Hello and welcome to this edition of the I.E.C.C. Newsletter.
Japan managed a consolation win in the recently concluded ICC World Cricket
League Division 7 tournament at Port Soif, Guernsey, which, otherwise brought
disappointment to fans back home. The consolation win - against Suriname - was
powered by a dream spell by fast bowler Patrick Giles-Jones, whose outstanding
figures of 7/9 helped Japan beat Suriname by 8 wickets. Giles-Jones, an
Australian playing for Japan, had helped reduce Suriname to 7/8 at one stage but
a rear guard action from Surinamese batsmen helped them score 66. Japan overcame
the meager target in 29.4 overs, losing two wickets in that process. Japan had
earlier lost to Nigeria and hosts, Guernsey and later lost the last match
against table toppers, Bahrain.
Nigeria recorded their two-wicket victory over Japan in the penultimate over,
despite a reasonably healthy target Japan set for Nigeria, powered by an
unbeaten 55 from Ko Irie.
Japan 187/8 (50 overs, K Irie 55*)
Nigera 188/8 (48.1 overs, G Beath 3/20)
In the second match against Guernsey, Japan's score of 150 for 8 was easily
overcome by the hosts with 11.3 overs to spare. Ko Irie followedup with his
previous performance and made a valuable contribution to Japanese innings with
an aggressive 49.
Japan 150/8 (50 overs, K Irie 49)
Guernsey 152/3 (38.3 overs)
The left-arm fast bowler Giles-Jones starred again in the last match with an
outstanding bowling spell that saw Bahrain collapsing to 24/4 before recovering
to post an imposing 260 runs on the board. Giles-Jones initiated a top order
collapse by catching three of the first four batsmen in front of the wicket.
Although Giles-Jones went on to claim 5 wickets Bahrain's total proved too heavy
for Japan and they were eventually bowled out for a paltry 64 runs in 26 overs.
Bahrain 260 (49.3 overs, P Giles-Jones 5/39)
Japan 64.
Source: various cricket websites
Patrick Giles-Jones and Ko Irie were Japan's shining stars and provided the only
silver lining in an otherwise lacklustre foreign trip for the Japanese players.
With three losses out of their four matches Japan's poor show outside the EAP
region continued, highlighting the low domestic standards and underscoring the
need to further open up JCA's attitude towards the foreign players' community in
Japan in order to spur an inclusive development of playing standards. By
limiting themselves to deal with only a small section of the foreign cricket
community, the attempts to improve the standards by the JCA can only meet with
limited success. Japan's problems in the Guernsey tournament was compounded by
the fact that two of their Pakistani origin players were rejected visa resulting
in the original squad of 14 being reduced to 12, prompting their coach to draft
himself in all the matches. But the moot point remained whether it was wiser to
play one of their Japanese players than to draft in an aging coach (not that his
performance was bad). One would hope that the generous grant ICC provides to
Japan would be spent more wisely to improve the domestic playing standards. As
an Associate member, Japan receives USD200,000 or more annually, depending on
the grade they are placed inside the Associate grouping.
+ Kansai Cricket +
Jason from Kansai reports:
The games are on but there is no sign of competitive matches yet. We have a big
problem with grounds, only me and the KRAC have any and they
are few and far between. Ashiya looks hopeful every year though.
KCL results are
available here
A controversial SMS game introduced in the IPL, which evoked
strong criticism for promoting to gambling, was discontinued
with the games' inventors taking note of the apprehensions
expressed by Sports Minister M S Gill and many former
cricketers. Gill had denounced the SMS game in which fans made
ball by ball predictions for cash prizes, saying it amounted
to gambling.
###
Javed Miandad thinks that all is not well with the IPL that is
underway in South Africa. He thinks IPL is a joke but at the
same time worried about some of the results. "There is a
definite smell of match-fixing coming from the IPL where
strange things are happening. I don't consider the IPL as
cricket, it is a joke. It is strange that players who are not
regular bowlers have taken hat-tricks in the league. Teams are
losing matches from winning positions," Miandad said.
###
Bollywood diva and co-owner of Rajasthan Royals, Shilpa Shetty
praised her captian as a a wonderful guy. She also is set to
share Bollywood screen space with her team's coach-cum-captain
Shane Warne. "I understand the whole former nemesis thing
between Shane and South Africa but I think he's a wonderful
guy without prejudices. He has a sense of fair play and he's a
good sportsman. And as captain and coach of my team he's also
an example of what I appreciate in players: consistency and
dedication, irrespective of what career phase they're in,"
Shetty told You magazine of South Africa.
Comments: Meanwhile, Shilpa's sister Samita Shetty is causing
ripples in the tabloid newspapers. Read the Best of the Web
section elsewhere in this Newsletter.
###
IPL umpire Daryl Harper wanted to wear a helmet on a few
occassions, apparently. “In one of the games Sanath’s [
Jayasuriya] shot hit me so hard that I was feeling breathless
for a while. And Hayden’s hits have brushed my ears a few
times as well,” Harper said. "I was talking about this to
some of the other umpires and they were also of the same
opinion. Given the pace with which some of the players hit
those shots, it's becoming really dangerous for us. I guess
it's just a matter of time before you see us using those
baseball helmets.”
###
A cricket kit ordered from Pakistan by Dilawar Hussain, of
Blackburn, U.K., was ruined by over eager customs officials
searching for explosives. Eight of his bats and a few pairs of
pads arrived with holes drilled in them! Neither the Pakistani
nor the UK government has owned up the damage.
###
In an incident what the accused described as related to
“matters of the heart”, Bermudan fast bowler George O’Brien
had been charged with using a Taser stun-gun against a “love
rival”. Incidentally, O’Brien was handed a two-year suspended
ban in 2005 after reportedly punching an opponent during
Bermuda's Cup Match, the biggest game of the year. In 2006 he
was dropped from the national side after he missed a number of
training sessions. That led to him being excluded from the 2007
World Cup squad, and days after being left out he broke his leg
playing football.
###
Former England international Chris Lewis has been found guilty of
cocaine smuggling and has been handed a 13-year jail sentence.
The former all-rounder was found with more £140,000 worth of
cocaine hidden in his luggage late last year at Gatwick airport
when he returned from a trip to St. Lucia. He had cocaine in
liquid form hidden in tins of fruit and vegetable juice inside a
cricket bag.
###
Former Ausralian fast bowler and current Delhi Dare-Devils player,
Glenn McGrath, rues that he has not been getting any game in the
IPL. "It has been hard to be a part of the bench, and I was hoping
for a game during the league stage. I have asked a couple of
people about why I was not being played, and I get the sense that
they were worried about my fitness. I feel fitter than I did last
year, but I guess I will not get a chance to prove that now."
McGrath said.
###
After promising to reveal his identity at the end of Kolkata
Knight Riders' Indian Premier League campaign, the blogger, who
calls himself a Fake IPL Player, has left everyone guessing by not
coming out with the much-awaited disclosure in what is ostensibly
his last post. In a video post titled 'FIP RIP', a shadow
declares himself to be the fake IPL player.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzWIqbkuqEM
###
Javed Sheikh, 53, a former first-class cricketer died during a
veterans Twenty20 match in Pakistan, leaving organisers
contemplating a ban on players with a history of cardiac
problems. Sheikh collapsed during the match at Asgher Ali
Shah stadium in Karachi, having complained of chest pain after
bowling three overs.
###
Source: Various web and print media
+ Japan's young colts unimpressive +
Japan's U-19 team, currently taking part in the 2009 Pepsi EAP Under-19 trophy
in Papua New Guinea (PNG), have lost all their matches. In the first match
against PNG, Japanese boys were bowled out for 55 and in the second match Fiji
bowled Japan out for 59. Japan could not cross 50 runs in the third match
against Indonesia. The boys, however, did a good job of bowling out Indonesia
for 103 runs with Raheel Kano claiming 5/21.
Results are available at:
http://cricket.resultsvault.com/common/pages/public/rv/draw.aspx?id=RVFIXTURE&entityid=31029
Results as of May 31:
One team slowly slipping down the ranks is YC&AC while the Wombats are clawing
their way back to top with an awesome winning record of 5 out of 5 matches this
season.
Here is the list of the top 10 teams(last month's ranking in brackets):
1 Tokyo Giants (1)
2 Al Karam (5)
3 Nagoya (2)
4 Tokyo Wombats (6)
5 YC&AC (3)
6 Serendib (4)
7 Wyverns (7)
8 Sano(10)
9 Kansai Lions (11)
10 Indian Engineers (9)
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.
We requested Neil Harrison, Japan's international umpire from the EAP Umpires
Panel, to share with us his personal experiences in the
international circuit this year. Harrison's biggest assignment (so far!) was to
umpire in the Women's World Cup early this year in Sydney,
which was telecast live and involved third umpire decisions.
Harrison writes:
For me, 2008 was a quiet year on the umpiring front, with no international
activity in the East Asia Pacific region and a lot of washouts down
in Shizuoka. That turned around somewhat dramatically in 2009 with a surprise
invitation to umpire in the Women's World Cup in Sydney as my
first appointment in the year of any sort. This was the biggest and best
organised tournament I've been involved in, even if the level of
cricket turned out to be substantially lower than news reports had led me to
expect. As it was so long, I didn't have enough paid holidays so
I had to take unpaid leave from work to attend the tournament.
Two of my colleagues on the EAP Umpires Panel were also invited (Shahul Hameed
of Indonesia and Lakani Oala of PNG), and we were joined by
Cathy Cross of New Zealand, Sarika Prasad of Singapore, 5 members of the Aussie
first class panel, Tony Hill, Brian Jerling and Tyron
Wijewardene of the International Panel and Steve Davis of the Elite Panel. Not a
bad selection of umpires.
In all I got to umpire 7 games on field, with an additional 2 games as reserve
umpire and one game as TV umpire (not a single referral in
close to 90 overs of cricket!) We umpired on some beautiful grounds, including
Bowral (Don Bradman's home ground - the umpires' changing room
was the store room of the Bradman Museum) and Bankstown (the Waugh twins' home
ground), and all the while we had the chance to observe and
pick the brains of some of the finest umpires around.
Australia were clear pre-tournament favourites to win, and from the 3 rounds of
warm-up matches it quickly became clear that Australia,
England, India and New Zealand were streets ahead of Pakistan, South Africa, Sri
Lanka and the West Indies. The tournament results didn't
quite go as the hosts had planned and hoped, however, with the Australians
unable to qualify for the final due to insipid performances against
New Zealand and India. England defeated New Zealand in the final and India beat
Australia in the 3rd place play-off, which I think fairly
represented the performances of the teams over the 3 weeks of play.
While in Sydney, I was invited to umpire in the Vanuatu vs Fiji Bi-Lateral
Series in Vanuatu in May. Being neighbours (relatively speaking),
Fiji and Vanuatu play each other fairly regularly, and Fiji traditionally run
out easy winners, but Vanuatu have a reputation as one of the
most improved teams in the region and this time there was the added incentive of
potential promotion from Affiliate to Associate member of the
ICC (joining PNG, Fiji and Japan as EAP Associate members). Vanuatu had already
fulfilled other Associate requirements (for example,
logistical and administrative structures) but had been told they also needed to
prove they could beat existing Associate members in a
competition format. The ICC effectively gave Vanuatu two bites at the cherry by
dividing the week into two 3-game series, with a winning
majority in either series being sufficient to meet the ICC demands.
As it was, the ICC need not have worried as Vanuatu comfortably outplayed Fiji
in the first two matches (winning by 6 wickets and 97 runs),
rendering the remainder of the series something of a damp squib. Fiji bounced
back to win match 3 by 32 runs, closing out Series A. Series B
was then designated friendlies only, but after Vanuatu took the first match, the
second and third matches were cancelled due to the death of a
local cricket stalwart on the morning of the second match. A consolation T20
match was played on the last day.
The good news from Japan's point of view is that Fiji are (temporarily at least)
on the way down, but the bad news is that Vanuatu are most
definitely on the way up. The EAP pecking order has long been PNG followed by a
big gap, then Fiji followed by another big gap, then Cook
Islands, Japan and Vanuatu followed by a smaller gap, then Indonesia, Samoa and
Tonga. PNG remain a long way out in front, but the gap between
Fiji and the pack is closing. Fiji have appointed a respected new Kiwi coach and
Aussie manager with a view to stopping the slide. We'll have
a chance to see how they fare in the next EAP senior tournament in Samoa in
September.
Beer for Books events
THANK YOU to everyone who came out to the Beers for Books event organized by
InterNations.org 5/28 at The Pink Cow. We had a great time while
creating 449 books for kids.
With the addition of the 2,831 books from the event with John Wood on May 14th
we created well over 3,000 books in May. Beers for Books is
truly gaining momentum as word spreads about how fun it is to organize and
participate in B4B events.
The next scheduled events in Japan are 5/31 at IUJ in Niigata, 6/5 at Benny's
Place in Yokohama, 6/8 at Arterra in San Diego, 6/18 at The Pink
Cow in Tokyo, and a VERY special event 7/4 in Minakami, Gunma Prefecture. See
the events section of this website for all the details and see
you there!!
Editor **
You may recall that the the Indian Engineers cricket club became a sponsor of
"Beers for Books", a casual networking event that helps raise
money for Room to Read. The idea behind the concept is a regular social
networking event which will be held in a bar/restaurant in a casual
setting. For every drink you order, the bar/restaurant will donate 100yen to
Room to Read. One beer = 100yen = 1 local language book for a
child in a developing country where Room to Read operates (Nepal, India,
Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Zambia). So all you have to do is to drink a
beer!
We encourage our readers to attend the events to help promote literacy and
education in developing countries. We will be publishing the event
details in this Newsletter as well as on our website regularly.
T-20 World Cup live on HumTum TV
HumTum TV, an Osaka based internet TV company, has obtained exclusive
internet telecast rights in Japan for the upcoming T-20 World cup in
England. The whole series is available for subscribers for JPY 7,000. Readers of
this Newsletter is entitled to a 500yen discount if you
mention the campaign code "IECC" when you subscribe it.
www.humtuv.com
This is in response to your news item in the last issue in which the KCL
Committee was forced to announce new guidelines for claiming umpiring
expenses. Can we really be talking about cricket when we have players arguing
decisions with umpires? Do we really have members amongst us
who will cheat their fellow cricketers with fraudulent expense claims? It may be
a good time to remind our fellow cricketers just exactly what
makes a "cricketer" and how the game should be played. The very fact that this
ruling is necessary is an appalling indictment on those whom it
is designed to censure. This is not the game of cricket that I was raised to
play.
David Todd
YC&AC
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.
Here is the last poll result:
Your take on England-WI series?
England will win 67%
West Indies will win 33%
Draw 0%
Take the new poll:
Will India retain the T-20 World Cup?
Collection of some of the best catches
It is learned that the friendship between Bollywood actress Shamita Shetty and Warne grew close during this year's Indian Premier League (IPL) tour. Reveals a source, "Warne is known to be a ladies' man. He met the younger Shetty just once before the IPL. Read here.
Gorillas play cricket, a promotional ad for the ICC World Twenty20 released by ICC
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.
"You help us in cricket and we will help you in soccer!" - Message from Indian president Pratibha Patil when she visited Brazil in 2008.
1. France is the current Olympic silver medallists in cricket. England had
defeated France at the Paris Games final in 1900, the last time
cricket was played in Olympics.
2. Malaysian born Lall Singh played for India in 1932 against England at Lords.
That's all in this edition!