Word: cricketer
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...Movies: Notes from Toronto Books: Tiananmen leader tells all Q & A: Zhang Boli Sports: Cricket, South Asia-style
...addiction is also South Asia's. These days, the game's beating heart is in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, where an estimated 1.5 billion cricket fans, or 90 percent of the international cricket audience, live. All those eyes are now focused on Sri Lanka, where the world's best teams have gathered to compete for the Champions Trophy, an 18-day extravaganza that began on Sept. 12. Tournament organizers expect the event to pull in more South Asian viewers than the football World Cup attracted in June...
...region divided by ethnic and religious hatreds, cricket has stood alone in its ability to unite people. For generations the game has acted as a meeting point for neighbors with little else to bring them together. "I would have trouble talking to an Indian about anything other than cricket," says Rashud. "If they mention partition the fists would soon start flying. But if they mention cricket we can talk for hours...
...because of the dispute over Kashmir. But even Kashmir hasn't divided the players. While India and Pakistan were trading verbal missiles at the United Nations assembly in New York earlier this month, the two countries' most popular public figures?India's Sachin Tendulkar, arguably the world's greatest cricketer, and Pakistani captain Waqar Younis?were rekindling an old friendship in the lobby of the teams' hotel in Colombo. "They are the best of friends," says Indian team manager K.M. Ramprasad. "Cricket unites them. It makes them see each other as human beings...
...decades of ethnic-based conflict between the Sinhalese and Tamil populations, there is only one truly national hero: Muttiah Muralitharan. He is not a politician or a pop star. He is a southern-born Tamil, the son of a candy maker, blessed with the unlikely ability to spin a cricket ball like a top. In Tamil-controlled territory only the fearsome and reclusive Tamil Tiger rebel leader Velupillai Prabakharan matches his legend. In the bombed-out streets of Jaffna on the northern peninsula, Muralitharan's picture is pasted on bullet-pocked walls in ads hawking insurance...