Wills World Cup Cricket Match Personal Statement

Wills World Cup Cricket Match - Personal Statement Example So Sri Lanka got points for the first two games and went directly to the quarter-finals. This never happened before or since in the Cricket World Cup. All the games after that were played in Pakistan or India. The Group A games between Australia and the West Indies were marvelous. All the players on the Australia team were very young. They did not have much World Cup level experience. Their captain, Mark Waugh, also was one of the best scorers of the tournament. They proved they were fighters. The Australians played their hardest against the West Indies veterans. Now the West Indies, as you know, is not one country, but a group of many islands in the Caribbean Sea. It was wonderful to watch how all these players put their skills together to make one terrific team. Brian McMillan and V. Chanderpaul were the team's star players. In one of the semi-final games, the "Windies" as they were called, threw everything they had at the Aussies, but it was not enough. The Australians charged into the final game, defeating the Windies by a score of 207 for 8 in 50 overs. All four of the Group A teams: West Indies, Australia, India and Sri Lanka advanced to the semi-finals. Sri Lanka and Australia played the final, and Sri Lanka was victorious in a dogged match over the Australians, 245 for 3 in 46.2 overs. The Sri Lankans captured the victory by seven wickets to take home the World Cup for 1996. The skilled players from India fascinated me during this tournament. Even though they did not play in the final match, two of their best players took the top awards in the Wills World Cup. Sachin Tendulkar scored an amazing total of 523 runs in all the matches he played. His teammate, Anil Kumble, was the top wicket scorer with 15. I remember the announcer talking about Sachin Tendulkar during the India semi-final game. He told us that Tendulkar was very young, in his early 20s, and had just married before the start of the tournament. He suggested to young men everywhere, "See what a happy marriage can do for you," meaning that Tendulkar played so well because he was very happy and contented. I always wonder if many young cricket players watching the Wills World Cup soon asked their girlfriends to marry them because of this advice. Very different from the India and Australia teams was the South African squad. Every player had played in at least one World Cup before. They were led by the legendary player Hansie Cronje (crow nyee). All of them were white. Apartheid had ended in South Africa, but there were no black players chosen for the team. Cronje was a tall, solidly built man. He had a strong-featured face, a beaky nose, piercing pale eyes and thin lips. He was very intimidating to his opponents. The South Africans fell to the hurricane speed pitches of the Windies, who beat them 264 for 8 in 50 overs. Hansie Cronje remained the permanent captain of the South Africa team for several more years. I was deeply saddened to hear of his death in a small plane crash in 2002. Another thing I remember clearly from the Wills World Cup was the players' uniforms. We are all used to seeing cricket players dressed in snow-white from collar to shoes. But not at the World Cup. The players wore polo-style shirts, short sleeved with two buttons at the top, in vibrant colors. The colors were usually taken from those in the country's flag, except the Windies,

The New Jim Crow Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

The New Jim Crow - Essay Example Any statement that doesn’t concide with what it implies is hypocrisy even if it is in the form of a law. A law not implemented sincerely and judiciously is self negating. Spare the rod and spoil the child is not valid today as the contrary is more likely to spoil the child. This is in fact what is happening in our society today. Our laws target to prevent the crime and through a vicious circle of incarceration end up in promoting it simply because of the real focus being upon segregation of those whom we don’t want to be in the mainsream of our society. How incarceration can be counter effective and promote discrimination is the point to ponder upon. This was the point that flashed across the mind of Michelle Alexander, an associate professor at the Moritz College of Law at Ohio State University, while he happened to quickly glance at a roadside bill reading, "The Drug War is the New Jim Crow." His reaction to this poster, in his own words was, "Yeah, the criminal-justi ce system is racist in many ways, but making such an absurd comparison doesn't help. People will just think you're crazy." (Alexander) Right as he was, this thought required thorough probe and research to establish what he thought was a fact. He did so and after a lapse of good enough time delivered an illuminating speech at Constitution Day, during an event hosted by the Constitution Project and the Georgetown Center on National Security. He stated conclusively, â€Å"the system of mass incarceration is now immunized from judicial scrutiny for racial bias, much as slavery and Jim Crow laws were once protected from constitutional challenge.† Jim Crow is iconic for laws pertaining to discrimination. In the early days of our history such laws were proclaimed openly like Fugitive Slave Act of 1793. It was a pro-slavery clause in the U. S. Constitution and provided that, â€Å"persons held in service of labour in one state, escaping into another ... shall be delivered up on clai m of the party to whom such service of labor may be due."  (Ronald and Davis) Further to it â€Å"Those who refused could be fined and jailed. Slave catchers were paid a bounty for each slave captured.† (Ronald and Davis). We do not have such harsh laws today because now we are better equipped with the use of legal terms to express our illicit thoughts. Discrimination of colour and creed, not pronounced though, is embedded in the subconscious of our society and those at the helms of legal affairs do not spare any opportunity to imprison and reimprison the ‘defaulters of color or creed’on one or the other pretext. Crux of the thinking is that we want to keep some of the society, away from society on pretence of some legal ground, mostly prompted by political motives. Living in a truly free society, the black and white feel attracted towards one another like the opposite poles well known for their intrinsic affinity, when however constrained to live together they act like similar poles and tend to repel one another. Imprisonment has been a favourite mode of punishment in the history of law. The stated objectives of imprisonment are to punish the criminals followed by their training and education to reintroduce them in the society as useful and respectable citizens. Facts that come in light through research do not approve the realization of these objectives, for example statistics show that most of the persons once charged and imprisoned are charged and