Hello and welcome to this edition of the I.E.C.C. Newsletter.
The Kanto Cricket League AGM held last month decided to kick off the KCL 2008 with an All Star match this month. The All Star match will be held at the new ground in Tsukuba. AGM also decided to accept the applications from four new teams to be part of this year's tournament, thus making it a total of 12 teams. As in the previous years, the participating teams will be competing in two groups.
With the return of the teams like Sri Lankan Lions and Ichihara Sharks and the arrival of new bees such as Indian Tigers and Toyama, the KCL is expected to see a stronger competition and provide maximum enjoyment to the participants.
The Committee is also likely to oganise an Umpiring seminar for all teams early in the season, conducted by Neil Harrison, a qualified umpire himself.
The AGM also elected a new 7-member Committee to oversee the season and the tournament. Tony Fordyce of the YC&AC will act as the chairman of the Committee, while the good old Robert Gills-Martineau will be in charge of scheduling and statistics.
An Indian political party chief, Bal Thackeray, has asked BCCI chief Sharad
Pawar to
stop what he termed as gambling by the rich. "Mr Sharad Pawar, what is happening
in
your cricket sector?" Thackeray asked in a signed statement published on the
front
page of their party mouthpiece daily, Saamna. "The game of cricket is being
corrupted
by industrialists who are going berserk in your cricket sector. Who will believe
that
India is a poor country?" it said, referring to the huge sums offered to
players. While
cricket players are being auctioned for huge amounts of money, farmers are
committing
suicides, unemployment is on the rise and people are going hungry, it said.
Meanwhile,
another Indian politician dubbed the IPL auction a "vulgar display of wealth".
###
Viv Richards believes the heady sums bid for the likes of Symonds and MS Dhoni
are only
the beginning of a Twenty20 explosion that will create more opportunities for
players to
test their market value in different, franchised leagues around the world. "The
sort of
money that was attached to cricket did run a lot of people away to try other
careers,
but now that we have the perks there will be a lot more cricketers trying to hit
that
jackpot.", Richards said.
###
Scientists at Deakin University made Brett Lee don a suit covered in Velcro
dots, and
then, using infra-red cameras, translated his action into stick movements - the
same
technology that assisted The Lord of the Rings' Gollum in terrorising hobbits.
Results
showed Lee had too much shoulder movement in his run-up.
###
Harbhajan Singh left Australia with a parting swipe to his critics and opponents
by
saying he would not tone down his on-field behaviour. "I am not here to make
friends,
and I can't play soft", he said. He also believed the Indian team matched
Australia's
aggression and taught them some lessons in hard cricket.
###
The infamous streaker, who was grounded by Andrew Symonds during the second
final between
India and Australia in Brisbane, is claimed to have made $7500 for selling his
side of story
to Channel 9 and they provided the streaker a business class ticket to Adelaide,
where he's
employed in the mining industry, Australian daily The Daily Telegraph reported.
But Channel
9 denied the reports.
###
Source: Various web and print media
A touring group of Japanese students representing Chuo University Cricket Club (CUCC) recently visited Melbourne and between sightseeing and tourist stops managed to fit in a couple of games of cricket against local clubs. Sacred Heart Cricket Club which plays in the Mercantile Cricket Association hosted a game against the CUCC men's team. Over a buffet breakfast at the ?The Point Café? in the morning it was established that the Chuo lads may have lacked a bit of cricket pedigree so the teams became a mix of Japanese and SHCC players for the game to be played in leafy Fawkner Park. The CUCC women's team was also hosted by Monash Gryphons CC on an adjacent synthetic wicket.
Pacific Friendship Cup, a friendly annual meet-up started by the Indian Engineers and Shizuoka Kytes have been expanded this year to include 6 other teams. The basic idea of expansion was to provide a platform to bring together the clubs that usually don't play each other such as the KCL teams and the Japanese clubs and other teams that do not take part in the KCL. The new format is a straight knockout between the KCL and non-KCL teams and the winners proceeding to the semi-final.
A brief history of the PFC is available here.
Results as of February 29:
You may notice that there were some major movements in the ranking table. This
is not due to any match results but due to our annual cleanup of the old data.
What this means is that every year before the start of the season, we remove
data that was more than one year old so that the rankings reflect recent
performances. Accordingly, we removed 2006 match results from our database and
the resultant rankings you see below is based only on the 2007 results. As the
2008 season progresses, those results will get added to our database and the
results you will see by the end of 2008 will have two years of data and then in
the beginning of 2009, we would remove 2007 data while 2009 results get added
and the cycle continues...
Here is the list of the top 10 teams(last month's ranking in brackets):
1 Tokyo Giants (1)
2 Osaka Tigers (18)
3 Tokyo Wombats (3)
4 Wyverns (4)
5 YC&AC (11)
6 Serendip (15)
7 Friends (2)
8 MAX (14)
9 Kansai Fighters (5)
10 Osaka Bulldogs (7)
See the full list here.
Here is the last poll result:
The Australians copped with the flak in Sydney as much as they did simply
because it was Australia. Had it been between India and any other country, the
criticism would have been milder. Do you agree?
Yes 100%
No 0%
Somewhat 0%
Take the new poll:
Many believe that the Australians copped with the flak for their behaviour in
Sydney as much as they did simply because it was Australia. Had it been between
India and any other country, that country wouldn't have had to cop with the flak
as much as the Australians did. Do you agree?
I liked the new addition to dictionary section in the last issue. Very funny!
- Bobby Philips
It was sad, but it simply had to happen
What did Harbhajan tell Symonds?
This is how Harbhajan escaped the ban
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 I have the ball in my hand, there is a feeling something is going to happen" - Sanjeeb Sahoo, Indian Engineers' new skipper.
1. South Africans were the first to introduce TV run outs.
2. Vikram Solanki is the first ever SuperSub player in ODIs.
That's all in this edition!