Engineers dedicate their victory to the Mumbai terror victims

Seasons ends with a BBQ

By Sanjeeb Sahoo

An inspirational email, that included a bait of post-match BBQ, from the president did serve well to gather an eleven for the match by Tuesday. However dropouts, as usual, on the day of the match ensured that the Engineers travelled to Shizuoka on a cold morning with only ten to field. But since most of the key players were available, the captain was hopeful to end the season on a high note. Masood rented an 8-seater for the Tozai-Yakuzas, from the place who gives him a discount , thinking Masood still works for Lehman :). Biju had kindly agreed to put his BMW to service, for the Saibu-Saints, must have gone through some difficulty to convince his life-partner :). The Engineers were supposed to play the match with black arm-bands to honour the victims of Mumbai terror victims but the president blamed a temporary lapse of memory for(not)getting it. At the ground the team observed a one minute silence before the match commenced.

It was a fantastic day to play cricket. Both captains agreed to play a 32 Overs game. Toss was taken around 10:45AM, and Engineers skipper called it right, and elected to bat first. In the absence of regular opener Santosh, Vijender was promoted to open with Vimal. Kytes a new bowler, Maywen, who started the bowling was able to generate good pace and bounce and occasionally swing too, from the pitch. But both openers did well to keep there wicket and played sensibly to post a score of 47 in 10 overs without loosing their wickets. Vijender was the first one to fall on the 13th over trying to accelerate the score. Bye that time though he had already proven himself as an solid opening batsman.

Ritesh, playing after long time given a chance to walk in next. He was initially tentative, then became aggressive and finally became over aggressive and fell to a good catch at log off. In-form batsman Raju walked in next and soon enough, the fire-works started. Both Vimal and Raju were playing the pacers quite easily, but were having some trouble against the flighted deliveries of Kytes captain Neil. Vimal fell next, clean bowled, trying to hit one of those deliveries out of the park. Captain Sanjeeb walked in next and joined Raju. Since 7 wickets were in hand and only 12overs were to go, both batsmen decided to put their feet on the Gas-pedal and, started accelerating towards 200. Both batsmen were quick between the wicket and were scoring boundaries almost at will. However Sanjeeb fell quickly trying to steal a non-existent single. Raju on the other hand kept going till the end and scored a marvelous 40 not-out, should have been a 50 if there were no scoring errors. One six, that he hit over the long-off was undoubtedly the best shot of the day. Biju, Bikash and Masood fell in quick succession and we were in the danger of getting all-out. However Deepak playing for the first time for the Engineers, showed immense potential and courage, and hit some glorious boundaries in the process, and we managed to post an imposing total of 207/8.

208 is a safe score, especially when some of the Kytes’ regulars and big hitters were absent. So Captain decided to satisfy the bowling ambitions of some of the devoted players and decided to bring in his key bowlers later in the innings. So Masood was trusted with the new ball along with Rajeesh. Rajeesh’s pace was too much for the Kyte’s opners and on his 2nd over he dislodged Kytes captain Neil’s leg stump. Masood on the other end was surprisingly bowling with great accuracy and with some swing. It may be interesting to note that there was an agreement between the Captain and Masood that if he gave more than 11 runs in 2 overs he will be taken out of the bowling. But safely, Masood’s first 2 overs went only for 4 runs and was rewarded for his accuracy eventually taking the wicket of the other Kytes opener, Bikash doing well to hold on to the catch at short-leg.

Rajeesh removed the next batsman, Deepak held on to a Sharp catch behind the stumps. Sanjeeb(fielder)-Rajeesh(bowler) managed to remove the next batsman Lalith, thanks to a brilliant fielding at cover. The batsman later blamed on the Indian greed for running an old man out and not giving him a second chance. Captain then decided to do a double bowling change after the 10th over and bring in his main bowlers Biju from one end, and emerging spin bowler Bikash from the other. Biju showing no sign of his previous ankle injury bowled with lot of aggression and removed two of the Kytes batsmen in quick time, one of which was with a beautiful inswinging yorker. It could easily have been 3 had Rajeesh held on to the chance that came his way. Bikash on the other-end was trying to perfect his flighted deliveries, and the traditional rivalry between him and Nick started to unfold. In the end both had their times, Nick hitting Bikash for a six and later Bikash manging to take his revenge after few balls, Masood taking a well judged catch at mid-wicket, strategically placed there for that specific shot.

The next batsmen went into a defensive mode and were in no mood to take any risk and the daylight began fade out. Sensing the danger of a bad light and smelling the flavor of already cooking barbeque :), Captain decided to finish the match quickly and brought in slow bowlers Vimal and captain himself and they removed the next 3 batsmen almost in no time and Kytes were all out for 113 in 23 overs.

The traditional season-ending Barbeque was fantastic, and we enjoyed it a lot along with our hosts. We thanked our hosts in the end, and head back home. Bikash’s “Kaun-Banega-RoadPati” game did help to keep the Yakuzas calm during the 35KM-long week-end traffic jam.

Brief scores: IECC 207/7. S Raju 40, N Harrison 3/40. Kytes 110 (22.5 overs).

Newsletter

November 12, 2008                                                                                              Issue #90

Hello and welcome to this edition of the I.E.C.C. Newsletter.

Index

• Japanese Season Ends
• The Fine Print
• Shizuoka Youth Cricket Development
• ICC EAP News –
• Indian Engineers’ Japan Cricket Rating – New results
• IECC Poll results
• Best of the web
• Snippet of the Month
• Trivial facts from our Archives

Japanese Season Ends

Almost all major cricket tournaments in Japan have come to a close, the last one being the KCL final played on November 9 between YC&AC and Tokyo Giants at Ageo.

The Tokyo Giants, the defending champions, defeated YC&AC in an exciting match to hold on to the prestigious trophy for a record 8th time. Batting first after being asked to do so by YC&AC, the Giants scored 226 for the loss of 8 wickets, most of them perishing going for the slog towards the end of the innings. Opener Tauseef Ahmed’s solid innings of 46 laid the foundation for the Giants’s total which was then enhanced by and two-down Hamid Syed’s aggressive 56, followed by Ahmed Kamal’s cameo innings of 28. For YC&AC, opening bowler Farhan chipped in with 3/35 and skipper Kamran Ali claimed 3/52.

YC&AC began their chase with a solid opening partnership of 93 runs between Abdul Rahim(45) and Nick Horton(35) but their middle order could not sustain the pace the openers had set and were bowled out for 195 runs. Tauseef Ahmed, who was earlier punished by the YC&AC openers, and Hamid Syed claimed 3 wickets each.

It was a fitting finale between two strong teams of the tournament, who have reached the final stage almost unscathed. YC&AC had lost only one match in the league stage and their win over the Al Karam in the semi-final was probably their best, while the Giants were unbeaten throughout the season. At the end of the match speech, the beaming winning captain, Mumtaz Alam, thanked his opponents for the game and praised his team members and senior partners of the opposition. He had a special word of praise for Kamran Ali, the losing skipper, for recalling a Giants’ batsman, whom the umpire had wrongly given out lbw, after the batsman complained that he had nicked the ball. Ali in his speech congratulated the winners and acknowledged the Giants’ match winning performance.

With this win, the Giants have reiterated their supremacy in the Kanto League circles although the Indian Tigers, a newly formed team this year, almost upset the Giant’s apple-cart in a rain affected match, which would have been humiliating defeat had the match been uninterrupted by rain.

Earlier in the semi-final, the YC&AC had overcome a strong chase by Al Karam in the race for the KCL final spot. YC&AC (196, Kamran Ali 55, Prashant Kale 44) defeated Al Karam (193, Kamran Ali 4/38)

The second semi-final was a one-sided affair in which Tokyo Giants (110/6) defeated Serendib 108 (Tauseef Ahmed 2/16, Mumtaz 2/22).

The KCL this year saw a record no. of washouts with 16 matches lost to rain. KCL is also the last tournament to end because of the increasing number of clubs playing in it.

Latest results are available here.

Other Tournament News

+ Tokyo Ashes +

The Tokyo Wombats retained the Tokyo Ashes, a local version of the more well-known series, between – you guessed it! – the local Aussie boys(Tokyo Wombats) and the British Embassy in Tokyo. Read the match report athttp://www.tokyowombats.com/matchreports.html.

+ Inter Port Cup +

The KRAC, Kobe won the annual Inter Port Cup between them and the YC&AC played on Oct 4 at Kobe. In a high scoring match in which YC&AC set a target of 220, the hosts chased it with the loss of 7 wickets. With 12 required of the last over for the KRAC, it could have been anybody’s match but in the end KRAC prevailed to retain the Cup.

+ A Gavaskar in the Making? +

In the last issue we reported Adore’s S Yamanouchi’s slow scoring. One of our reader threw some more light on the interesting innings of this batsman. Check out the Reader’s Corner for more information.

The Fine Print

Kapil Dev, Chairman of the Indian Cricket League alleged that the attitude of the BCCI towards the ICL is similar to
what the South African cricket team had during the apartheid period “During the apartheid period we were ready to play with South Africa, but they refused to play with us. The same thing is being done by BCCI with ICL. We are ready to play, but they are not,” said Dev.
###

The MCC has introduced new laws on the manufacture of bats, in an effort to maintain the traditional balance between bat and ball. here main change is the outlawing of the carbon handle. The MCC felt that the carbon handle increased the bats power, giving batsmen an unfair advantage. Carbon on the back of the bat has also been banned at the highest level.
###

A group of Australian spectators was hauled away from Mohali, where the 2nd Test between India and Australia were plyed, by police for wearing t-shirts with offensive slogans such as ‘Beer with Mahatma, Bets with Gupta, Dancing with Indira and still getting runs’”, etc. The group later said that they were having some fun and no offence meant.
###

Miffed with the way New Zealand Cricket ostracised him for joining the Indian Cricket League, pacer Shane Bond says he will never play ODIs or Tests for his country again even if recalled to the side. “I still enjoy playing cricket. I am having a great time with the game, which has given me a nice career and financial security as well. But I was hoping to play for my country at least for a couple of years more. “I am disappointed with the way my country’s cricket board treated me. I don’t want to represent New Zealand in Test matches or One Day Internationals any more,” Bond, who is playing for the ‘Delhi Giants’ team in the ICL, said in an interview.
###

The Guardian of U.K reported that the England XI got what they deserved in the Stanford 20/20 for 20. In simple cricket terms they were not even second-rate, offering an insipid, technically inept, strategically bankrupt and mentally flabby performance when the situation demanded excellence. The Independent said that from the start, England wanted the money – who wouldn’t want a million dollars? – but did not want to be seen to want it. They were painfully aware that the mood among many commentators was that the Big Match was an abomination of sport, existing only to fuel the ego of its architect, the Texan multibillionaire, Allen Stanford, and lacking context in a sporting sense. England coach Peter Moores said wondered, “Is it for England? Is it for money? You’ve got to be very clear as a team and as an individual, and I think we weren’t as clear as we could have been.”

Comment: Some grapes are sour 🙂
###

Security around cricketing icon Sachin Tendulkar was stepped up following Maharashtra Police receiving reports from Central agencies of a threat to him from Pakistan-based terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammed. However, intelligence sources in Delhi said they had not received any fresh input about any threat to Tendulkar other than in 2002.
###

A day after creating a scare claiming there was a terror threat to batting maestro Sachin Tendulkar, Nagpur Police did a complete U-turn saying there is ‘no specific threat’ to any individual player and there is ‘no threat input’.
###

Pakistan cricket authorities were shocked when they learnt from Yousuf’s wife that Mohammad Yousuf left for New Delhi to play in the Indian Cricket League, jeopardising his international career even as he was named in the national squad for series against the West Indies. “His leaving like this for India and confirmation he is going to play in the ICL has come as a shock to us,” PCB’s Director Cricket Operations Zakir Khan said. PCB has witnessed a series of defections to ICL in the recent years.###

Source: Various web and print media

Pacific Cup Results

In a thrilling semi-final match, the Tokyo Giants defeated Shizuoka Kytes to enter into the final of the tournament. The match, reduced to 32 overs per side due to late start and bad weather, saw some exhilarating batting and bowling performances from both sides with the Kytes almost taking the honours but the Giants held their nerves to record a thrilling win and a perfect dress-rehearsal for their KCL semi-final match.

Kytes bowled the Giants out for 162 runs in 28.5 overs with Suresh Navod claiming 4/28 and all-rounder Ashley Harvey taking 3/30 while Hanif Mohammed top scored for Giants with 46. In reply, the Kytes were 29/3 off 16 overs with Noman Iqbal bowling 6 overs for 0/9. But Ashley Harvey batted his team back into the game and almost caused a stunning come-from-behind victory but the Kytes fell agonisingly short by 5 runs in the end. Kytes required 27 runs in the final over bowled by Giant’s skipper Mumtaz and Harvey scored 20 of those in 5 balls and required a Miandad-like effort to score a 6 off the last ball to tie the game but could score only one run. His scoring sequence was 6,4,2,2,6,1. He remained unbeaten on 67.

In a not-so thrilling 2nd semi-final match, the Nagoya defeated the Indian Engineers by 69 runs. In reply to Nagoya’s 264/4, Engineers could only muster IECC 195/9 in 35 overs.

For more details and history of PFC, go to http://www.ieccjapan.com/pacificcup.htm

Another link: http://goldenbat.wordpress.com/.

Shizuoka Kytes Raffle Result

Report by Nick Shannon:

Shizuoka Kytes would like to thank all those people who made donations to the “Kytes raffle”. The winning tickets were drawn on October 26th by Matt Sharpe, who played his last (and losing game ) on that day.

The prize winners are as follows:
1st prize ( a full cricket kit!) Sanjeeb Sahoo (IECC)
2nd prize ( A cricket bat) James Hills ( Paddy Foleys)
3rd prize ( fine wine selection) Alex Koolhof (Wombats)
4th prize ( Top quality sake) Chuck Jones ( Wombats)
5th prize ( Not so top quality sake) Francis Newman( Shizuoka Kytes)
6th prize ( Dodgy sake) Nicholas Shannon (Shizuoka Kytes)
7th prize ( Bottle opener) Ashley Harvey (Shizuoka Kytes)
8th prize (fine teas selection) Larry Prelis (Shizuoka Kytes)

Congratulations and thank you for participating.

For those of you who are unaware of the purpose of the raffle, we collected donations for the upkeep of the lawn mowers( 3 of them) so that we could continuously cut and keep the ground in its excellent playing condition. We sincerely hope that all of you who played at Shizuoka this year could appreciate the playing surface and get full enjoyment from our ground. We will have another raffle next year
and your continued support will be greatly appreciated.

ICC EAP News

ICC EAP Centre of Excellence Squad Released

The International Cricket Council (ICC) East Asia-Pacific (EAP) Development Program has recently finalised squads for the ICC EAP Squad Camps to take place in November at Cricket Australia’s Centre of Excellence(CoE) in Brisbane. Each squad will spend 1 week at the CoE to help develop their skills. The squad contains two Japanese players, Ko Irie and Masaomi Kobayashi.

The camp will include coaching sessions from some of Australia’s leading cricket coaches, the use of video analysis and physical testing facilities at the CoE, and strength and conditioning tips from CoE staff. The combined EAP squad will be working hard to impress in hope of selection for the 2009 Australian Country Cricket Championships to be held in the Barossa Valley in South Australia from January 14th and 13th 2009.

Jakarta International Cricket Sixes

Spirits Cricket Club from Singapore were crowned champions of The India Cements 13th Jakarta International Cricket Sixes 2008 defeating local favourites Senayan Cricket Club in the final played at the Ceylon Cricket Club in Cibubur, East Jakarta. 14 teams including 4 overseas teams from Singapore, Thailand, and Malaysia took part in the tournament, hosted by Jakarta Cricket Association (JCA) in
cooperation with Cricket Indonesia (CI). The tournament this year was sponsored by new entrants to Indonesia, The India Cements Ltd. who also own the Chennai Super Kings in the Indian Premier League and co sponsored by PT GAC Samudera Logistics, QTV, and supported by Jyppore Restaurant and Hotel Manhattan.

Indian Engineers’ Japan Cricket Rating – New results

Results as of October 31:

Here is the list of the top 10 teams(last month’s ranking in brackets):

1 Tokyo Giants (1)
2 Osaka Tigers (2)
3 Serendib (3)
4 YC&AC (4)
5 Tokyo Wombats (5)
6 Kansai Fighters (6)
7 Al Karam (7)
8 Wyverns (6)
9 MAX (9)
10 Friends (11)

See the full list here.

We encourage all teams to send us your result statistics regularly so that your team’s rankings remain as accurate as possible. We are in a position to obtain the results of the official tournament matches on our own but we are looking for the results of the friendly matches.

IECC Poll results

Here is the last poll result:

Virender Sehwag predicted India-Australia series as 3-1 in India’s favour. What is your take?

India will win – 35%
Australia will win – 62%
Draw – 4%
Can’t say, will be close – 0%

Take the new poll:

What would be the result of 7-match India-England ODI series ?

India will win
England will win
Can’t say, will be close

Visit our home page today to vote!

Readers’ Corner

In regards to your article, “A Gavaskar in the making?” in issue #89, the batsman in subject Yamanouchi plays for Adore. There must’ve
been an error when entering the score to the JCA website I think.

I shall also add that he has been the stone wall for Adore for quite some time. His accomplishment includes the inning played during J2C
semi against MAX when he scored 7* off 174 balls(SR of 4.02) and carried his bat in a process.
http://www.cricket.or.jp/new_jca/score_view.php?game_id=449. By then, all Adore players including the batting partner were asleep…

Shun Hashiba
Adore CC.

Editor** We encourage our readers to write back to us with your articles, opinion, feedback and criticism. Feel free to write about anything related to cricket, in Japan or outside.

Best of the Web

Cricket in Italy

Cricket is finally getting noticed in Italy. The lucrative new Indian Premier League found its way on to Italian satellite television in June and famed newspaper Gazzetta dello Sport has carried stories about the game. Around 400,000 people from South Asia live in Italy and the Italian cricket federation estimates that further arrivals could lead to 1,000 new clubs. Cricket in Italy grew from four or five teams in the early 1980s to a three-division league today.

http://cricket.expressindia.com/news/asian-immigrants-fire-up-italian-interest-in-cricket/365342/

Snippets of the Month

Note: Beginning the Issue #39 (May 6, ’04), we bring you some interesting snippets from the cricket world, to celebrate the fourth anniversary this Newsletter and first anniversary of our popular “Trivial Facts” series. The same will be published on the front page of our website too.

“Look at the scoreboard. You won’t see it again”, MS Dhoni to Rahul Dravid on seeing Australia struggling 22/0 after 13 overs in the 2nd Test at Mohali, an unusual start for the Aussies.

Trivial facts (from our Archives)

1. Former Indian ‘keeper Dilawan Hussain became one of the founding members of PCB

2. Sohail Tanvir’s 4-0-14-6 in IPL is the best bowling analysis in Twenty20 cricket.

That’s all in this edition!

Poor bowling, poor batting, poor fielding… anything else?

By Sanjeeb Sahoo

It was after a long time the Engineers got to the field for some real cricket (40 overs). At this time of the year it is normally a struggle to find an 11, but the team selectors were very happy to see 13 players available for this match. Best (available!) 11 was picked.

Biju and Santosh , two of our most experienced guides, were given the contract to drive the Yakuzas and the Saints in separate vehicles, and were instructed to avoid unnecessary fighting and chanting on the way, in order to reach the ground by 10AM. Engineers won the toss and elected to field first with Biju and Vimal sharing the new ball. Vimal, who have changed his bowling style lately, to make up for the lack of a spin bowler in the team, bowled fantastically and troubled both batsmen with his leg spin. He provided early breakthrough for us in his first over trapping Nagoya captain Saqib plumb in front.

Biju has bowled well throughout this year with the new ball , but this time he was having some trouble controlling the line and length, Heavy food on the previous night may need to be blamed here :). Some may call it a chance, but most of us think that Biju did well to get out of the way of a fierce uppish straight drive from Nagoya opener Madan at the last possible moment, that would have cut him into two halves 🙂

Vimal kept bowling beautifully at the other end and the batsmen were having trouble scoring. The pressure got to one of the batsman and he tried to take a quick single to arguably the best fielder(!!) in the team, 🙂 yours truly, who picked the ball at short-leg, diving to his left, and rocketed it toward the running end. Direct hit saw the 1st down batsman walking toward the river in disbelief. Engineers were on top at that stage.

However the other Nagoya opener Madan and the 2nd down batsman Raza batted steadily and easily managed to clear the boundary at will. When Raza retired due to a back injury, the score was around 160 in the 25th over. But then it started raining in sixes and had we kept our car near the river , we would have needed some kind of umbrella to protect them. Vimal had finished his quota and Sanjeeb had just one over left, all other bowlers had no clue how to react to the situation when the batsmen were trying to hit every ball for a six. Some dropped chances also contributed in the process of Nagoya reaching 264, even though in the 35th over we gave away only 2 runs. Madan top scored from Nagaoya side with a fine 96. A superb throw from fine leg by Vijender saw him walking 4 short of what would have been a fantastic century.

We had a solid batting line up but chasing 264 was a tough ask, the pressure got to most of our top and middle order batsmen. And at one point it seemed like we will get all-out by 25th over for about 120 runs. But the 83 runs unbroken 9th wicket partnership between Raju and Bikash saw us reaching a respectable total of 195. It was a treat to watch Raju bat like that. Unlike other matches where he normally gets a start and then gives away his wicket easily, in this match he made the most of the start. He kept his cool as the wickets kept falling around him, and mixed caution with aggression intelligently, to reach a carrier best personal score of 60 not out. All 3 sixes he hit were very clean and looked effortless. Engineers really had something to cheer about when he scored 23 runs from one of the Nagoya boy’s overs.

Bikash who has a habit of being part of record breaking partnerships, also did well to keep his wicket and remained not out on 13.

Now, Nagoya will meet the Tokyo Giants in the title match.

High lights of the match Vimal established himself as a fine leg spinner. Raju established himself as a very good hard hitting batsman. We can bat out the overs without getting all out.

Low lights of the match Our batting has improved a lot this year, however our bowling still remains a concern. Future practice sessions should put more stress on some bowling Strategy and training the bowlers what to do in tough situations.

Brief scores: Nagoya 263/6. Madan 96, Raza 56. IECC 195/8. S Raju 60.