I have three confessions to make to all of you.
1. I don’t really remember what Pakistan’s role was or wasn’t surrounding 9/11.
2. I have not kept up with U.S.–Pakistan relations at any point in my life.
3. I’m not sure if Pakistanis care about T20 cricket or if the abridged version of the game is beneath them.
With that established.
*ahem*
U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!
For those out of the loop, the United States beat Pakistan yesterday in a modified version of cricket, upsetting one of the world’s powerhouses in the T20 World Cup. It was a group play match—our boys are a long way from gold—and it happened on American soil (in Grand Prairie, a Dallas suburb), but a win over Pakistan is a win over Pakistan, and for all those who said the little old United States couldn’t compete with global superpowers in anything…we’ll wait for your apology.
Team USA bowler* Saurabh Netravalkar seems to be the star, so if you see Saurabh Netravalkar on the street or at his day job at Oracle, please react accordingly. Freak out. Take pictures. Ask this man to sign your baby. If you lack a baby, acquire a baby, then ask this man to sign it. We want Netravalkar to know we’re proud of him. Even if it takes an Amber Alert to deliver the news.
Cricket’s in a sweet spot in America in that 1) it’s important to a lot of the rest of the world, 2) it’s not important here, and 3) no one is trying that hard to evangelize it. It’s like rugby that way. It’s unlike soccer. This means it isn’t annoying. As long as nobody is aggressively trying to make you like something (besides the NIT, of course—it’s cool to aggressively encourage people to like the NIT), that something generally generates a live–and–let–live attitude. We might be getting good at cricket? Great. I wouldn’t care if we weren’t, but that’s great.
The best scenario, then, is that American cricket continues to improve, and that eventually we can all make the choice to care about it if we want to care about it. Nobody pressured by a greedy media to start liking cricket. Nobody told, “It’s actually really important in the rest of the world, so we’re weird for not caring about it.” No conversations about what society would look like if LeBron James played cricket. The best scenario is American cricket becoming a superpower under the cloak of night, and then enough of us discovering we like it that a significant number of children in Generation Beta** are named Saurabh.
Now.
What this does for American relations with Pakistan.
It can only go two ways, right? Either we and Pakistan become cricket-loving best friends or we and Pakistan grow to loathe each other on a level deeper than any which could come from military and CIA activity alone. My only hope, in the event it’s the latter, is that in 2048 someone releases a cool cricket movie featuring a hardass coach asking an exhausted Netravalkar who he plays for and Netravalkar saying, between gasps, “The United States of America!” while the music swells.
*The bowler is the cricket equivalent of the pitcher in baseball.
**There has got to be a better name than Generation Beta.
Etc.
- Powers that be released college football’s bowl schedule yesterday, and with the Gator Bowl happening between the College Football Playoff quarterfinals and semifinals while the Sun Bowl’s played before the quarters, the Gator Bowl takes a big step towards full control of the title of “college football’s NIT.” Playing between significant games in the tournament the lamestream is watching? NIT move right there.
- Something that’s been overlooked with the expansion to a 12-team playoff is that we’re closer to a bubble that parallels college basketball’s in terms of where it falls in the sport’s hierarchy. Thanks to how many universities sponsor Division I hoops, the 45th-best team in college basketball is comparable to the 16th-best in college football. All of this combines to create a crucial truth: College football’s NIT might finally really feature the first teams out of the playoff. “The arc of the moral universe is long…”
- It’s Super Regional weekend in college baseball, and that means it’s dogpile season. It’s still unclear to me why college baseball has the best dogpiles, but it does, and we should get eight of them over the next few days. There’s no celebration better than a dogpile. It’s as good as its name would suggest.
- I have not been following the NFL’s kickoff rule change. I’m withholding judgment until Week 1, when I see it with my own eyes. That said, if it makes Justin Tucker say he’s added “like, 3.8 pounds” of muscle, this thing must offer potential for goofiness I did not previously recognize. Again, nobody tell me why—I want to see it with my own eyes—but if this format incentivizes kickers to get stronger, there’s a good chance I like it. We’ve been needing to shake up the kicker game. They’ve had too much time on their hands to convince themselves that kicking is a masculine job.
