Hoosier Cricket Cup attracts teams from across state

It was the Hoosier Cricket Cup, but in the end, the Cup didn’t belong to the Hoosiers.
Cool Creek finished off the Eller Killers 55-47 on Saturday to win the first  Hoosier Cricket Cup at Twin Lakes Sports Park in Bloomington.

The tournament was originally scheduled for Sept. 11, but rain forced tournament organizers to reschedule.

But early Saturday, rain made another appearance. Matches had to be delayed for a few hours to allow the weather to improve and the playing surface to dry.

That pushed the championship match back to a 1:30 a.m. finish with temperatures dropping to 46 degrees.

“I think it was one of the very few, if not the only cricket match, that has ever played after midnight,” said graduate student and IU Bloomington Cricket Club member Eran Withana.

IUBCC Vice President Animesh Shukla, a graduate student at IU, helped organize the event.

Shukla said Oct. 2 wasn’t a bad second option for the tournament.

“It was one of the days that was available to us, and secondly, it’s Gandhi’s birthday,” Shukla said.

Eight teams from across Indiana, including one representing the IUBCC, competed in the one-day Hoosier Cricket Cup. There was a group stage of two four-team groups. Four teams then played in single-elimination games for the Cup.

Srikant Devaraj, a Muncie resident, played for the championship squad Cool Creek, which is based in Indianapolis. He said he was impressed with the parity among the teams.

“All the teams are equally good, and if you see the scores, everything is pretty close,” Devaraj said. “There is no one team dominating.”

IUBCC’s team struggled in group play, winning only one of three games.

It wasn’t for lack of talent, though. Graduate student and IUBCC President Prolay Mondal said they had to pick a team of eight players from a pool of nearly 40 club members.

“For this tournament, we had so many people interested in playing,” Mondal said.
IUBCC decided to play an internal tournament with three teams to determine who would represent the Cream and Crimson.

Despite a lackluster showing in the tournament, Mondal said the IUBCC team typically performs well.

“Actually, we were the runners-up in two recent tournaments, so we do pretty well,” Mondal said.

The cold and the rain may have kept some spectators away, but a few supporters did show up. April Nesbit, a post-doctoral student at IU, was curious about the sport.
“I came to see why everyone else in the world is so excited about it,” Nesbit said.