forgetting. Ray Bradbury is one of my favorite authors.
13. I have a dangerous addiction to turn-based strategy games–particularly Sid Meier’s Civilization series. There were several times during college that I had to uninstall Civilization 3 or Alpha Centauri to avoid spending all day playing it instead of studying.
14. I really love museums, particularly anything related to human history (that is, I like things like the American History Museum and Freer/Sackler Gallery over the Air & Space and Natural History museums). I make very frequent visits to the Smithsonian.
15. Calligraphy is probably my favorite visual art form–Arabic calligraphy in particular, but Japanese and Chinese calligraphy to some extent. I did take one calligraphy course while studying in Japan last time, and really enjoyed it; it’s been a couple of years since I picked up a brush, however.
16. I love cricket, though I don’t follow any other sports. My love of cricket really began only a couple of years ago, but since then I’ve tried to make up for lost time.
17. I have a weakness for cats. If I see one, it takes all my willpower to avoid playing with it, meowing, and speaking in a high-pitched voice.

(Beliefs/Habits)

18. Right up until I was 15, I was homophobic. Not to a horrible extent, but an embarrassing one. That changed when I found out one of my close friends was bisexual, which triggered some closer inspection of my own views, and I soon realized how stupid I was being by forming preconceived notions about people based on who they were attracted to.
19. Right up until I was 15, I actively disbelieved in evolution. This changed when I realized two things: (1) I was taking my cues on what to believe from evangelical Christians, despite being Muslim, and (2) There was no conflict between my religious views and evolution, or any scientific theories for that matter (that goes for correct and incorrect theories). I had to go out of my way to learn about what evolution and natural selection actually are, though, since my 8th and 9th grade biology teachers didn’t teach it. This is one of the reasons I feel strongly about teaching evolution in schools, because failure to teach evolution makes kids stupid. I was there once; thankfully I’m not anymore.
20. I changed my opinion on the death penalty while researching it for one debate topic in high school. Previously I was completely fine with it; now, I think it’s an antiquated practice that’s barbaric for any society that has the means to imprison people (which applies to any developed country, including our own). In general, this is why I’m pretty amenable to changing my mind on things if I’m provided compelling evidence and good logic for it.
21. Nearly every morning, just before I leave my apartment, I go to my kitchen and check that the stove and oven is off. Sometimes, I take a few steps down the hall before doubling back, unlocking my door, and going to the kitchen to check. Last time I visited my mother, when we were going out someplace, she turns to me and asks if she turned off the stove and oven. It wasn’t until then that I realized where I got that habit from.
22. My OCD comes into play with organizing things, too. Files on my computer, my desk, my books, everything needs some logical order to them. I prefer to organize my things geographically, particularly my music (East to West then South to North).
23. I have a really strong belief in free will. What this translates into is that I don’t believe in fate or destiny, I don’t believe in soulmates (in the sense that there’s that one single person who’s perfect for you–I do believe there can be incredibly close connections between people, though), and I have a strong aversion to anything that compromises that free will (drugs and alcohol, e.g.).
24. I do believe in objective morality. There are some things that are subjective, things that are right or wrong depending on the circumstance. But there are many things that I do think are objectively right or wrong, regardless of surrounding societal norms.
25. I consider being Muslim my primary identity. Though, I also believe everyone has multiple identities they ascribe to themselves: ethnicity, nationality, religion, philosophy, occupation, etc.. Most of these identities aren’t in conflict with one another and don’t need to be prioritized (e.g., being American and being Muslim).

So if I tagged you, try to put up the same 25 things message. It needn’t be so lengthy and detailed as this–just to whatever extent that you’d like. You can post something in these comments too, if you want.

Anyway, as I said, next post will be all about the Orlando trip and wedding. ‘Til Wednesday. KF

(EDIT: User tags is down right now for some reason… I’ll try to edit this post and add that in once it’s back up.) (UPDATE: User tags back up.)