Newsletter

December 11, 2008                                                                                              Issue #91

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

Index

• Party Season!
• The Fine Print
• Pacific Friendship Cup result
• 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

Party Season!

As far as we know, the last match of the season was played between the Shizuoka Kytes and Indian Engineers on November 30, which was followed by an on the ground BBQ. The Engineers won this match and dedicated their victory to the Mumbai terror victims.

In Japan, December is the month of bonenkai (farewell to the year) parties and for the cricket clubs, it is the annual party and award time. We have learned that many clubs have already held their annual parties, and our very own party is being slated to be held this Saturday. Usually, these parties include various awards for achievers of the season just ended and new resolutions for the members for the season ahead. Most clubs publish the award winners’ list on their websites. Happy surfing!

The Fine Print

Edison, a small city in New Jersey, USA offered land to the BCCI if it wants to build a cricket stadium there. About One third of the population of Edison is Indians and is home to five cricket clubs. Jun H Choi, the mayor, made the offer to BCCI vice president Rajeev Shukla, who was in New York as part of the official Indian delegation to the United Nations.
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The BCCI reacted strongly to Matthew Hayden’s comment about India being a ‘Third World’ country, saying such a remark was totally uncalled for from a player of Hayden’s stature. Hayden had said that poor ground conditions and inordinate delays during the matches that happen in Third World countries were behind Australia’s slow run rate in the 4th Test at Nagpur, which Australia lost.
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Reacting to Matthew Hayden’s comment, Wasim Akram said the Aussies were “sore losers” and get personal when they get beaten. Akram said that Hayden should have known that Indiawas now hundred years ahead of Australia “which is no more than a village”. Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni hit back at the Australian opener saying the Aussies are always slow in going through their overs, no matter which part of the world they play.
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Sydney Morning Herald reported that a majority of cricket fans don’t know why Andrew Symonds was sacked by his teammates. Although the official reason given was he missing the team meeting, according to Herald, Cricket Australia chief executive James Sutherland suggested that there were a lot of other issues.
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West Indies head coach John Dyson has criticised the standard of their domestic game after Pakistan completed a 3-0 whitewash of the one-day series in Abu Dhabi. Dyson watched as West Indies let strong positions slip in all three matches and told the media afterwards that he doesn’t think the inter-island tournaments in the Caribbean are producing players ready for international level.
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CricInfo reports that Cricket Zimbabwe have declined a tour by Kenya this month, on the basis that there is no room in their programme for it – despite there being no international fixtures scheduled for the month. It now looks like the tour may take place towards the end of January, ahead of a Kenyan trip to South Africa and between Zim’s FTP tours of Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
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More than 10 years after saying that Sachin Tendulkar gave him nightmares, Australian spin legend Shane Warne now claims that he was never scared of the Indian batting maestro and his 1998 remarks were “no gospel”. “I think I might have said ‘I’m going to have a few nightmares tonight’ once and some journalists took it as gospel, but I was never frightened of anyone. And that’s not me being big-headed, I was just confident in my ability”, Warne said.
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The Dubai-based TEN Sports (Taj Entertainment Network) on Sunday signed a television rights deal with Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) worth US$140.5 million for the next five years. But the deal will irk the BCCI because 60 percent share stake in TEN Sports is owned by Zee Television, which runs the unofficial Indian Cricket League (ICL).
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England paceman Steve Harmison has stepped up the pressure on the England cricket board to allow players to sign for the Indian Premier League saying Indians have benefited from the Twenty20 event which was apparent in their domination of his side in the ODI series so far
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Former Australia skipper Steve Waugh has a word of advice for all-rounder Andrew Symonds, who was involved in a bar brawl, to change his demeanour towards the public in order to avert such controversies which has been chasing the cricketer in recent times. “Most of the time the easier option is to give the person their autograph or have the picture taken. It takes longer to say no than just to oblige with a fan’s request – as long as the person is respectful,” Waugh said.
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Ricky Ponting’s over-rate woes have cost the Australian cricket team a hefty 130,000 dollars in fines so far. Investigations conducted by the ‘Daily Telegraph’ found that the skipper himself has had to cough up 23,200 dollars to the International Cricket Council after getting fined in five of the 16 Tests that he has played following Warne’s retirement. Ponting now is level with South Africa’s Graeme Smith as the most penalised captain (15) since 2003.
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Comment: Some grapes are sour 🙂
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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.
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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’.
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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.
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Source: Various web and print media

Pacific Friendship Cup Results

Tokyo Giants defeated Nagoya to claim the Pacific Friendship Cup, to make it two titles in a year. The final was played on November 9. Batting  first, the Giants scored 206/9 in 25 overs with the first wicket pair laying a solid foundation of 140 runs between Waqar Khan and Ashiq Hussain. In reply, Nagoya were bowled out for 164 in 24 overs. The Giants, thus, are automatically included in the tournament next year (we feel that with the way the Giants play their cricket, they are probably here to stay for a long time in the PFC!).

The PFC was originally started in 2000 and underwent various format changes over the years. In 2008 it was expanded to 8 teams, in a straight knockout format as if the teams are playing the quarter finals. According to the tournament rules, the founders and the winner of each year are automatically included in the tournament and other teams take part by invitation.

By expanding the tournament to include eight teams, the organisers hoped to bridge the gap created by the division of the old KCL into two leagues, which had the unfortunate result that many teams, including some of the best in the country, no longer meet in a structured competition.

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

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

ICC EAP News

EAP Representative Squad announced

The EAP squad for the Australian Country Cricket Championships to be held in the Barossa Valley, South Australia in January 2009 was announced recently, which includes Masaomi Kobayashi of Japan.

The other members of the squad are:
Rarua Dikana (Capt. PNG), Andrew Mansale (Vice-Capt. Vanuatu), Josaia Baba (Fiji), Raymond Haoda Jnr (PNG), , Trevor Langa (Vanuatu), Simione Latu (Tonga), Sakaria Lomani (Fiji), Mahuru Dai (PNG), Ipi Morea (PNG), Vani Vagi Morea (PNG), John Ovia (PNG), Kila Pala (PNG), Assad Vala (PNG). The team will play a series of matches against the regional cricketers throughout Australia.

ICC expands World Cricket League

The ICC has agreed in principle to the launch of Divisions 6 and 7 of the World Cricket League, with the inaugural Division 6 tournament taking place in May/June 2009 in Guernsey and the Division 7 event in September in Singapore. Japan has been placed in Division 7.

Indian Engineers’ Japan Cricket Rating – New results

YC&AC leaped into the second place riding on the back of an impressive performance this year that culminated in they reaching the final of the KCL. Tokyo Wombats are giving the YC&AC a good chase, having been behind them by fractions.

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

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

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                  91%
England will win             9%
Can’t say, will be close   0%

Take the new poll:

After the battering by Australia, how will New Zealand fare against the West Indies at the home series?
New Zealand will win
New Zealand will lose
Can’t say

Visit our home page today to vote!

Readers’ Corner

Thank you for a nice little mention about Indian Tigers in the IECC Newsletter #90.

Udaya Raj
Indian Tigers 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

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!