Cricket Club hosts intercollegiate tournament

Over Easter weekend, the Mankato Cricket Club hosted its Spring Cricket Tournament in Myers Fieldhouse. Each semester, the club hosts an intercollegiate tournament each semester. This semester’s tournament consisted of three teams from visiting universities; three teams made up of MSU alumni, and five teams made up of current MSU students. The visiting teams were South Dakota State University, North Dakota State University, and Winona State University. The MSU alumni teams are Team Bidrohi, Indian Boys, and MCG. The MSU teams were Desi Mahool, Team Lions, Bangladeshi Royals, Nestcom, and Team India. Desi Mahool was the reigning champion of the Asia Cup, an MSU-only tournament held in Schellberg Gym two weekends ago.

Cricket, which originated in England, is popular around the world, from Australia to India to South Africa to the West Indies in the Caribbean. Its closest American sporting relative is baseball, but the differences are stark. The field is a large oval with two wickets (three wooden stakes placed closely together) located in the middle. Players wield a flat bat and typically play the ball off the bounce. Unlike baseball, any batted ball is in play, even when hit directly backwards. Teams score runs either by hitting the ball outside of the field’s boundary (six runs for crossing without a bounce, four for bouncing across the boundary) or by running between the two wickets after batting the ball. The fielding team attempts to retire the batsmen by bowling them out (hitting the wicket with the ball as the batsman attempts to hit), running them out (hitting the wicket with the ball before the runner reaches his side while attempting to score a run), or catching a batted ball before it bounces. The ball is much like a baseball, although the cricket club here on campus uses tennis balls wrapped in electrical tape. More information on the sport of cricket can be found at the ESPN Cricket info website.

Match Results

Quarterfinals
Match 1: Bangladesh Royals (93/6) defeats Team India by 39 runs
Match 2: Indian Boys (83/6) defeats Winona State University by 21 runs
Match 3: Team Lions (78/3) defeats Desi Mahool by 7 wickets
Match 4: MCG (80/1) defeats Team Bidrohi by 28 runs

Semifinals
Bangladesh Royals (76/0) defeats Indian Boys by 10 wickets
MCG (97/5) defeats Team Lions by 21 runs

Final
MCG (80/6) defeats Bangladesh Royals by 19 runs

(Match results courtesy of the Mankato Cricket Club Facebook group.)