Issue #114 Happy New Year!

Newsletter


January 15, 2011                                                                                              Issue #114

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

Index

  • Happy New Year!
  • 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

 

Happy New Year!

We wish our readers a very Happy New Year and an exciting and competitive season in 2011.

2010 has been a good year for Japan with new teams claiming the top honours in different leagues, Lalazar in KCL, Chiba Sharks the JCA league and the national women’s team bringing accolades from the Asian Games in China. Although ended in a high and on time, KCL threw up its own turmoil last year, as it does every year, but still remains to be the toughest competition in Japan despite all its contradictions. We hope the Kansai cricket will pick up momentum this year and wish the very best for all cricketers and tournaments in Japan.

Indian Engineers on Twitter

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

The Fine Print

The first International sports contest was USA vs Canada, in a cricket match in 1844.It took place in New York City at the St George’s Cricket Club in Bloomingdale Park, where the NYU Medical Center now stands at 31 st & 1st Ave. About 20,000 spectators watched and over $ 1 million (in present day currency) in bets were placed. In 1845 a return match was played at McGill University in Montreal. The USA vs Canada series continued for more than 60 years before ending, then being briefly revived in 1963. Starting in 2011 this oldest of international sports rivalry will begin again. USA vs Canada, in cricket, albeit at the College-level!
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The Karachi Blues captain Mohammad Sami for years the mainstay of Pakistan’s pace attack, is under investigation after being accused of brawling and damaging hotel furniture while drunk, Karachi City Cricket Association (KCCA) President Siraj Bukhari has said. The incident took place on Tuesday at the Grace Hotel in Rawalpindi, where the Karachi Blues were set to play its Quaid-e-Azam Trophy match. Meanwhile, Sami was adamant that he was not under the influence of alcohol. “I had a misunderstanding with a fellow player, but it is not true I was drunk,” Sami said.
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Ex-umpire Darrell Hair and former England batsman Geoffrey Boycott feel the confidence level of on-field officials will plummet if technology like Hot-Spot is used in deciding close dismissals. In the recently concluded Ashes Test between England and Australia, Ian Bell was first adjudged out caught behind by on-field umpire Aleem Dar before his seemingly correct decision was overturned after a referral. Hair said despite the fact that there was no conclusive evidence to prove that Dar’s initial decision was incorrect, the technology shook his confidence. “…in the end I don’t know why Aleem changed his decision, he should have stuck with it,” Hair said.
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Harbhajan Singh and Andrew Symonds, who were involved in the “Monkeygate” incident in 2008 when India made a Test tour of Australia, will share the same dressing room in IPL after Mumbai Indians bought the former Australian all-rounder in the players’ auction for USD 850,000. Mumbai Indians had earlier retained Harbhajan Singh for IPL season 4.

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The cricket bat manufacturing industry in the Kashmir valley sees a boon in the wake of successive IPL seasons. The cricket bat sector in Kashmir Valley has more than 200 units, both registered and unregistered, with a collective turnover of over USD 2m per year. “The IPL has been a huge bonanza for our sector as the number of bats sold since the inception of the league has gone up. Cricket is undoubtedly the number one followed sport in every city and town of India but our business dealings were mostly restricted to big cities like Delhi, Mumbai and to some extent Bangalore. Now we have inquiries from other areas like Baroda and Indore as well,” Abdul Majeed Dar, the president of the cricket bat manufacturers’ association, said. While the things look rosy for the bat manufacturing units, which provide direct and indirect employment to nearly 15,000 people in the Valley, they have many worries to take care of. Smuggling of clefts, the raw material for bats, and dwindling plantation of willow trees are just two of these. “Thousands of clefts are illegally smuggled to some cities in neighbouring Punjab even after the state government imposed a ban on the practice. This has caused a major dent in our earnings as the processing units have better seasoning facilities at their disposal in Punjab which results in a better product,” Dar said.
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In the port city of Chittagong, residents and shop owners along the main roads from the airport to the city centre have been asked to spruce up their homes and shops with a new coat of paint to present beautiful city to the Cricket World Cup visitors. Bangladesh take on England and Netherlands in Chittagong, which will also host a warm-up match. The city corporation ran an advertisement in the newspapers on Saturday to appeal to its residents. “We need your cooperation to present the beauty of the city to players, officials and other dignitaries, who will visit us during
the World Cup.”
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Once upon a time it was the hapless English cricket team that were the butt of  jokes. Now, after England’s first Ashes series win on Australian soil in 24 years, Australia are the laughing stock. Here are some of the best gags:

http://www.smh.com.au/sport/jokes-pile-up-faster-than-runs-in-second-test-for-ashes-side-20110111-19mpx.html

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/features/2603081/Top-ten-Aussie-Ashes-jokes.html

http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/view/170728/Ashes-jokes-What-do-you-call-an-Aussie-holding-a-bottle-of-bubbly-A-waiter/
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Fast bowler Hamid Hassan has been named as Afghanistan new limited overs captain, taking over from Mohammad Nabi. Hassan has also been named as the player of the year by the Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB), which announced the change in captaincy, also delivering a frank verdict on the performance of his predecessor. “He has been given this responsibility because of his continuous outstanding performance in all formats of cricket. He is replacing Mohammad Nabi, who could not deliver well during his captaincy,” a statement from the ACB read.
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A bunch of die-hard fans of the South African cricketer Hashim Amla have chosen a different path to show their admiration for the Proteas player by donning the “Amla look” — complete with long black beard and shaven head.
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Source: Various web and print media

Asia & EAP News

WCL Div 3 to start on January 21

The Pepsi ICC World Cricket League Division 3 (WCL Div. 3) tournament which will be played from 21 to 29 January 2011 in Hong Kong. Teams from Denmark, Italy, USA, Oman and Papua
New Guinea (PNG) will join hosts Hong Kong for the tournament. The top two sides will win promotion to WCL Div. 2 to be staged in the United Arab Emirates in April 2011. The matches will
be hosted at three grounds in Hong Kong, namely Kowloon CC (KCC), Hong Kong CC (HKCC) and Mission Road. No matches will be held in China due to logistics.

Maldives clinch ACC Trophy Challenge

The Maldives clinched a dramatic ACC Trophy Challenge title after a sealing a one-wicket win over Saudi Arabia in Bangkok in early December. Saudi Arabia made 139 all out off 43.3 overs,
before the Maldives reached its target off 41.4 overs in the game of the tournament. Both finalists have won promotion to the ACC Trophy Elite that will next be contested in 2012.

Afghan team returns to a grand welcome

A crowd of around 1,000 turned up at the Kabul International Airport to greet the Afghanistan’s national team after claiming the silver medal at the Asian Games in China as also its maiden ICC
Intercontinental Cup title by beating Scotland in Dubai. Some from the crowd were allowed into an area with restricted entry at the airport so as to enable them to greet the team. Some
members of the crowd danced for the team by forming a circle and performed the traditional Afghan Attan dance to the tune of Toola (traditional wooden flute) and drums.

Indian Engineers’ Japan Cricket Rating – New results

Results as of December 30:

There is no change in rankings this month. Here is the latest top 10 (last month’s ranking in brackets):

1 Lalazar (1)
2 Tokyo Giants (2)
3 Tokyo Wombats (3)
4 Al Karam (4)
4 Adore (5)
5 Indian Engineers (5)
6 Serendib (7)
7 Wyverns (7)
8 Shizuoka Kytes (8)
9 MAX (10)
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

Will England retain the Ashes?

Yes 60%
No 40%
Can’t say 0%

Take the new poll:

Is Australia on decline like the West Indies experienced?

Visit our home page today to vote!

Best of the Web

U.K daily, The Independent, asks FIFA to take note of cricket’s use of technology to alleviate crucial mistakes on a soccer field

Cricket accepts video evidence as a gift of the 21st century in the belief that it would be as absurd to ignore it as forswearing the benefits of antibiotics and running water. Fifa, on the other hand, rejects technology even as it enthuses over the possibility of turning the desert enclave of Qatar in a massive air-conditioning plant in order to make the 2022 World Cup possible – either that, or ransacking the traditional schedules of the entire game.

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/cricket/james-lawton-technology-allowed-dar-to-get-the-big-decisions-right-to-his-and-crickets-benefit-fifa-take-note-2170432.html

How one Australian journalist called the Ashes in November

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/cricket/international/theashes/8245541/Ashes-gloating-anyone-How-one-Australian-journalist-called-the-series-in-November-….html

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.

“Interview him now. Very soon, he’ll become a star and then he won’t give anyone any interviews.” – a taxi driver, who who happened to be South African opener Alviro Petersen’s father, to
journalists who covered IPL II in South Africa. As it turned out, no one interviewed him.

Trivial facts (from our Archives)

As a pair, India’s Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid has appeared in most number of Tests.

That’s all in this edition ! !