Issue #9 Edogawa Falcons wins Kanto Cup

Newsletter


December 5, 2000                                                                                              Issue #9

Welcome to this edition of the IECC Newsletter.

Kanto Cup

What an anti-climax to this wonderful tournament! The most important match of this year-long tournament turned out to be a non-event as one of the finalist and last year’s champion, Friend XI, refused to turn up for the match on the scheduled day, Sunday, Nov. 26. The day being bright and sunny, the Edogawa Falcons, the other finalist, were said to be on the ground on time and was waiting for the their opponent before they decided to have practice match among themselves.

The problem has been brewing for about a month, much before the semi-final stage as the Friends had indicated their inability to play any match after Nov. 16 until Dec. 3 as their players would be travelling during this period and hence requested a postponement. However, KCOC(the Kanto Cup Organising Committee) refused to entertain their plea on the grounds that the rules permitted a match to be postponed only due to bad weather and nothing else. Acceding to this request would certainly have led to similar requests next year.

The championship has, thus, gone to Edogawa Falcons by default, who were unimpressive during the league matches during which they won only one match. The Falcons were a touch lucky this season and incidentally, this was the second walkover awarded to them. The quarter-final against YC&AC didn’t take place as YC&AC couldn’t produce a team on the scheduled day and the Falcons won by default. But in the semi-final, they surprised their rival, Lalazar Sports, another strong contender for the Cup and last year’s finalist with a 3 run victory.

The annual All Star match, a match between two teams with players picked up from every team in each group was conducted on Dec. 3. This used to be followed by a prize distribution-cum-dinner ceremony when the trophies were distributed but since the peculiar way in which the championship has ended this year, no trophies related to the Kanto Cup were awarded to anybody. The only trophies that were distributed were the Best Batsman, Best Bowler and MVP of the All Star match. And of course, there was dinner!

With this, the Tokyo cricket season has ended.

Pacific Cup

The Indian Engineers won the three match series Pacific Cup between them and the Shizuoka Kytes 2-1. The Kytes had won the first match that was played in May this year. But the Engineers squared the series in a thrilling match in which the Kytes threatened to take the match and the Cup until the last five overs and then convincingly outplayed the Kytes by 116 runs in the final. Brief scores(35 overs):

IECC 208 all out in 33.4 overs(Sriram Sampath 73)

Kytes 92 all out in 21.1 overs(Biju Paul 4/16, Shankar Subramanyam 4/9)

Match report is available at www3.ewebcity.com/iecc/. Follow the link “Reports”. Pictures of this match can be viewed by following the link “In Action” on the revolving links.

Japan surrenders meekly in ACC Trophy

Japan was summarily outplayed in every department of the game and offered a cakewalk to their opponents in the ACC Trophy held in UAE, recently. Brief scores:

Nov. 16

Japan: 59 all out in 26 overs (Extras 19)

Maldives: 60 for 2 in 11.3 overs.

Nov. 17

Nepal beat Japan by 7 wickets.

Japan: 133 all out in 49.5 overs. (Extras 23)

Nepal: 137 for 3 wickets in 20.4 overs. (Extras 20)

Nov. 19

Japan: 95

UAE: 98/4

The ICC hypocrisy

Malcolm Gray, the ICC president, has threatened that India will be financially penalised and even the Test status be suspended for refusing to tour Pakistan. Now consider this. During the 1996 World Cup, Australia had refused to go to Colombo to play Sri Lanka citing security reasons. The same Malcolm Gray was a member of the Australian Cricket Board at that time, who took the decision that affected a World Cup. Read more at www3.ewebcity.com/iecc/.

 

That’s all in this edition. Hope you enjoyed reading it.