"Cricket is the first, most primary game in India; nothing comes before cricket. It\'s everyone\'s passion," says Karthik Vangala of the sport he was raised playing.
When the graduate student arrived at Mississippi State in 2006 to study chemistry, he longed for something to remind him of home and soon found it in the MSU Cricket Club. He says the thing that impresses him the most about the game is the sheer elegance. "In baseball you hit the ball, but in cricket, the runner bowls the ball. It\'s quite graceful."
In the past four years, the 60-member team has twice won best cricket club in the Southeast and most recently, as club president, Vangala led the multi-nation squad to victory in the largest intercollegiate cricket tournament in the Southeast: the Bulldog Championship Trophy \'08.
Vangala says being a part of it is as much recreation as it is a cultural experience, with students interacting with different nationalities during a game.