Hello and welcome to this edition of the I.E.C.C. Newsletter.
Japanese season to kick start
The unpredictable weather these days notwithstanding the Japanese cricket
season and so many other summer sports will kick start a new season with
friendly warm up matches before they get on to serious business. As part of the
warm up process, the Tokyo Giants along with some other Pakistani community
organisations, is organising a Hanami (Cherry Blossom viewing) at Ueno Park on
March 27-28. Former Pakistan cricketer Saeed Anwar is likely to grace the
occasion along with many other artists from Pakistan.
This month will also see the final of the KCL T-20 tournament, which could not
be held last year. The JPY 100,000 winner-takes-all tournament will see the
unlikely heros Shizuoka Kytes taking on Nagoya, the initiator of the tournament.
Khan Enterprises Inc., owned by Nagoya's skipper Saqib Khan is the primary
sponsor of the tournament. Saeed Anwar is expected to attend the final before he
returns to Pakistan.
Neil Harrison to organise an Umpiring Seminar
Japan's international umpire Neil Harrison will hold a seminar on one of the
most challenging issues plaguing the Japanese cricket - you guessed it right! -
umpiring. Lack of quality umpires and occasional refusal by players to accept
umpire's decisions (some genuine and some others outright refusal) have been a
bane of the sport in Japan. The seminar, to be held jointly for KCL and JCA
teams on Sunday March 14 in Tokyo, will cover general umpiring topics, playing
conditions and detailed information on umpiring signals, No Balls, Wides, LBW
etc.
Indian Engineers on Twitter
Well, the Engineers can't be away from latest technology for too long. Follow the Engineers at http://twitter.com/ieccjapan/ for live match updates and other cricket updates.
A team manager's report on Pakistan's disastrous tour of Australia blamed
defensive captaincy by Mohammad Yousuf and discipline problems for the debacle.
The report mentioned two separate incidents when Yousuf disputed his axing from
the team. On the first occasion, Yousuf argued with the coach after he was
dropped from the team for the third One-Day International against New Zealand
on poor fielding. The other incident occurred before the fifth and final One-day
against Australia when Yousuf initially withdrew but wanted to play later. The
report also mentioned a heated argument between pacemen Umar Gul and Mohammad
Aamir during the second Test in Wellington. In an another incident of
ill-discipline, young batsman Umar Akmal was blamed for giving a media
interview without the manager's permission before the Hobart Test when he was
undergoing examination for apparent back strain.
##
Senior Pakistan batsman Mohammad Yousuf has accused his team mate, Shoaib Malik,
of disrupting team unity. "Nasim Ashraf (former Pakistan Cricket Board chairman)
made a big mistake by making Shoaib Malik the captain," Yousuf said. "It was
during his captaincy that the culture of groups within a team took root and
respect for senior players fell. Two or three players are spoiling things in
the team and I will reveal their names in the next few days."
Comment: Yousuf hasn't revealed any names yet..
###
Police in Jamaica recovered some of Brian Lara's stolen items from the house
of woman who was acquainted with one of Lara's close friends. Lara's home was
burgled while he was asleep. The report said the police seized more than 40
bottles of premium liquor, jewelry and four-autographed cricket bats from the
woman's home. Police said that nearly TT$500,000 (US$83,300) in various
currencies, and half a million dollars in jewelry, the honorary Order of
Australia, which was given to him by Australia Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd,
were in the safe which was stolen from Lara's house.
Comment: Asleep while a safe is removed from home and not noticed? Interesting..
###
In a sensational disclosure, a Bengali daily on Saturday claimed that the
Indian team sent Sachin Tendulkar with a request to Eden Gardens curator
Prabir Mukherjee that he should shave the grass off the pitch for the second
cricket Test between India and South Africa, starting Sunday, but it was
politely turned down. The veteran curator, however, categorically denied
meeting Tendulkar.
###
Contradicting his former captain Ian Chappell's statement, Australian pace
bowling great Dennis Lillee said on Friday that there was no reason why
India cannot sustain their numero uno Test status. "I don't agree with
Ian Chappel's that India cannot sustain their number one status in Test
cricket," Lillee told reporters. "I don't see a reason why India can't
sustain their position. At the moment India has a balanced attack. Sometimes
it is not all about out and out fast bowling. Australia also lacks a genuine
tearaway pacers." he said. Chappell had said recently said that it is unlikely
that India will sustain their number one Test status as they quality bowling
attack and batting alone cannot deliver the goods for them for a longer period.
###
New Zealand cricketers' involvement in the Indian Premier League is in serious
doubt after their players association recommended a pull out from the
tournament, which starts on March 12. The highly anticipated report
commissioned by the New Zealand, Australian, English and South African players
unions also cast doubt on the ability of local authorities to deliver security
management plans.
###
Source: Various web and print media
Neil Harrison tops list
Neil Harrison of Japan ranked first in the 2010 EAP Umpires Panel following a
review and selection of the EAP Umpires Panel (UP) and Supplementary Umpires
Panel (SUP). Chris Thurgate, another umpire from Japan, ranked second in the
Supplementary Umpires Panel. The Rankings have been done in consultation between
the RUC and the RDO taking into account the observations, reports and feedback
from tournaments. It may be recalled that Harrison was selected as an umpire in
the recently concluded World Cricket League Division 5 in Nepal.
ICC Development Programme Annual Awards 2009
Namibia's cricket development programme took the top prize of Best Overall
Cricket Development Programme in the Pepsi ICC Development Programme 2009 while
EAP's PNG took the Best Cricket Promotion and Marketing Programme award.
Our readers may recall that Indian Engineers Cricket Club was the 1st
oraganisation to lend their support to Beer for Books (http://www.beersforbooks.org/),
an idea conceived and put into action by Gary Bremermann, by which for every
drink you order during an event 100yen will be donated to Room to Read(http://www.roomtoread.org/)
that helps children in the third world countries to buy books and build schools
and libraries. Room to Read was founded by former Microsoft employee, John Wood.
Beer for Books recently celebrated their first anniversary in Tokyo. Here is a
report by its founder Gary Bremermann:
On March 3rd , Beers for Books, an idea that was born one short year ago and was
supported from its very early stages by the IECC, celebrated its 1st anniversary
with a big party at Tokyo's Happo-en. Despite it being a Wednesday night, over
600 people showed up and the event created over 6000 books for children in 7
countries, including India.
Speaking of India, a wonderful slide show was presented by professional
photographer
Ms. Paula Waltz, who shared her photos of Room to Read-supported schools in
India,
so the attendees could see the power of early childhood literacy education
in action. The founder of Room to Read, Mr. John Wood, was at the event and made
a brief presentation to mark both the 1 year mark of Beers for Books and also
the
10 year mark for the Room to Read organization, which has impacted over 4.1
million
children in 9 countries to date by building 1,129 schools, 9.196 libraries, and
providing 8,725 girls’ scholarships.
The Beers for Books (B4B) fundraising program which started here in Tokyo has
since
spread to 2 more countries (U.S., Australia) and will soon launch in Singapore
and
London with more countries coming on line soon. In Japan, there have been events
in 12 prefectures so far with a target of reaching all 47 prefectures by the end
of 2010. After last week’s event, B4B has passed the 45,000 book mark in its
first
year and aims to significantly increase this number over the next year. Room to
Read is opening new libraries in Asia and Africa at a pace of about one every 4
½
hours (faster than Starbucks!) so there are lots of libraries to fill with lots
of
books. If you all have any ideas for helping to grow this idea your support is
very
welcome.
Links:
Room to Read - http://www.roomtoread.org/
Beer for Books- http://www.beersforbooks.org/
Gary Bremermann - gary@robertleonard.jp
Results as of February 28:
We have performed the annual ritual! We have purged the list based on the number
games each club played. In order not to give undue weightage of the past
performance to ranking process we take only the previous and current season's
performance while calculating the ranking order. Additionally, we consider only
those clubs that have played or likely to play at least 5 matches over the two
seasons. Thus, we have removed the 2008 records from the ranking process and
moved those that have played less than 5 matches to the bottom of the list.
Here is the latest top 10(last month's ranking in brackets):
1 Tokyo Giants (1)
2 Tokyo Wombats (2)
3 Lalazar (6)
4 Wyverns (4)
5 Serendib (6)
6 MAX (8)
7 Indian Engineers (8)
8 Shizuoka Kytes (12)
9 Adore (10)
9 Nagoya (3)
10 Paddy Foleys (13)
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.
Here is the last poll result:
Do you think the USA is ready for T-20?
Yes 29%
No 71%
Can't say 0%
Take the new poll:
Do you think the the PCB took the right decision in punishing its players?
Visit our home page today to vote!
Best of the Web
Ball pocketted by Jonathan Trott in a county game
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.
"If you want the ball to turn square from day one, why do you need a curator?" - the curator of the Eden Gardens after claiming that the BCCI asked him to prepare a turner for the second Test against RSA.
A total of 37 hat-tricks have been registered in Test cricket as of 2009.
That's all in this edition ! !