Newsletter
October 15, 2011 Issue #111
Hello and welcome to this edition of the I.E.C.C. Newsletter.
Index
- KCL season drags
- 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
KCL season drags
The KCL season appears to be dragging into the cold November with the semi final matches scheduled on October 17 and the final likely to be played on the last week of October or early November.
Shizuoka Kytes produced a memorable match to throw the Nagoya out of the KCL and secure their berth in the knock out stage after a gap of … well.. can’t remember! Kytes’s trump card Ashley Harvey played an important role in the victory by scoring a match winning 66 runs. Batting first, Kytes scored 183/6 in 35 overs but Nagoya fell short by 7 runs in their chase by getting all out for 176. Kytes and Serendib ended up having 13 points each but Kytes qualified on the basis of a better Economy Rate(Total runs scored/total wickets lost) according the KCL match rules.
In our last issue, we had wrongly calculated that either Nagoya or Serendib would qualify for the semi-final. That calculation was based on the assumption that the KCL uses NRR to determine the winner in case of a tie for points but KCL uses Economy Rate(Total runs scored/total wickets lost). The error is regretted.
Meanwhile, the Chiba Sharks, who, strangely could not produce a single win in the KCL has won the J1C competition beating the favourites, Tokyo Wombats.
YC&AC Sixes tournament
The 20th annual YC&AC Sixes tournament held at the YC&AC ground, Yokohama saw the Pakistan team retaining their title beating Sri Lanka. Pakistan have been holding this title since 2006. From the records available with us, Pakistan have won this cup 7 times since 1999 while the other winners were Sri Lanaka (2000), India (2002 and 2005) and YC&AC (2004).
Kansai Cricket
The Kansai Cup, which used to be a 40-over competition, this year has been changed to T-20 competition due to lack of grounds, the organisers said.
Indian Engineers on Twitter
Follow the Engineers at http://twitter.com/ieccjapan/ for live match updates and other cricket updates.
The Fine Print
In an inter-academy tournament, conducted by the Vidarbha Cricket Association of India, a 15-year-old Ali Zoren Khan scored an unbeaten 461. Khan’s knock spanned seven hours and faced 308 balls and hit 64 fours and 12 sixes. The left-hander, who is a Class X student of Saraswati Vidyalaya, eclipsed the highest score by an Indian schoolboy — 439 by Mumbai’s Sarfaraz Khan in a Harris Shield match in November 2009.
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The ex-girlfriend of tainted Pakistani cricketer Mohammad Asif claimed that she received death threats after meeting International Cricket Council officials to discuss match-fixing scandal. Veena Malik, a popular actress, model and television show host, told the British tabloid ‘The Sun’ that she received a chilling warning at home after handing evidence of Asif’s dealings with an Indian bookie to the ICC Anti-corruption and Security Unit (ACSU). She also claimed that she had got a mail in which she was ordered not to talk to the media and keep her mouth shut. “I will kill you, watch what I do,” she claimed the mail read. “I was also visited two weeks ago by a man who gave me a message to say someone was going to come after me – and there would be no warning. I can’t sleep at night because I fear for my life,” she said. “But if I have to die, I will die. I’m not scared of threats. I warned the Pakistan Cricket Board about match-fixing eight months ago but I was ignored. Now people have to speak out,” she said.
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Pakistan one-day captain Shahid Afridi has admitted that following a clash between left arm pacer Wahab Riaz and England batsman Jonathan Trott, his team had considered not playing the fourth one-day international at Lord’s. Afridi said that Trott had later apologized to Riaz in front of the match referee and the matter was closed. “But what he did was something that could have led to us filing a police case. He called Riaz a “spot fixer” and threw a pad at him which was not acceptable behaviour at all”, Afridi said.
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Sachin Tendulkar’s humility has bowled over Australian batsman Philip Hughes, who says it was a fantastic experience to get tips from the Indian icon over a cup of coffee. “When I was in Mumbai earlier, I had coffee with him and we spoke for about an hour. He asked me so many questions and I also put him many queries. He is a fantastic man and very humble,” Hughes said. “He told me that I should try to play my natural game. We also talked a lot about other things in general. I also asked him a lot of questions about his career,” the 21-year-old left-hander from New South Wales said during an interaction.
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Noting how wrong the legendary English fast bowler Fred Trueman turned out when he proclaimed, upon becoming the first Test bowler to cross 300 wickets, that anyone who managed to break his record would be a very tired man, Muttiah Muralitharan prophesied that his mark of 800 would also be broken one day. “Statistically, a bowler would need to play Test cricket for 18 years and average about five wickets every Test,” he said. “Definitely, one genius will come someday and surpass my record.”, Murali said.
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Controversies have become synonymous with Pakistan’s cricket. They gave been hit by a series of setbacks and controversies over the past five years. Earlier in the year, Shahid Afridi was pictured biting the ball although it didn’t inflate into a bigger issue. Here is a timeline of controversies surrounding the team.
August 2006: England are awarded the fourth and final Test of their home series against Pakistan at the Oval after the tourists forfeit the match following a ball-tampering row. Pakistan refused to return to the field for the final session of the fourth day after umpires Darrell Hair and Billy Doctrove imposed a five-run penalty against them for altering the state of the ball.
October 2006: On the eve of their opening match, Pakistan send home fast bowlers Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif from the Champions Trophy in India after the pair test positive for the banned steroid nandrolone. Shoaib is handed a two-year ban by a PCB tribunal, which also suspends Asif for 12 months. The bans were subsequently scrapped after both players appealed the punishment.
March 2007: Pakistan crash out in the first round of the World Cup in West Indies following a stunning defeat by debutants Ireland. Less than 24 hours later Pakistan coach Bob Woolmer dies aged 58 after being found unconscious in his hotel room.
March 2009: Gunmen attack a bus carrying Sri Lanka’s cricket team outside a Lahore stadium in Pakistan, killing seven people, including six policemen and a driver. Six of the team and a British coach are wounded.
August 2010: Pakistan cricket is hit by allegations of spot-fixing after a newspaper report revealed players had been bribed to bowl pre-determined no-balls in the fourth Test against England. British police questioned Test captain Salman Butt and pace bowlers Mohammad Amir, Mohammad Asif and Wahab Riaz as part of the investigation.
September 2010: The ICC says it is investigating Pakistan’s role in the third one-dayer against England for suspicious “scoring patterns”. The news sparks angry reaction from PCB chief Ijaz Butt as Pakistan had won the match. A war of words breaks out after Butt told a television channel: “There is loud and clear talk in bookies’ circles that some English players were paid enormous amounts of money to lose (the third one-day) match.”
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Former Australian umpire Darrell Hair has termed Pakistan cricketers as “cheats and liars”, and criticised the International Cricket Council (ICC) for not taking action against fast bowler Shoaib Akhtar for ball tampering. “The fans, viewers and crowds have been watching cheats and liars. How long will they continue to part with their money to watch manipulated matches and players cheating? The ICC should be ashamed to allow these matches to take place,” The News quoted Hair, as saying.
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England cricket selectors have super-sized their fast bowling attack for the coming Ashes tour, recalling giant Chris Tremlett for the five-Test series Ashes. The quick will join the twin towers of Stuart Broad and Steve Finn. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the England selectors believe steepling bounce can be valuable on the quicker, bouncier tracks in Australia. England’s national selector Geoff Miller admitted that England had deliberately pursued a policy of selecting tall bowlers in a bid to bounce out the Australian batsmen. “There are plans ahead, the size does matter you would presume there is going to be some bounce in the wickets over here,” he said with a grin.
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England cricketer James Anderson has become the first professional player to feature on the cover page of gay magazine Attitude. Good-looking Anderson posed nude for October’s issue of the magazine. “There’s a perception of lots of committees and old men being quite prim and proper, but I think the game is moving with the times. From my point of view, I think doing this could be fantastic for cricket. Hopefully this will attract a new sort of fan,” the Telegraph quoted him as saying. “If there are any gay cricketers, they should feel confident enough to come out, because I don’t think there is homophobia in cricket. Cricket fans are generally there to watchthe game and support their team,” he added, further co-relating the cricket and gay men involvement in the game.
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Former Australian spinner Shane Warne is reportedly foraying into the nightclub industry along with football player Dermott Brereton in Melbourne, Sydney and India. Australia newspaper The Age on Sunday reported that Warne and Hawthorn Premiership player Brereton are part of a consortium that will pay 3.5 million Australian dollars for a share in the club Silk Road located in Melbourne’s central business district. It has been learnt that Warne and Brereton also plan to change the name of the venue’s private rooms to Club 23, after the number they both wore in their respective sports.
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Rachael Heyhoe-Flint will become the first woman to be inducted into the International Cricket Council’s Cricket Hall of Fame. The former England captain guided the team to victory in the inaugural Women’s World Cup in 1973 and was a member of the England team for more than 20 years. She will be inducted into the Hall of Fame at the LG International Cricket Council Awards in Bangalore, along with West Indies fast bowlers Courtney Walsh and Joel Garner. The late Ken Barrington will be inducted next summer in a ceremony involving the former batsman’s family. The ICC Cricket Hall of Fame is a joint venture with the Federation of International Cricketer Associations , whose chief executive, Tim May, said: “All four of those named today thoroughly deserve the accolade and of being part of the elite group that form the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame in association with Fica. I congratulate all four inductees but I would particularly like to acknowledge Rachael Heyhoe-Flint for becoming the first female cricketer to be inducted into the Hall of Fame.”
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Andre Nel, the former South African fast bowler, allegedly attempted to take his own life on Friday last week, a report said. Last week it was revealed that Nel had had an extra-marital affair with 34-year-old Londoner Jelena Kultiasova while he was playing for Surrey last month. Later two other women came forward with similar allegations. Nel and his wife Deanne Weitz have been married for six years. They are expecting their first child in April. According to a Sunday newspaper, Weitz confirmed on Friday night that doctors had been called to the couple’s home in Irene outside of Pretoria. “He is not in any immediate danger and there are many doctors looking after him,” she said.
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Source: Various web and print media
Asia & EAP News
Japanese player to be included in the ICC EAP Elite Squad camp
Japanese opening batsman Masaomi “Amigo” Kobayashi has been selected for the Pepsi International Cricket Council (ICC) East Asia – Pacific (EAP) Development Programme annual ICC EAP Elite Squad Camp to be held at the Cricket Australia (CA) Centre of Excellence (CoE) in Brisbane from 17th to 29th October 2010. Some of Australia’s very best coaches and staff members will be on hand to put the East Asia – Pacific representatives through their paces, with the ultimate goal being to represent the region at the upcoming 2011 Australian Country Cricket Championships in Bunbury in January 2011. Week One will see Papua New Guinea well represented with several National Squad members in attendance, including pace bowler Willie Gavera and opening batsman Vani Vagi Morea, while others of note include Japanese opening batsman Masaomi “Amigo” Kobayashi and Fijian pair Joseph Rika and Maciu Gauna.
The EAP squads will participate in many different programmes at the CA Centre of Excellence including:
* Fitness Education sessions
* Centre wicket practice
* Specific batting and bowling strategy
* Fielding technique
* Fitness testing
* Several T20 and 50 over matches against the Australian Sports Gateway XI
Indian Engineers’ Japan Cricket Rating – New results
Editor** We are always being questioned by our readers as to how come some of the apparently weaker teams go up in the rating table. Our answer is that this is an unfortunate reality of how cricket is run in Japan. For various historical and financial reasons, there is no unified effort or a common umbrella under which the cricket is played in Japan. Therefore, there are so many teams in Kanto who don’t play against each other. For e.g. many of the JCA sponsored tournament teams, especially the Japanese teams, don’t play against most of the KCL teams. This results in teams being rated based on their performance in isolation, which results in what some may see as an anomaly.
Unfortunately, this is a hard reality we are living with.
Results as of September 30:
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 (1)
2 Tokyo Giants (2)
3 Tokyo Wombats (3)
4 Adore (6)
5 Indian Engineers (5)
6 Wyverns (4)
7 Serendib (7)
8 Al Karam (8)
9 MAX (9)
10 YC&AC (10)
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 leniency must be shown to Pakistan’s Md. Aamir because of his tender age?
Yes 71%
No 29%
Take the new poll:
Do you think every no ball or wide from now on will be looked at with suspicion in light of the spot fixing scandal recently?
Visit our home page today to vote!
Best of the Web
Some fights on the field between players
Here is a list of some of the famous fights in a cricket field.
http://in.yfittopostblog.com/2010/07/08/fights-on-the-cricket-field
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.
“He is a Prufrock worrying about his trousers.” – Peter Roebuck on VVS Laxman after Laxman’s recent heroic innings against the Australians
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 ! !