Issue #88 Rain, a Party Pooper

Newsletter


September 10, 2008                                                                                              Issue #88

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

Index

  • Rain, a Party Pooper
  • The Fine Print
  • ICC EAP News –
  • Pacific Cup Results
  • Indian Engineers and YC&AC Start Annual Series
  • Pakistan Lifts YC&AC Sixes Cup
  • Indian Engineers’ Japan Cricket Rating – New results
  • IECC Poll results
  • Best of the web
  • Snippet of the Month
  • Trivial facts from our Archives

Rain, a Party Pooper

With fifteen KCL matches being washed out so far, the 2008 season is inching closer to establishing a new record of becoming the worst rain-affected season. The previous such seasons were in 2004, during which a record sixteen matches were washed out and 2003 with fifteen washouts. Friends XI in Group B is the most unfortunate team in the KCL with all but one of their matches washed out.

With only a handful of matches remaining in the league stage, the semi-final lineup is becoming clearer. Friends and Serendip are currently placed at the second place in Group B table with equal number of points but Friends is unlikely to make the final cut when Net Run Rate comes into play to pick the winner out of the teams with equal number of points. Having played only one match all season, Friends will clearly be a loser. With only one match left to play in Group B, between Ichihara Sharks and Serendip, it is a do-or-die match for both the teams. A win for Serendip will put them into the semis, a first for them and a sort of graduation for the former all -students club! On the other hand, a win for the Sharks will make them tied at 12 points each with Serendip and Friends but in the end
it will be an NRR comparison between the Sharks and Serendip. The stakes have never been higher for both. Al Karam is the other qualifier from Group B for the semi-final.

In Group A, YC&AC’s place in the semi-final is assured – a fact that may have contributed to their decision to forfeit their last match against the Shizuoka Kytes at Shizuoka – but the second qualifying team will be identified only after the Tokyo Giants vs. Nagoya match is played in early October. The Indian Engineers, who is currently on par with the Giants on points is harbouring a remote hope for qualification on Net Run Rate basis in case of an upset victory by Nagoya over the Giants. In that event, all three teams will have earned 14 points each. If Giants beat Nagoya, then the former will join the YC&AC in the knock-out stage.

New comers Toyama, who have almost disappeared at the end of the season, and Indian Tigers are two teams in either groups who have no win against their names. The sole win the Tokyo Dragons earned was without any sweat, when Toyama forfeited their game against the former.

Latest results are available here.

The Fine Print

Nimbus Sport, broadcast rights holders for BCCI-conducted matches up to March 31, 2010, has asked the Indian Cricket Board to provide improved facilities for its crew at the venues hosting India’s home Test series against Australia and Test and ODI rubbers against England. The complaints range from TV crew’s access to the control rooms, small sizes of the control rooms and commentators’ box sizes and water dripping from air conditioners to heights and positions of camera platforms, lack of enough toilets and leaking sewage pipes at some centres.

Comment: You are dealing with the BCCI, Nimbus Sport!
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Controversial Australian umpire Darrell Hair says he does not trust the media. More so the British media as they always distorted what he said. Hair said he was willing to talk only if it was a live interview on television.
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South Africa batsman Hashim Amla attributes the success of his England tour this year to the influence of his religion.
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A film based on the life of late South African cricket captain Hansie Cronje, who fell from grace in the 2000 match-fixing scandal, is all set to release in September. Directed by Cronje’s brother Frans, ‘Hansie’ chronicles the 
former skipper’s life, that met a tragic end when he died in a plane crash in 2002. The film’s DVD is also ready and
features a documentary on Hansie and interviews of some of his former team-mates including current India coach Gary  Kirsten, Jonty Rhodes, Allan Donald, Shaun Pollock, Peter Pollock, Andrew Hudson and England’s newly-appointed captain Kevin Pietersen. ‘Hansie’ was shot in South Africa, England and India and Frans said, the film looks at the cricketer’s “internal journey from stardom to losing everything and then the journey to rebuilding his life.”
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Former Australian coach John Buchanan said that Sri Lanka’s mystery bowler Ajantha Mendis needs to stand test of time. He expressed suprise at the failure of the Indian batsmen, especially the likes of Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid and V V S Laxman against Mendis. The Indians were not unduly bothered by a genius like Shane Warne in his and their prime.
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Steve Harmison has hit back at accusations that he only returned to England’s one-day team to cash in on the huge sums of money flooding into the game. “It feels like I’ve been criticised for everything, even for changing my socks. I’ve come back for cricketing reasons only.”, he said.
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Flamboyant all-rounder Shahid Afridi raised a voice of dissent against captain Shoaib Malik and said the dressing room culture in the current Pakistani squad is not ideal. Citing his own example, Afridi said he is consulted whenever he is in form but is conveniently forgotten at other times. “This should not happen. Even if a player is not performing, he must be backed and involved in everything,” Afridi said.
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Shahid Afridi accused VVS Laxman, his captain at Deccan Chargers of the IPL, of lacking both aggression and leadership qualities. Laxman hit back saying Afridi lacked team ethics and criticised him for his outburst without any provocation. Tim Wright, Chief Executive of Deccan Chargers said that he will enquire into the verbal spat and necessary action will be taken after the inquiry.
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An ambitious scheme to boost self-confidence and discipline among British children by reviving competitive cricket in state schools is thriving after three years and its founders are determined to sustain it. Chance to Shine, the Cricket Foundation charity has a 50-million-pound ($88.98-million), 10-year programme to reintroduce competitive cricket to two million pupils in a third of all state schools.
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The real reason Andrew Symonds chose fishing over work was the reprieve that Harbhajan Singh received in the “Monkeygate” scandel in which Symonds and three teammates were convinced by Cricket Australia to downgrade a charge of racial abuse against Harbhajan Singh to one of mere verbal abuse. Symonds felt abandoned by the administrators.
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Source: Various web and print media

ICC EAP News

Japanese Women’s team signs up a new sponsor

The Japan National Women’s team has received a huge boost with Altech signing up as Major Sponsor. Altech is an International company specializing in beverage packaging/bottling, technology and equipment, and have previously sponsored cricket tournaments around the world. The addition of Altech as Major Sponsor comes about as the Japanese women prepare for the Shanghai International Sixes Tournament later this year.

Cricket Victoria Regional Cricket Manager visits Japan & Korea

During late July and early August 2008, Regional Cricket Manager Daniel Trevillian traveled to Japan and Korea under a development partnership with the International Cricket Councils East Asia Pacific Region. In his report, Daniel says about Tokyo:
“Transport and ‘box like’ accommodation issues aside, both Charlie and myself went about our business with several days spent delivering coaching accreditation courses, working with the National Women’s team and delivering promotional clinics to school aged children. Our language barrier was overcome through the use of translators at times, lots of body language and if all else failed a ‘smile’, a universally recognised symbol. The amount of discipline towards practice and skill development that was displayed by the participants in Japan still impresses me now. With Baseball being a religious activity in Japan some of the fielding and throwing we saw from young children was amazing. Enough to make Mike Young at Cricket Australia salivate!”

Pacific Cup Results

Shizuoka Kytes. Tokyo Giants, Indian Engineers and Nagoya have qualified for the semi-finals of the 2008 Pacific Friendship Cup(PFC). Kytes defeated Paddy Foleys, Giants defeated British Embassy while the Indian Engineers walked into the semis without swet as their opposition, Adore, forfeited the match. In the last match, Nagoya defeated Wombats.

PFC has undergone many format changes since its inception 8 years ago as an annual 3-match series between the Indian Engineers and Shizuoka Kytes. In the latest edition of 2008 Golden Bat competition, PFC has eight teams that play in a straight knock-out format for the Golden bat. The name Golden Bat was added to the tournament’s name after the Executive Board of the tournament decided that the trophy will be a Golden Bat. All teams are allowed to fix their own schedule to play in this competition with the EB setting a date by which each leg of the tournament must be finished. The EB set July 31 as the deadline for the league level matches to be finished and October 31 for the semi-final matches.

In the semi-finals, the Indian Engineers will face up Nagoya and the Kytes will take on Giants.

For more details and history of PFC, click here

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

Indian Engineers and YC&AC start annual series

The Yokohama Country and Athletic Club has initiated an annual one match series with the Indian Engineers. The first match of the cup, to be known as The Goodwill Cup, was played on August 24, which was won by the YC&AC under rains. The match was followed by a dinner party at the YC&AC wherein players mingled with each other over drinks, recounted on-field stories and joyous moments. Individual awards were given away during the dinner. Vimal Vikrant won the Man of the Match award from the Engineers side for his 76 runs and Prashant Kale from YC&AC for his match winning century.

YC&AC had batted first and scored 268 runs in 40 overs, thanks largely to Prashant Kale’s century and Engineers’ butter fingers. Chasing 241, Engineers only managed 222 in 37 overs, helped by a 100+ runs partnership for the third wicket between Vimal Vikrant and Sriram Sampath. It was after a long time the Engineers scored more than 200 runs at the slow YC&AC pitch. Happy chaps, they are 🙂

This series with the Engineers adds to YC&AC’s existing other annual series with the KRAC, Kobe and the Sri Lankan Lions. For the Engineers, this adds to their existing friendship series called Pacific Friendship Cup with the Shizuoka Kytes, which has now expanded to include 6 other teams on a rotational basis. A brief report of the match is available here.

Pakistan Lifts YC&AC Sixes Cup

The Pakistan team lifted the 18th YC&AC Annual Invitational 6-a-side Cricket Tournament. The One-day tournament, held at the YC&AC ground was contested by six teams. YC&AC and Pakistan played the final in which Pakistan set an imposing target of 87 runs from 5 overs but Y&AC could only reach 66 runs in 5 overs.

In the one-sided Plate final, Sri Lanka(94) defeated the Internationals(23) by 71 runs.

The Following individual awards were given away at the prize distribution ceremony.
Best Allrounder : Prashant Kale (YC&AC)
Best Batsman : Amjad Mirza (Pskistan)
Best Bowler : Sanjaya (Sri Lanka)

Check out the highlights of the final match on Youtube

Indian Engineers’ Japan Cricket Rating – New results

Results as of August 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 Serendip (4)
4 YC&AC (5)
5 Tokyo Wombats (3)
5 Kansai Fighters (6)
6 Wyverns (7)
7 Al Karam (8)
8 MAX (9)
9 Friends (11)
10 KRAC (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:

Ricky Ponting fears for the future of Test cricket because of 20/20. Do you agree?

Yes – 36%
No – 61%
May be – 4%

Take the new poll:

Do you agree with the postponement of the Champion’s Trophy to 2009?

Visit our home page today to vote!

Readers’ Corner

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

McGrath vs. Hayden, A local rivalry.

Cricket in China

Administrators in various sports have long regarded China as one of the great untapped markets and cricket is no exception. Read here.

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.

“When you play Australia, you do not merely play against a McGrath, a Ponting, a Hayden or a Gilchrist. You play against a mindset, a system” – Harsha Bogle writing in the Indian Express.

Trivial facts (from our Archives)

1. Sri Lanka has featured in all Asia Cup final matches.

2. Former West Indian fast bowler Courtney Walsh is called Duracell for his ability to bowl very long spells of 10-12 overs without getting tired.

That’s all in this edition!