Issue #110 Tokyo Giants crash out of KCL

Newsletter


September 20, 2010                                                                                              Issue #110

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

Index

  • Tokyo Giants crash out of KCL
  • The fine print
  • Asia & EAP news –
  • Indian Engineers’ Japan Cricket Rating – New results
  • IECC poll results
  • Reader’s corner
  • Best of the web
  • Snippet of the month
  • Trivial facts from our Archives

Tokyo Giants crash out of KCL

For the first time in recent memory Tokyo Giants crashed out of the KCL. The first decisive blow was inflicted by a resurgent Al Karam bowled them out for their lowest total ever. Giants were bowled out for 89 but they had their tail up briefly when they took 4 Al Karam wickets for 6 runs in the first 3 overs. Giants then lost to Lalazar in their second match which effectively shut the door on them.
With just one match remaining (Kytes vs. Nagoya), the semi-final lineup is likely to be:

Indian Engineers vs. Al karam and
Serendb or Nagoya vs. Lalzar

While the Engineers are playing a semi-final match after a gap of 5 years – the last one being in 2005 – their opponets Al Karam missed the berth only last year. Meawhile, Nagoya has their best chance to qualify for the semi-final this year if they beat the Kytes in their last remaining match. But given Nagoya’s propensity for inconsistency and batting collpase, it could be anyone’s
game.

Indian Engineers on Twitter

Follow the Engineers at http://twitter.com/ieccjapan/ for live match updates and other cricket updates.

The Fine Print

The sparse crowd watching a county match was treated to an out of the world experience quite literally when a 4.5 billion years old meteorite came hurtling towards the ground. According to a report in The Daily Telegraph, the rock, was a few inches long and up to 4.5 billion years old. England player Luke Wright was batting with Monty Panesar during the match when the black, five-inch rock came crashing down. “We were sitting at the boundary edge when all of a sudden, out of a blue sky, we saw this small dark object hurtling towards us. It landed five yards inside the boundary and split into two pieces,” the newspaper quoted an eyewitness as saying. “One piece bounced up and hit me in the chest and the other ended up against the boundary board.”
###

Former Australian cricketer Dean Jones’ ex-mistress has claimed that the former cricketer lied about his marital status when they began their decade-long ‘on-and-off’ affair, which has left his reputation in shreds. “Back in 1998 it was a bit like we’re in the dark ages; there was no Google, no Internet … the only information I would get was from people I asked,” said international flight attendant and part-time model Kerri-Anne Hamilton. Faced with a public expose by Channel Nine, Jones had disclosed that he fathered a child outside his marriage after an “on-and-off relationship” with a Sydney woman. “Following an on-and-off relationship with a woman, a child was conceived and subsequently delivered,” Jones had said. Jones, who was stripped off the 2007 Victorian Father of the Year award after the expose, has two daughters – Phoebe, 19, and Isabella, 14 — with his wife Jane.
###

Former Indian skipper Mohammad Azharuddin scotched reports that he is romantically involved with Jwala Gutta, an Indian badminton doubles player. Gutta, world number seven mixed doubles player, is married to to India’s ace shuttler Chetan Anand and Azharuddin is married to Bollywood star Sangeeta Bijlani for 14 years. “These reports are completely rubbish, baseless and are in bad taste. I am very hurt by all these. I know Jwala, she is a good friend of mine and to write such reports which are completely false and fabricated is disgusting,” a livid Azharuddin said. Azharuddin has two sons — Asaduddin and Abbasuddin — from his eight-year marriage to first
wife Naureen.
###

India is currently struggling against Sri Lanka and does not look like they are the number one Test team in the world, reckons former Australian skipper Steve Waugh. “India are predominantly a batting side but their bowling is not strong enough. Of course they have a few injuries with Zaheer out of the team. But they are struggling against Sri Lanka and doesn’t look like a number one side,” Waugh said
###

Showering praise on retired Sri Lankan spin wizard Muttiah Muralitharan, former Australian captain Steve Waugh said there was no racist angle involved in chucking allegations which the bowler had faced earlier. When asked that it was the Australianumpires who had called him for throwing after which chucking allegations were levelled against the great player who had to even face jibes Down Under and if all these had been racially motivated, Waugh said, “forget racial thing, that card always gets played”. “It was certainly not a racist thing. We should celebrate that he (Murali) has played so successfully,” he said.
###

A female Pakistani coach will guide Iran’s young women cricketers in their preparations for an Asia-level tournament later this year, the Pakistan board announced. The Iranian team will compete in the Asian Cricket Council’s Under-19 Women’s Championship in Singapore from October 4-14.
###

Indian women cricketers Anjum Chopra, Jhulan Goswami and Mithali Raj have now ventured into uncharted territory – coming together for a documentary film based on their life both on and off the field. The 25-minute-long documentary – Poor Cousins Of Million Dollar Babies – takes the viewers through the moments of trials and tribulations, joy and success of these cricketers as they etch there names in the cornerstones of the male dominated world of cricket. The film which took almost five years to complete peeps into the life of women players and revolves around strong bonding that these cricketers share among them. 26-year-old Goswami, captain of Indian women cricket team, said she hopes that this documentary creates an awareness among the people and the sporting fraternity to take more interest in the women’s cricket. “The entire process was inspiring and I hope this creates awareness among the people and the fraternity to take more interest in the game,” said Goswami, who is now the fastest female bowler in the world. Both Chopra and Goswami blamed the lack of awareness and exposure for the current plight of women’s cricket. “The male cricketers have always treated us with respect. There has never been a moment when they have treated us less than equals,” Goswami added.
###

A 47-year-old mother from North Baddesley, Hampshire, U.K, was arrested after refusing to return a cricket ball which her neighbours’ children had hit into her yard, allegedly damaging her car. A visit from the children’s father made no difference to Loretta Cole, who said she was trying to teach the children a lesson, and she was then visited on three occasions by police who tried to persuade her to return the ball. “After continuing to refuse to return the ball the suspect was arrested on charges of theft and bailed to attend Lyndhurst police station on July 2. The ball was seized by police as evidence. Mrs Cole was given the opportunity to return the ball a number of times and if this had happened no further action would have been taken.” a Hampshire police spokeswoman said. Mrs. Cole was detained for five hours while she was questioned, had her photograph, DNA swab and fingerprints taken.
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Africa is likely to have its own continental tournament in the near future. Cassim Suliman, the CEO of the Africa Cricket Association is understood to be organising a tournament involving South Africa A, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Uganda, Namibia and possibly a combined Africa team. Africa is the only one of the ICC’s development regions not to have its own biennial tournament for non-Test nations. The proposed event would not be the long awaited World Cricket League Africa Division One event. Officials from Namibia and Tanzania had recently told Cricinfo they saw no need for the latter as their national teams already had sufficient tournament play. Namibia also plays in the United Cricket Board amateur three-day and one-day competitions.
###

The International Cricket Council revealed on Monday that ‘Stumpy’ is the name of the elephant who is the mascot of the 2011 cricket World Cup. ‘Appu’ was the first elephant mascot named in 1982 for the Asian Games in New Delhi. ICC named the elephant after conducting an online competition to suggest names for the mascot. ICC had said the mascot is someone who is young and enthusiastic, and determined individual.
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The BCCI is expected to contract Anil “Gentleman” Kumle to coach the Indian cricket team in off-field behaviour. Kumble’s new educational programme will be part of its curriculum for players, who will undergo a personality development programme under the former captain’s guidance. Among the topics the programme will address are handling ‘instant success’, self-sufficiency, anti-doping advice and management of finances. The programme will also make sure that cricketers learn how to speak English, handle the media during
press conferences, and conduct themselves in public. “The BCCI doesn’t want players to get carried away by what their agents tell them. We want them to be educated about their finances, and to be able to keep track of their endorsements and deals. It is important for our cricketers to enlist in this programme as they haven’t been at the best behaviour lately,” said a top BCCI official. It is learnt Kumble had wanted to put all international, first-class and Indian Premier League players through the programme, but the BCCI is for now planning to draft only its contracted players.
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Source: Various web and print media

Asia & EAP News

Japan’s Naoki Miyaji speaks

http://icc-cricket.yahoo.net/the-icc/icc_members/eap/broadcast_video.php?mediaId=825

PNG win inaugural EAP U17 Championships

Papua New Guinea have won the inaugural U17 Championships of the East Asia – Pacific region, defeating Vanuatu by 125 runs in the Grand Final of the 2010 Pepsi ICC EAP U17 Cricket Trophy held at Kazaa Field in Port Vila, Vanuatu on September 11. The EAP U-17 Championship was contested by PNG, Vanuatu, Fiji and Indonesia.

Indian Engineers’ Japan Cricket Rating – New results

Results as of August 31:

Tokyo Giants have slipped into 2nd position (we can’t remember when did that happen last) while Lalazar took their position for the first time. Adore is one Japanese club that jumped notches due to some high profile wins in the last two months.

Here is the latest top 10(last month’s ranking in brackets):

1 Lalazar (2)
2 Tokyo Giants (1)
3 Tokyo Wombats (3)
4 Wyverns (4)
5 Indian Engineers (6)
6 Adore (12)
7 Serendib (5)
8 Al Karam (8)
9 MAX (7)
10 YC&AC (11)

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.

Readers’ Corner

IECC Poll results

Do you think John Howard’s failure to get elected was his own fault?

Yes 85%
No 60%
It’s the Asian Bloc 15%

Take the new poll:

Do you think leniency must be shown to Pakistan’s Md. Aamir because of his tender age?

Visit our home page today to vote!

Best of the Web

While we are on the subject of fixing and spot fixing in cricket, cricket’s cousin Baseball was rocked by betting scandal too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sox_Scandal

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.

“Oh by the way I can smell the guys breath to me he is so close, rubbish seat pattern.. Hate this airline!” – Shane Warne tweets about British Airways.

Trivial facts (from our Archives)

South Africa’s Jacques Kallis is the holder of most Man of the Match awards in Tests with 20 awards.

That’s all in this edition ! !