Issue #90 Japanese Season Ends

November 12, 2008 Issue #90

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

Index

Japanese Season Ends
The Fine Print
Shizuoka Youth Cricket Development
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

Japanese Season Ends

Almost all major cricket tournaments in Japan have come to a close, the last one being the KCL final played on November 9 between YC&AC and Tokyo Giants at Ageo.

The Tokyo Giants, the defending champions, defeated YC&AC in an exciting match to hold on to the prestigious trophy for a record 8th time. Batting first after being asked to do so by YC&AC, the Giants scored 226 for the loss of 8 wickets, most of them perishing going for the slog towards the end of the innings. Opener Tauseef Ahmed’s solid innings of 46 laid the foundation for the Giants’s total which was then enhanced by and two-down Hamid Syed’s aggressive 56, followed by Ahmed Kamal’s cameo innings of 28. For YC&AC, opening bowler Farhan chipped in with 3/35 and skipper Kamran Ali claimed 3/52.

YC&AC began their chase with a solid opening partnership of 93 runs between Abdul Rahim(45) and Nick Horton(35) but their middle order could not sustain the pace the openers had set and were bowled out for 195 runs. Tauseef Ahmed, who was earlier punished by the YC&AC openers, and Hamid Syed claimed 3 wickets each.

It was a fitting finale between two strong teams of the tournament, who have reached the final stage almost unscathed. YC&AC had lost only one match in the league stage and their win over the Al Karam in the semi-final was probably their best, while the Giants were unbeaten throughout the season. At the end of the match speech, the beaming winning captain, Mumtaz Alam, thanked his opponents for the game and praised his team members and senior partners of the opposition. He had a special word of praise for Kamran Ali, the losing skipper, for recalling a Giants’ batsman, whom the umpire had wrongly given out lbw, after the batsman complained that he had nicked the ball. Ali in his speech congratulated the winners and acknowledged the Giants’ match winning performance.

With this win, the Giants have reiterated their supremacy in the Kanto League circles although the Indian Tigers, a newly formed team this year, almost upset the Giant’s apple-cart in a rain affected match, which would have been humiliating defeat had the match been uninterrupted by rain.

Earlier in the semi-final, the YC&AC had overcome a strong chase by Al Karam in the race for the KCL final spot. YC&AC (196, Kamran Ali 55, Prashant Kale 44) defeated Al Karam (193, Kamran Ali 4/38)

The second semi-final was a one-sided affair in which Tokyo Giants (110/6) defeated Serendib 108 (Tauseef Ahmed 2/16, Mumtaz 2/22).

The KCL this year saw a record no. of washouts with 16 matches lost to rain. KCL is also the last tournament to end because of the increasing number of clubs playing in it.

The Fine Print

Kapil Dev, Chairman of the Indian Cricket League alleged that the attitude of the BCCI towards the ICL is similar to
what the South African cricket team had during the apartheid period “During the apartheid period we were ready to play with South Africa, but they refused to play with us. The same thing is being done by BCCI with ICL. We are ready to play, but they are not,” said Dev.
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The MCC has introduced new laws on the manufacture of bats, in an effort to maintain the traditional balance between bat and ball. here main change is the outlawing of the carbon handle. The MCC felt that the carbon handle increased the bats power, giving batsmen an unfair advantage. Carbon on the back of the bat has also been banned at the highest level.
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A group of Australian spectators was hauled away from Mohali, where the 2nd Test between India and Australia were plyed, by police for wearing t-shirts with offensive slogans such as ‘Beer with Mahatma, Bets with Gupta, Dancing with Indira and still getting runs’”, etc. The group later said that they were having some fun and no offence meant.
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Miffed with the way New Zealand Cricket ostracised him for joining the Indian Cricket League, pacer Shane Bond says he will never play ODIs or Tests for his country again even if recalled to the side. “I still enjoy playing cricket. I am having a great time with the game, which has given me a nice career and financial security as well. But I was hoping to play for my country at least for a couple of years more. “I am disappointed with the way my country’s cricket board treated me. I don’t want to represent New Zealand in Test matches or One Day Internationals any more,” Bond, who is playing for the ‘Delhi Giants’ team in the ICL, said in an interview.
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The Guardian of U.K reported that the England XI got what they deserved in the Stanford 20/20 for 20. In simple cricket terms they were not even second-rate, offering an insipid, technically inept, strategically bankrupt and mentally flabby performance when the situation demanded excellence. The Independent said that from the start, England wanted the money – who wouldn’t want a million dollars? – but did not want to be seen to want it. They were painfully aware that the mood among many commentators was that the Big Match was an abomination of sport, existing only to fuel the ego of its architect, the Texan multibillionaire, Allen Stanford, and lacking context in a sporting sense. England coach Peter Moores said wondered, “Is it for England? Is it for money? You’ve got to be very clear as a team and as an individual, and I think we weren’t as clear as we could have been.”

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.###

Source: Various web and print media

Pacific Cup Results

In a thrilling semi-final match, the Tokyo Giants defeated Shizuoka Kytes to enter into the final of the tournament. The match, reduced to 32 overs per side due to late start and bad weather, saw some exhilarating batting and bowling performances from both sides with the Kytes almost taking the honours but the Giants held their nerves to record a thrilling win and a perfect dress-rehearsal for their KCL semi-final match.

Kytes bowled the Giants out for 162 runs in 28.5 overs with Suresh Navod claiming 4/28 and all-rounder Ashley Harvey taking 3/30 while Hanif Mohammed top scored for Giants with 46. In reply, the Kytes were 29/3 off 16 overs with Noman Iqbal bowling 6 overs for 0/9. But Ashley Harvey batted his team back into the game and almost caused a stunning come-from-behind victory but the Kytes fell agonisingly short by 5 runs in the end. Kytes required 27 runs in the final over bowled by Giant’s skipper Mumtaz and Harvey scored 20 of those in 5 balls and required a Miandad-like effort to score a 6 off the last ball to tie the game but could score only one run. His scoring sequence was 6,4,2,2,6,1. He remained unbeaten on 67.

In a not-so thrilling 2nd semi-final match, the Nagoya defeated the Indian Engineers by 69 runs. In reply to Nagoya’s 264/4, Engineers could only muster IECC 195/9 in 35 overs.

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

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

Shizuoka Kytes Raffle Result

Report by Nick Shannon:

Shizuoka Kytes would like to thank all those people who made donations to the “Kytes raffle”. The winning tickets were drawn on October 26th by Matt Sharpe, who played his last (and losing game ) on that day.

The prize winners are as follows:
1st prize ( a full cricket kit!) Sanjeeb Sahoo (IECC)
2nd prize ( A cricket bat) James Hills ( Paddy Foleys)
3rd prize ( fine wine selection) Alex Koolhof (Wombats)
4th prize ( Top quality sake) Chuck Jones ( Wombats)
5th prize ( Not so top quality sake) Francis Newman( Shizuoka Kytes)
6th prize ( Dodgy sake) Nicholas Shannon (Shizuoka Kytes)
7th prize ( Bottle opener) Ashley Harvey (Shizuoka Kytes)
8th prize (fine teas selection) Larry Prelis (Shizuoka Kytes)

Congratulations and thank you for participating.

For those of you who are unaware of the purpose of the raffle, we collected donations for the upkeep of the lawn mowers( 3 of them) so that we could continuously cut and keep the ground in its excellent playing condition. We sincerely hope that all of you who played at Shizuoka this year could appreciate the playing surface and get full enjoyment from our ground. We will have another raffle next year
and your continued support will be greatly appreciated.

ICC EAP News

ICC EAP Centre of Excellence Squad Released

The International Cricket Council (ICC) East Asia-Pacific (EAP) Development Program has recently finalised squads for the ICC EAP Squad Camps to take place in November at Cricket Australia’s Centre of Excellence(CoE) in Brisbane. Each squad will spend 1 week at the CoE to help develop their skills. The squad contains two Japanese players, Ko Irie and Masaomi Kobayashi.

The camp will include coaching sessions from some of Australia’s leading cricket coaches, the use of video analysis and physical testing facilities at the CoE, and strength and conditioning tips from CoE staff. The combined EAP squad will be working hard to impress in hope of selection for the 2009 Australian Country Cricket Championships to be held in the Barossa Valley in South Australia from January 14th and 13th 2009.

Jakarta International Cricket Sixes

Spirits Cricket Club from Singapore were crowned champions of The India Cements 13th Jakarta International Cricket Sixes 2008 defeating local favourites Senayan Cricket Club in the final played at the Ceylon Cricket Club in Cibubur, East Jakarta. 14 teams including 4 overseas teams from Singapore, Thailand, and Malaysia took part in the tournament, hosted by Jakarta Cricket Association (JCA) in
cooperation with Cricket Indonesia (CI). The tournament this year was sponsored by new entrants to Indonesia, The India Cements Ltd. who also own the Chennai Super Kings in the Indian Premier League and co sponsored by PT GAC Samudera Logistics, QTV, and supported by Jyppore Restaurant and Hotel Manhattan.

Indian Engineers’ Japan Cricket Rating – New results

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

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 – 35%
Australia will win – 62%
Draw – 4%
Can’t say, will be close – 0%

Take the new poll:

What would be the result of 7-match India-England ODI series ?

India will win
England will win
Can’t say, will be close

Visit our home page today to vote!

Readers’ Corner

In regards to your article, “A Gavaskar in the making?” in issue #89, the batsman in subject Yamanouchi plays for Adore. There must’ve
been an error when entering the score to the JCA website I think.

I shall also add that he has been the stone wall for Adore for quite some time. His accomplishment includes the inning played during J2C
semi against MAX when he scored 7* off 174 balls(SR of 4.02) and carried his bat in a process.
http://www.cricket.or.jp/new_jca/score_view.php?game_id=449. By then, all Adore players including the batting partner were asleep…

Shun Hashiba
Adore 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

Cricket in Italy

Cricket is finally getting noticed in Italy. The lucrative new Indian Premier League found its way on to Italian satellite television in June and famed newspaper Gazzetta dello Sport has carried stories about the game. Around 400,000 people from South Asia live in Italy and the Italian cricket federation estimates that further arrivals could lead to 1,000 new clubs. Cricket in Italy grew from four or five teams in the early 1980s to a three-division league today.

http://cricket.expressindia.com/news/asian-immigrants-fire-up-italian-interest-in-cricket/365342/

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!