Bangalore, India - Cricket

I never got into cricket until living in Bangalore for an extended period of time and feeling the collective excitement of the Indian fans. Now I must admit I enjoy watching cricket more than baseball. Cricket is one of those sports that is huge in many parts of the world except the US.

There are three major forms of cricket: Test cricket, which is played out over a period of days; one-day cricket, which is a relatively shorter version that lasts up to eight hours (usually 50 overs); and Twenty20, which is shorter still at 20 overs (an over is six legally thrown balls). The biggest tournament in cricket is the World Cup, which is held every four years like the football World Cup and the Olympics.

2007 is a cricket World Cup year, and the games have been played out for the last month and a half in the West Indies. The championship game happens to be taking place right now, with Australia vs. Sri Lanka. The World Cup uses the one-day cricket format, so it's not practical to sit through the match from beginning to end. This snap was taken after the Australian team had just completed their batting side with an almost insurmountable score of 281 runs for just 4 wickets (similar to an out in baseball). The game was delayed by rain, so it had been shortened from 50 to 38 overs. To give you a sense of how dominating this performance is, only one team was able to score more than 250 runs against Australia in the entire tournament, and that was through 50 overs instead of the shortened 38.

It is now Sri Lanka's turn to bat—rest in peace o' courageous Lankans. It is inevitable that Australia will win a world record three cricket World Cups in a row. Brilliant!