Coach murdered after huge upset

[DevilAlumna]

For those who follow Cricket more closely than I do (about 99.9% of the world's population, I'd guess), this is probably old news, but

Pakistan's cricket coach was murdered (http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/americas/03/22/cricket.death/index.html), after a completely shocking loss to Ireland in the World Cup.

Scary! I admit, my first thought after reading a few articles on this was, boy, I'm glad college basketball upsets (like a #11 seed over a #6 seed) don't bring out this level of violence.

Any cricket fans out there? Care to shed more light on the incident?

[JasonEvans]

The same thing almost happened to Tubby Smith-- that's why he fled Kentucky ;)

[sue71, esq]

I'm not a cricket fan- heck, I don't really know the game- but I'd be curious to hear James' take on what happened. James, are you lurking around these parts anymore?

[throatybeard]

My friend in Microbiology said the [Indian] grad students in his Dept were literally crying after Sri Lanka beat India. I said I figured this would be about like if Bama lost to Dauphin Island in football.

The Indian microbiologists also said that cricket is the world's second most popular sport. My friend disputed this, but I pointed out India has like over a billion people, and Pakistan is pushing 200M. So that right there's like 20% of everybody.

[hc5duke]

For those who follow Cricket more closely than I do (about 99.9% of the world's population, I'd guess)

Um, I was under the impression nobody outside of the former British empire (sans U.S.) follows this at all. I'd imagine baseball/basketball would be better known around the world than cricket. By better known, I mean if you asked the question "have you seen a game of ____" to a random sample of the world, more ppl would say yes to baseball/basketball than to cricket. I didn't pick soccer, because that's more universal.

[tombrady]

Um, I was under the impression nobody outside of the former British empire (sans U.S.) follows this at all. I'd imagine baseball/basketball would be better known around the world than cricket. By better known, I mean if you asked the question "have you seen a game of ____" to a random sample of the world, more ppl would say yes to baseball/basketball than to cricket. I didn't pick soccer, because that's more universal.

Um, completely false. Cricket is also huge in Australia, NZ, South Africa, many southeast-asian countries. And theres a difference between "have you seen a game of" and "what do you like to watch." As much as we like to think baseball and, to a lesser extent, basketball, are spreading around the world -- they're really not.

[hc5duke]

Austalia, NZ, SA, Desi countries all fall under the umbrella of "former UK colonies" don't they? I guess my point was that more ppl are probably familiar with the game of bball (either one) itself than cricket, while there is probably a higher number of cricket fanatics than bball ones.


Um, completely false. Cricket is also huge in Australia, NZ, South Africa, many southeast-asian countries. And theres a difference between "have you seen a game of" and "what do you like to watch." As much as we like to think baseball and, to a lesser extent, basketball, are spreading around the world -- they're really not.

[Deslok]

With Yao Ming and the burgeoning Chinese interest, basketball interest does prevail over cricket. But baseball, no way. Simply consider India, that's essentially a billion people who follow cricket passionately(seriously, do Indians do any other sport? if so, they don't exactly do it well especially when you factor in their numbers). Toss in Pakistan and Bangladesh and you far outreach just in those 3 countries the entire population of baseball playing countries(US/Japan/Korea/Taiwan/Mexico/venezuela/etc). It is basically a sport of UK commonwealth countries, but the British empire was so vast that covers almost a third of the world.

[DevilAlumna]

Um, I was under the impression nobody outside of the former British empire (sans U.S.) follows this at all.

May be true, but I also said, "more closely than me." You don't know just how little I follow/know about cricket.... ;)