Saturday Cup/Plate Opening Round - 11th March 2000

Tartars v. Nomads at KCC
Result: Tartars won by 4 wkts

NOMADS "GO DOWN" TO TARTS

We'll show the Saracens how to beat the Nomads.

At 1.15pm - 5 Tartars - myself, Lama, David Arthur, Kevin McGill and Amit Agarwal took the field having won the toss and decided to field.

Frantic phone calls made to the other six resulted in the next one arriving at 1.30 and Jaideep and 1.50pm. All have been fined match fees in the double for this gross indiscipline. Thanks to Tim Smart who agreed to hold off the start by 10 mins or so as we needed 7 men minimum to start. Kevin " KRUGER" McGill opened from the top end after we enticed 2 schoolboys to field for us and in cloudy humid conditions swung and cut the ball appreciably but it was Lama in his second over who struck the crucial double blow having Smartie caught behind and new batsmen caught at slip by yours truly in the same over. Both the opening bowlers bowled superbly swinging and seaming the ball on the grass track and Kevin picked up two quick wickets removing in-form John Powell and Ashman both caught by Lama at mid-off. At one point we had them 63/6 and then things went slightly wrong from one end as the runs started to flow a bit freely .. I bowled at one end keeping it tight and managed to pick 3 victims but Hawkinels played one cow-shot all afternoon to notch 63 quick runs. He got out to the almost only off-side shot he played. Final bowling analysis were - "Kruger" 5 for very little - Lama 2/32 and BG 3/35. The total 188 and the heavens threatening to open up.

In case of rain our target was 55 off 10 overs - steep but not so steep with our line-up - or so I thought. We lost Amit run-out in the second over - going for a third to Tim Smart- not a very "smart" move by Amit. Dave Arthur played a few lusty shots and perished and both Lama and TKR contributed zilcho to our cause. At 30/4 in the 6th over our cause looked lost. Anoop Nainani and Jaideep Malhotra started batting normally and both slowly but surely started accumalating the runs. A steady drizzle did not help the Nomads but in true spirit they kept plugging away. At the 24th over 3 consecutive boundaries from Anoop got us ahead of the run rate and from thereon we got to the winnig total in the 32nd over having lost Jaideep and skips. Jaideep got 56 and Anoop 79 in a match winnig partnership of 135. Great job Tarts!

I must add here that Nomads played the game in true good spirits and 3 of their batsmen walked in tight caught behind descisions and I am thankful for the Sportsmanship.

Onto the next round guys- and for those planing to turn up late- the whole tea will be debitted to their account. - NO MERCY WILL BE SHOWN.

At KCC: Tartars 189-6 beat Nomads 188 by 4 wkts (detail scoresheet not available yet)

Crusaders v. Police at PTS
Result: Crusaders won by 8 wkts

We were all impressed with the new facilities at the PTS and glad to see that some of our tax dollars appeared to have been used in an appropriate way. Unfortunately we weren’t allowed into the new ‘Club House’ as the commandant charges some $700.00 a time to use the nice new plastic garden chairs. The money spent however did not go as far as doing something about the moon craters of the cricket pitch (loose term) outfield or the fact that the actual wicket still has an alarmingly slope.

Once again the Captain lost the toss and Crusaders were asked to field with their reduced number fielders of 8 at the start of the innings (which were soon swelled by the arrival of Toad and Ben). Beefy and Greenie opened with Beefy proving his fitness had not been affected by the skiing fitness regime bowling 4 maidens in a row. Greenie relishing opening the bowling swung the ball alarming causing even Brewbags to stand back! Greenie claimed the first wicket with one of his banana ball’s and soon followed with two others the second being a superb low caught & bowled effort which was described as ‘were you tying your shoe lace mate’. Beefy retired to the dressing room after five overs to change is shirt and was replaced by Toad who found the swinging atmosphere to his liking, but the slope of the pitch a problem. Toad bowled well apart from the sixth bowl of his fifth over which took six efforts to ball legally. Greenie came off completing a credible spell and was replaced by Lethal who Jones’s felt lived up to his name bowling bouncer’s at one point. Beefy returned from the firing range end and preceeded to get taken for a few in his first over by the squash pro which included a four pushed round the post from Burbidge who made a tremendous ‘salmon-like’ effort to catch it. This was the only runs that Beefy conceded and bowled his remaining overs with a marksman like accuracy finishing with figures of 10 overs 5 maidens 1 for 19.

Chasing 153 should not normally be a problem, however due to the jungle grasslands of the outfield and the fact that the rain started to fall after 6 overs of our innings, things started to get complicated. Saturday Cup rules are based on run rate after 10 overs of the second innings (that is run rate over the full 35 overs of the team batting first), as Lethal rightly indicated to their skipper. A few superb pulls and square drives by messers Brewster and Waters saw us through the ten overs with a superior run rate which was kept going through out the innings. Greenie was lost early playing an indecisive pull and the colony players saw us to 97 before Soapy played all round a straight one claiming that he had to get back to the studio to read the news (which he did). It was up to Travalator to see us through with the fluent Brewster to the end of the innings and the win with 8 overs to spare. Ray played superbly especially his driving and cutting and kept concentration through the ever changing weather and the less than penetrating bowling.

Well done guys and hopefully we’ll get a game at KCC in this millenium.

At PTS: Police 153-7 (G Jones 36; Green 3-46) lost to Crusaders 154-2 (R Brewster 75*, N Waters 33) by 8 wkts

Saracens v. Kai Tak at Mission Road
Result: Saracens lost by 9 wkts

No report received.

At Mission Road: Saracens 186-6 (R Sharma 58, S Vachha 45; R Nuttal 4-39) lost to Kai Tak 189-1 (T Patidar 70, J Doubleday 85*) by 9 wkts

Rescheduled Match (Round 15) - 4th March 2000

Saracens v. Centaurs at KCC
Result: Saracens won by 30 runs

No report received.

At KCC: Saracens 187-9 (R Sharma 33) beat Centaurs 157 (Ogilvie 39; Y Vachha 4-22, R Sharma 3-39) by 30 runs

Sunday Cup/Plate Qulaifying Round - 19th March 2000

KCC Colts v. Fleet CC at Mission Road
Result: Colts won by 7 wickets

The day started badly with only 9 Colts players on the pitch for the start. This was how we were to play the entire game due to the absence of Roshan (AWOL) and Lal (on coaching duties). The Fleet CC was debuting in HK competitive cricket and fielded and interesting group of "mixed" crictekers who displayed an admirable amount of enthusiasm before the start.

Fleet batted first and their opening pair immediately took advantage of our smaller contingent of fielders by slashing at anything wide of the wicket to the boundry. Dinesh was generating some excellent pace off the bouncy Mission Road track, and stand in Skip Correa responded with a strong attacking field 3 slips, a gully and a short leg. This however resulted in more boundaries as no protection for the batsmen's edges and miss hits could be provded other than a fine leg. The Fleet were moving at over 7 an over until Danish finally made the breakthough thanks to a safe catch from Nassam who took a skyer from the main agressor Rajesh.

With his departure at 60 the scroring slowed and Skip Correa rung the changes bringing on Yorgi and Neeraj (Sava) Savalani. Sava provided the desired breakthrough in his first over with an LBW and he bowled extremely well on the day for 2 for 19 off his 7 overs. Sava has good pace but takes wickets because he bowls full and straight - something the other quicks can learn from.

Yorgi however proved to be the bowler of the day with his leg spin bamboozling the unprepared Fleet batsmen. He started by clean bowling the no4, then had the no 5 caught behind, then the next ball had the no 6 (and skipper) out first ball to a diving Correa catch. His hattrick was not to be, but he picked up 2 more wickets one bowled and one well stumped by Zubbie to finish with a well deserved 5 for 31 off 8 overs.

Skip Correa cleaned up the tail with 2 for 8 off 2 overs and the Fleet finished with 153 off 24 overs. Dinesh will be disappointed with his none for 36 off 6 after bowling well and Danish will be also unhappy with 1 for 35 off 5, but with 2 extra fielders next game and a better length they will improve. Fleet's top scorer was Ragunath with 71.

In reply Dytish and Tony Correa started again with a bang, with Dyish racing to 13 before again throwing his wicket away slicing one to cover - over eagerness with his shot selection again let him down against bowling that was really not up to his high stardards. Stand in skip Correa and Maurice steadied the skip with Maurice continuing his good form with a well compiled 36 which was laced with some beautiful drives and pulls. Tony C however saw the day through with a savage 75 not out against second rate bowling and was well supported at the end by both Nassam who showed much improvement with his strokeplay for 8 and Sava who shows promise as a batsman 7 not out.

In the end we managed to easily acheive our second win of the season in the 22rd over and successfully qualified for the main draw of the Sunday Cup. Well done lads we look forward to more highly prized scalps next.

At Mission Road: KCC Colts 155-3 ( A Correa 75* M Ling 36) beat Fleet CC 153 (P Raghunath 71; Y Mathani 5-31) by 7 wkts

Rescheduled League Match - 19th March 2000

Infidels v. Vagabonds at KCC
Result: Infidels won by 8 wickets

Surprising, clinical, professional and saddening were the expressions being used after the last Infidels league game of the season. Surprising due to the fact that the Captain had a squad of 13 to pick from (in the end he stood down), clinical and professional by the way the opposition were put to the sword, and saddening with another departure of a well known player from the club, ie, James Fu Cannell and family.

It was a surprise to us all to be playing a Sunday league game on grass not seen by many an Infidel on the Lord’s day for many a sabbath. Obviously the Holiest of Holy’s had for at least one weekend smiled upon us as after the ‘stand in’ Captain had lost another toss (carrying over his good fortune from Saturday’s) Third Degree Burns decided to bat on a ‘greenun’ perhaps thinking that the 338 his team scored not a few weeks before, against a well under strengthed and under numbered Infidels side, was not just a lucky fluke. ‘Oh’, as they say ‘two weeks is a long time in Hong Kong cricket’ especially at the KCC.

The initial overs of the Vags innings were of some concern with Niaz playing his well known and well used leg side clubbing shot from balls outside off stump, although one straight six was a good shot. The main brunt of this carnage was Fu Cannell bowling his last spell of the Sunday League and for the club. Beefy still claiming flu symptoms the result one fears of the ‘late night to much drink strange’ of the affliction that seems to lay him low most weeks, was firing at the Bowling Green End and with good pace and the ball doing loads off the seam accounted for the a fore mentioned Niaz with a ‘you beauty’ of a ball. With El Slogger gone the game followed some degree of normality with Fu settling into a good line and having Third Degree caught by Soapy Waters at midwicket. The Captain replaced the Beefster with Willy who continued his good form especially with the introduction of the girlfriend at the Pavilion end. Both Williams and Cannell bowled the line required and the catchers did the rest, with Fu finally coming off after 8 overs with his hammy apparently twanging to the tune of "Goodbyey, goodbyey wipe a tear Baby dear from your eyey’. Soapy was introduced and bowled three overs of licorice (ie., all sorts) and himself was relieved by Kruger McGill. McGillers has progressively improved since the start of the new millenium and proved in this game that things are looking rosie for him for the cup. He bowled well and swung and moved the bowl appreciably claiming two wickets and would have got more if there were any of their later order batsman who could get near his cherries. Eventually the fun had to come to an end with the introduction of Baggy Green after a commendable bowling performance by Willy and two further overs of speed from Beefy. Greenie produced the goods and at 12:35 innings closed. Fu Cannell lead everyone off to the cheers of the players and cries from the bar (reason uncertain??).

Farmie and Shiroy decided that an hour in the field was required before lunch could be taken and Teeks and Soapy were given the opportunity to finish the game off. Unfortunately both perished to some good seam bowling from the Vags and at 35 for 2 Greenie hobbled to the wicket (terminal piles evident as ever). Messers Horn (senior pro) and Green preceeded to belt the attack when the opportunity arrived (more to often for Third Degree) but in between played at missed again against a good crop of seamers. Brew Bags played a number of superb cuts, hooks and pulls and as ever Greenie treated anything with disgust which was to far up or to short. Lunch was taken at 75 for 2 and there was even enough to satisfy Shiroy’s palette. The end came soon after the resumption with the winning runs struck at 14:45.

The talk and the drink flowed for many hours after the close with memories of Fu’s five year career to live through. He will be sadly missed by all and we hope that when playing for HKCC he will act properly and be charitable with his deliveries. Good luck Jimbo, Sal and the kids from all of your friend’s at KCC.

At KCC (played 19.3.2000): Infidels 145-2 (R Brewster 60*, D Green 54*) beat Vagabonds 144 (V Niaz 30, S Ahmed 33; J Cannell 3-42) by 8 wkts

Resceduled League Matches - 12th March 2000

Templars v. Colts at Mission Road
Result: Templars won by 8 wickets

No report received.

At MR: Templars 78-2 (R Sharma 67*) beat Colts 75 (R Boganani 30; E Pereira 3-10) by 8 wkts

Infidels v. Friends XI at DBS
Result: Infidels lost by a walk-over

There is some confusion over the result of this match as the pitch was deemed unplayable by the umpires yet a result sheet conceding the match to Friends XI was signed by the Infidels' skipper.

Round 18 - 5th March 2000

Templars v. Friends XI at KCC
Result: Templars won 13 runs

A bright warm morning saw the Skip win the toss and elect to bat first.

The experimental pair of Amit Agarwal and Skip opened the innings against a very accurate Mohsin Hafiz and a not so accurate Amjad. Amit played some rasping cover and straight drives, with the Skip starting slowly, but steadily accumulating runs on the other end. With the score at 40 for none, the opposition had to call on Javed Iqbal to get the first breakthrough, getting rid of Amit caught at slip top edging a sweep. Trupty came to the crease looking very determined, played some beautiful lofted shots, but soon perished top edging an attempted hook. TR strode to the crease purposefully, played some authoritative, trademark TR shots but he too perished attempting to sweep and was bowled around his legs by Javed. The Skip at the other end realising that this may not perhaps be his day played himself into an anchor role holding one end up. Ravi joined him at the fall of TR's wicket and went about destroying the attack.. taking a particular liking to Gohar Ali. One particular shot stood out as shot of the match....a lofted extra cover drive for six... breathtaking stuff! But as has usually been the case with Ravi this season, got out bowled of his pads by Gohar - who obviously had the last laugh at Ravi's expense. Jaideep Malhotra joined Skip, did not last long given LBW by the Evil Umpire..Farhmy Jowarsha. Lama came in and after "playing himself in" started to show why he is such a dangerous customer in the closing stages of an innings.

The Skip meanwhile shifted gears, got to 89 and perished caught at long off. The CoC now joined Lama who after taking 20 off a Gohar Ali over perished to a diving caught & bowled by Aftab. Well...the stage was set once again for the Templars "Vets" Messrs. Vachha and Gohel. They played percentage cricket and showed the rest in the pavilion how the end overs are truly gone through. 50 came off 6 overs...Bharat played some deft late cuts, glides, a lofted drive for six, while Yarman was demonstrating his powers with the willow with some rocket like backfoot extra cover drives of Amjad and Aftab. In the end the Templars ended with 264 for 8 with the opposition coming in three overs short.

The Friends innings started with Lama bowling the first over to the dangerous Shabir. After stroking a brilliant cover drive of Lama, Shabir stood in complete disbelief in seeing his flashing back-cut held by the CoC at deep third-man...it was a complete blinder, one handed, taken over the left shoulder. Ravi too, responded brilliantly by getting rid of Anoop Nainani and Mohsin Hafiz in a spate of three overs. With Friends on the back-foot the Skip introduce spin in the form of Yarman and himself.

The bowling was kept rotating between CoC, Yarman, Erle and the Skip. Yarman got Gohar Ali caught behind by Amit and had in-form Amjad lbw, while Erle got rid of Javed, not before Gohar had made 40, and Javed 35, for their side respectively. The presence of Aftab at the crease meant that Friends would not give up without a fight. He found an ally in Sharry Malik. Aftab, as usually is the case got a quickfire 60, major portion of his runs coming in sixes. He took 26 runs of an Erle over, and it took the skipper to dismiss him with a yorker. Sharry carried on the fight till the end, and in the company of Tari Ahmad, Sandeep and Amit nearly pulled it off. Tari was stumped by Amit off Skip's bowling and a suicidal runout saw the Templars scraping through by 13 runs.

Mention here also for the quality bowling in the end overs by Yarman, Lama and the Skip. The Templars fielding was brilliant in phases.

At KCC: Templars 264-8 (R Sharma 89; J Iqbal 3-51) beat Friends XI 251-9 (A Ahmed 57, G Ali 44) by 13 runs

Colts v Scorpions at HKCC
Result : Colts lost by 67 runs

The Colts recoreded a disappointing loss to a very average Scorps line up at the HKCC . In our first game at one of the "two clubs" in several weeks we disappointed the HKCC members with a poor fielding effort where 8 catches were droppped. Unfortunately our poor fielding was compounded by the absence of regular w'keepers Brian Lowcock (on another drug raid) and Ritesh (who was dancing with Rohan at the Indian festival) and substitute keeper Zubair Nizami who performed manfully at his first try with the gloves.

Of course by dropping players of the calibre of Tim Smart and John Powell 3 times each we were asking for trouble and they proceeded to hit what can only be described as poor centuries against our attack which did not perfom too badly on the small HKCC ground. If only we had held our catches it maight have been a different story. In the end Scorps rattled off 279 for 4 off their 50 overs. Neeraj, and Lethers were the best of our bowlers.

Our reply was positive early with Dyutish continuing on in his sterling form, blasting both openers with some cracking pull shots and drives to the boundry. Unfortunately for the 3rd week in a row he threw it away trying to push the score too quickly and his 30 off less than 5 overs left everyone feeling robbed of what could have been a brillant and more importantly long innings. Dyutish has a talent which is currently being wasted due to an over eagerness to hit every ball he faces. He must learn to be more SELECTIVE with his shotmaking - remain agressive but temper his attacking urges silghtly so as not to throw his wicket away. If he can achieve this balance there is not reason why he should not be scoring 50's every week.

After his departure in-form Tony Correa was clean bowled playing down the wrong line, but pleasingly Maurice Ling took up the mantle as senior pro and played very well for his top score of the season - 61. Maurice sometimes suffers from Dytish's problem of overeagerness as he sees the ball very early and hits the ball very hard when in form. He has come a long way this season and has settled into no 3 to such an extent that next season he should be a big contributor for the Colts.

The Colts pleasingly saw the emergence of Wickram who in his first game scored an excellent 25 providing good support for Maurice and hit some excellent boundaries. He has potential and should play more on a Sunday to improve his game. Raj, Neeraj, and Nassam were unlucky and will improve and Skip Lethers and Dinesh impressed at the end with some lusty hitting to push our score to 212 for 9.

In the end a disappointing result against a very beatable team. We hope to meet them in the Cup!

At HKCC: Scorpions 279-4 (T Smart 113, J Powell 113) beat KCC Colts 212-9 (M Ling 61; MLever 3-35) by 67 runs

Infidels v Vagabonds at DBS
Result : Infidels won by 6 wickets

I have learnt not to get too disappointed when on a Friday afternoon I have only seven or eight players, but recently I have been able to count the definite number of people able to play by a quick whip around my living room. Jack is always keen, but I haven't been able to convince his mother of his suitability when playing at DBS. She is concerned, and rightly so, that he may get lost at the Neck(a.k.a Gallipoli) which lurks just near the deep mid wicket boundary, amongst the assorted mongrel dogs and Tai Chi proponents.

However with a cast of thousands absent I sent the Regiment bugler to pipe the call to arms and summoned from upon high, what I believed to be a capable bunch of recruits. I thought I was even going to be able to give the old salty sea dog a weekend of respite, as he did have a broken thumb, but alas this was not to be. Eleven able bodied men quickly turned into seven so an emergency call was made to Jim Cannell and his brother Steve, whom was visiting from the UK, to see if they could fill an ever increasing hole in the off side. As always Jim came through and even with a broken thumb, he committed and gave his all. He even offered a bit of Steve, but fortunately no one took up the offer. This brought us almost to squad strength with nine.

So with everybody raring to go we headed to DBS for the game. There was almost the opportunity to snaffle the odd under 13 to help us out, but one look at Damo from the kids parents and the chance vanished on the slowly rising sou-easter. After the coin throw we were sent into the field and then set about trying to defend with the nine men. Brad Tarr put in a superb effort with his opening spell, ably backed by Jimbo. Once these two had completed their first overs the ball was thrown to Kev McGill who was doing a fine job until he was bitten by a rouge Tetsi fly that had escaped from the DBS CDC laboratory. At one stage I thought he was going to pass out, but I soon sorted him out by offering him one of two options. First he could either run from deep mid off to deep mid off, or deep cover to deep cover. I can't remember which he took, because there were so few of us on the pitch, that I had trouble recognising people over the vast distances.

So what did we have left to fill the gap before I could bring Jim and Brad back on. Well let's look at it. I've never seen Travis bowl, but the attendant in the men's toilet at the club assures me that he is a chucker; Steve (Jim's brother) was such a fit looking steed that we could not afford to have him do anything other than cover vast tracts of land, because let's face you always get the new guy to do the shitty job. The above being the state of play I turned to the only remaining three on the field that weren't wearing Humphrey Bear hands. Jard's, Damo and myself put in what surely will never be deemed a match winning bowling performance. The final score 9/338.

What therefore remains to be told? The casualty report. Well Jim Cannell managed to pull a hamstring, but was unlikely to bat anyway and Kev McGill retired to the shade to wait for the big rains to come. He fashioned a raft out of a high jump mat just in case, if he was swept away in the flood, he would still have the chance to settle somewhere north of the Zambesi. So the line up was probably down to six.

Now I have done a little bit of research this afternoon and it is my belief, from the scant records that the HKCA does have, the winning total of 339 for the loss of four wickets is probably the largest total chased and got in the competition in it's current format. As to how we got there can only be put down to one man and that is Damian Green. He punished the ball to all parts of the ground, in front of at times what was quite decent bowling. His final tally was 184. I don't think I need to keep expounding the virtues of Damo because as we are all too aware in the heart of this man lurks a Banjo poem. You may have to be Antipodean to understand this but I'm not going to explain. I will add that the Geebung Polo Club is one of the greatest poems ever written. In my opinion of course. So well done to the nine braves souls that took part. I for one thought that we were always in with a chance - I do hasten to add that we are capable of these totals against most opposition in the League. Ah! but that is another story. Final score the Infidels beat the Vagabonds by six wickets.

At DBS: Infidels 340-4 (D Green 184, S Scanlon 103; V Niaz 4-117) beat Vagabonds 338-9 (T Graban 105*, V Niaz 65, B Tarr 3-79) by 6 wkts