We lost our second game to Flames. The conditions were far from perfect, it was brutally cold and windy at WP. Flames batted first and scored 203. Kiran, as usual, was his steady best before Athreya got one to nip back in to catch him in front of the wicket. Dr Rafiq top scored with 60 odd runs(helped with three dropped catches) and Venkat chipped in with 30 odd runs. With the wind blowing southward, it was hard to score to score off the Southern end and Flames did well to post 203.
Phoenix started sedately, with both bowlers Nasir and Yousef maintaining a very steady line. Nasir bowled against the wind and still managed to keep it quick. We scored 13 runs of the first 10 overs. Considering that were were chasing a smaller target, it wasnt a bad start, but we lost both openers quickly. Aditya, started slow but then opened up very well. Athreya started well, but was out caught behind of Harish. Sameer and Aditya put on a good partnership, before Sameer top edged to slips. Aditya and I had a good partnership, going before this new 15 year old kid, Amin trapped Aditya in front. He doesnt have a smooth run up, but he can bowl fast and can makes the ball skid of the surface. With guidance from Nasir, Yousef and Kiran, am sure he will only get better. Mitul and Priyank played well(our reqd run rate was at 6), but Mitul got run out when he was looking dangerous. Even though Priyank continued the fight, he soon ran out of partners.
We have lost two games both close ones.. with a little more application we could have probably been 2 up. We now face Pak at WP next Sunday. We will have to play really good cricket to beat Pak.
Congratulations to the Flames and especially to Nasir for picking up a 5-fer.
Well, on a good bright warm (perfect cricket playing weather)day at the scenic Univ of Whitewater cricket ground, MUCC captain Prasad won the toss for a second time in a row and decided to bat first.
MUCC openers Sharath and Sadiq put on 75 runs in the first 15 overs and yours truly was the first to be dismissed caught at third man of first change bowler Shankar for a well made 30.
From a very healthy situation of 76/1 of 16 overs, MUCC could only muster 40 runs in the next 13 overs with the other opener Sadiq being at his best and scoring a classic 34. The top order were constrained amidst the run drought brought on by some accurate slow bowling of United, particularly from southpaw Samarth who started off with 3 straight maidens in his opening spell. Good feilding, smart catching and tight field placements by UCC added to this scenario........the score card now read 139/5 after about 35 overs.
The middle order struggled before Bunty showed up and played one of his characteristic Bunty innings of 45. He was ably supported by Uday, AJ, Javed and Prashanth who all chipped in, with 10+ scores.
At the end MUCC posted a very decent 203/8 of the allotted 45 overs. Although we felt 225 was something we should have got to, given the start we had, it was a great sight to see our key batsmen come back to form early in the season and we took pride in bouncing back from our batting disaster of last week agst Roger'Park. We were also appreciative of the fact that we batted out the 45 overs much like what we did last year (IIRC, I am not sure on this, but I guess MUCC might have played the most 45 over games without being bowled out while batting first last year).
UCC started off ther run chase aggresively scoring about 30 runs in the first 4 overs. Opener Sadiq then came up with an inspired spell of 5 overs after his first 2 overs forcing edges from opener Adnan and one down Faisal while beating some other batsmen outside off often. He was ably supported by the other opening bowler, captain Prasad. From 30/0 in 4 overs, UCC were contained to 47/2 after 13 with MUCC just operating with its new ball bowlers. Enter the tested and trained spinning trio of Javed, Bunty and Shyam.
Shyam and Javed piled on the pressure with some maidens and tight spells while chipping in with 2 wickets apiece. Bunty joined the fray with his leg spin magic and claimed a wicket on his way to a 4 over first spell. Medium pacer Shashi helped provide variety while ensuring that his initial economy rate was stingy.
The score in the run chase now read 97/7 at the end of the 27th over. Mehul was at the crease at this time for about 10 overs and had been given two lives early in his innings including a sitter that went down of Bunty at short mid wicket.
He and Snehal (I guess) put on 60+ runs for the 8th wicket stand before Snehal fell for a hard run well made crucial 25. Dhiraj joined the proceedings with UCC requiring 31 of 3, 21 of 2 and 10 of 1 and pulled it off with 2 fours in the final over. UCC thus won with 3 balls to spare and 2 wickets on hand.
The match definitely defined what character and heart mean in sport. Any one watching would have to look back at the 71* that man of the match Mehul Shani came up with after bowling 9 overs and fielding for 45. His hard running, controlled aggression and ball placement were excellent and his patience and confidence that this can be done was noteworthy. Most players panic wilting under the pressure of such a herculean task with depleting resources, mounting run rate and falling wickets but not Mehul. His determination and maturity were admirable.
Great innings buddy Mehul.
Congrats to UCC for a well faught win and congrats to both teams for a good hard day of exciting meaningful cricket.
MUCC, chin up, no hard feelings, we fought and we gave it away via relaxing a bit in the middle overs. Scores of misfeilding, dropped catches, some sitters, lack of effort cost us while we let our emotions and frustration take over later on. We were the better team on the field for most of the game but we lost to a more relaxed and determined team later on. Lets understand and accept that.
Let us now sit back and look at what needs to be done to improve fielding and running between the wkts which are and will always be the main mantras of modern day cricket. This is where UCC beat us.
With the anticipated return of Satya and Todd in mid June and the confirmed return of veterans Badri, Arvind and promising new comer Dipen starting next week, we should be back to winning ways, more importanly putting in consistent performances and effort day in and day out as we aim to ape what we did over the last 2 years in Div-1 MWCC.
Once again congrats to both teams, special word of appreciation for MOM Mehul and Thank you for a job well done to umpire Sadiq Yusuf.
AAA just beat muslim gymkhana AAA 200 all out muslim 192 all out in 43.5 overs really hard foght game from bot teams Sadik Patel 6 for very little congrats AAA on our first victory
AAA won the toss and decided to bat first. Openers Sadik and Imran built a decent partnership of 48 in 11 overs. AAA were off to a decent start. Abdul came in at one down and started off sedately but then got going as he smashed 5 sixes in an aggresive 54. Muslim Gymkhana were in a state of panic at this stage but they brought in their slow bowlers and this did the trick as AAA were restricted to 200. Sadik did the rest as he took 6 for 31 in his 9 over spell. Hafez Adam gave him good support with 3 for 41. Fellow paceman Ibrahim picked up the remaining wicket and AAA pulled off a win in a close game. Congrats to AAA for their first win in DIV 1. Special recognition for Abdul and Sadik. I wish AAA the best of luck for the rest of year.
Wildcats won the toss and decided to bat, lost both openers quickly, following which Ajit and Sanjay steadied the boat. Irfan bowled well and was rewarded with wickets. At drinks, the score read 97 for 4. Ajit continued to bat solidly as his partners departed at a regular interval.Ajit left to a good catch for a well made 56.At one stage the wildcats were 140 for 9. This is when Atul joined Vinod. Vinod made his presence felt in his very first game as a wildcat, he made a swashbuckling 36 off an equal number of balls and put up a 40 run 10th wicket partnership with Atul, who played a very solid innings himself.There are a few moments when we regret not having the luxury of replays and that moment came when Vinod picked one ball that was good length and short-arm-jab-pulled it and deposited it way over the deep square leg boundary.WC ended up with 180. The chargers started reasonably well but the WC pacers kept them in check.Irfan batted well and hit some good boundaries and a six. But they kept losing wickets at a regular interval and after the drinks break, Krishna bowled a very tight spell. The chargers got all out for some 80 odd runs. Batting remains a concern for the WC, except for a couple batsmen that played well. We'll have to improve in that department, and pretty quickly. Romeen
2006 Div 1 Champs Pak Gym barely managed to squeeze out a victory over last year's Div 2 runners up Capitol. Capitol restricted the high flying Pak Gym batting to just 181 and then knocked up 139 for 3 before collapsing through a flurry of lbw's for 174 all out. New Comer Surjeet made a superb unbeaten 104 for Capitol. But, the big news was the first ball LBW dismissal of Satha by Imran.
As I said before the and will again Pak Gym are OVER-RATED.. If I am the best why would I make a living stealing to maintain my greatness? Ha ha .. GOT to cheat Satha and his boys to beat them huh? Well Capital thats the disadvantage of playing in Div 1 its like the mafia...
Just heard (thru the Umpire Grapevine ;-) that Milwaukee Cricket Club beat the Bears in a squeaker. Milwaukee apparently made 172 or so, and Bears were allout for 157 to lose by 15 runs.
So, only one result in Division One outstanding so far (ie a result we havent heard yet)...and thats one of the fun-nest games of the season, the Royal Challenge, the Annual Patel Battle :-)...anyone heard anything yet?
------- As I said before the and will again Pak Gym are OVER-RATED.. If I am the best why would I make a living stealing to maintain my greatness? Ha ha .. GOT to cheat Satha and his boys to beat them huh? Well Capital thats the disadvantage of playing in Div 1 its like the mafia... -------
Hey, steady on guys, lets at least find out details before we accuse anyone of cheating (especially an umpire). Its not like LBW isnt a legitimate form of dismissal - we dont even know yet if even Capitol thought they were harsh LBWs! As for Pak Gym being overrated... they lost *one game* on the field in the whole of last season in Division One! What sort of rating *should* we have for them for 2006, with that sort of record, other than "best team in the league all year"? :-)
Traditionally, the umpire for places like Springfield and Peoria etc are not from Chicago - we try and put umpires from the region itself, so there is less travel involved. I dont know who actually umpired this game, but it was listed to be Tanveer Alam (who is the captain of CCI, the Division Two team from the University of Illinois). If it was actually him... Tanveer umpired a couple of Division One games last year (in Purdue), and most people had nothing but good reports for his umpiring. And having met and intereacted with Tanveer a few times when I umpired UIUC games, he is a very nice guy, he has has played his share of good level cricket and has a good knowledge of the game, and is the last person one would ever expect to show bias between two sides as an umpire (especially since he has never seen one of the sides ever before in his life :-)
Lets just wait before we rush to condemn the umpire here (we get condemned easily enough as it is, at least dont hang us before the facts have even come in :-)
That was the whisky I used to drink when I was in India. It didn’t get me very high, but it definitely gave me a hangover the next day. The Patel cup was a Royal challenge! At least for me…
It didn’t start of very good, as we all waited for the umpire and after about half hour wait, we figured out that the umpire was trying to hitch a ride as his car was stuck in the middle of no where. It was mother’s day and spending 9 hours away from your family was not the best idea, but to make matters worse, we didn’t start until 11:15 am. It was decided that we will play a 40 over game instead of 45.
Challengers won the toss and decided to bat. It was little cloudy, besides that, it was a great day at Community Park. The openers got off to a flying start, put their heads down and batted till the break, which is very unusual for challengers, but we like the unusual once in a while. The openers put a brilliant 120 at the 20 over mark.
After the break, we lost both the openers. With some pressure induced by Royals, challengers kept loosing wickets at steady pace. The slow bowlers from Royals did a fantastic job as they teased the middle order and got wickets at regular intervals. If not for a cameo from Buchio (I crack up every time I say that), we would have not made 175. We were bundled out for 198 in 39 overs. (After being 120/0 in 20 overs, you do the math..)
Royals started of well with some nice drives off of Daxx. And then there was some amazing display of Swing Bowling, it was like daxx, Sanjay and Nilesh were giving all of us a lesson on swing bowling. Royals were reduced to 24/8 in 15 overs.
We thought we will have some extra beer time before we go home, but the tail wagged for Royals and it wagged really well. They managed to hang around for another 15 -17 overs and scored another 50 odd runs to get bundled out for 84.
So, like I said, I’m still hung-over from yesterday, from a good win…thanks to Royal Challenge!
Its good to see another new player, Srujeet(Capitol) make his presence felt right away. To score a century against Pak is definitely a good achievement. Can somebody in Capitol give us more details about the innings and the player?
A sincere request to all teams to also update scorecards and weekly summary before Monday morning.
Death Dealer said... Royals top order needs to pick up the GAME, Challenger had a lucky day ..
hey by the time you see royals top order start picking up the game another 4 season gone by. royals trying to pick up there game since they came to division 1. i think royal had a lucky day that challenger didn't put close to 300 in 40 over after the way they got flying start. challenger do not need lucky day to win the game. they need 5 guys need to perform out of 11 and they can beat anyone. other thing is royal were 18 for 7 down since it was a lucky day for them they didn't got all out for 25. cause when you see score board sanjay didn't finish his spell as well as rupesh. i am thinking challenger didn't want to go for kill instead they took different route and maybe decided to experience little more since they had tough time against phenoix.
let's ask sheikhs who is new comer to challenger. let's get his word for challeger. after playing 2 games for challenger what do you think of challenger.
as long as challnger as daxx bowling his best and with bat he gets fired up challenger is hard to get. with nilesh/ sanjay's last game performence they can get any team. they got rupesh this year who can be very useful. sanjay need to bowl like he did against royal more often then we just have to see daxx, nilesh and rupesh taking on other team.
i till think challenger and pak is the best and both very talented and hard to get team. both team do not need lucky day. they need couple of their player to do their jobs and they are good to go. whoever playing against them they need more than a lucky day to beat them.
cricketwallah, the umpire for the capitol and Pakgymkhana game was tanveer alam (captain of CCI, a div II team). Tanveer is a fair guy and has no relationship to Pakgymkhana. As a former player of CCI, it is very offensive to read such accusations of bias about him. Please stop making baseless accusations.
"let's ask sheikhs who is new comer to challenger. let's get his word for challeger. after playing 2 games for challenger what do you think of challenger"
I got to say, they are a bunch of fun loving guys....I joined just for the festivities after the game.......win or lose.
But now I have to learn Gujarati...just bought a book..Gujarati in 15 days...
sorry for not getting ICC scores and summary in as yet. We had a fun day at the park yesterday and I still feel a little dizzzzzy. Will enter the scores once I am able to find our score book. We had an easy game. finished early after scoring over 300 we bowled the young and inexperienced Acers out for 40 couple. So, as usual we had more drinking time and party we did. I see a lot of interesting things happened over the week end. My brain is hurting so i will most likely blog later today or tomorrow.
Mastakilla, Can you all add more players to your rooster. You have only 10 people and we need to enter 11. Is there any monitoring by our league to make sure we have at least 11 people on the rooster???
well let me tell to all those people who don't like pak for some unknown reasons.. sayin that pak is over rated...they suck as a team....they have been winning their games for last 2-3 years consistently...no one has played better cricket than them...and they r going to defend their title and will go all the way...any team who think can challenge them...i dare you to do so before playing the match with them.....
zulfi why would a team say that before the game.. so they can go pay off people to get bogus calls? Man they win like cheaters..not like Champs mr fast_n_furious were u there? whn they were playing the match...man this thing is getting so old cheaters n all that....capital had their own umpire who used to do umpiring before for them......so shut the f*** up n stop making excuses for not winning the match....they have always won like champs n will in future...
zulfi said, they have been winning their games for last 2-3 years consistently...no one has played better cricket than them...and they r going to defend their title and will go all the way...any team who think can challenge them...i dare you to do so before playing the match with them.....
well zulfi let me tell you this they only won last year championship, so stop bithching about it. don't you go around and ask team to challenge pak before match. you should ask pak gym to dare to challenge other team who will be playing against them. don't you remember wildcats chased 300+ and won. last year challenger almost had them. this is united, challenger or wildcats will show pak what's cricket about.
well zulfi let me tell you this they only won last year championship, so stop bithching about it. don't you go around and ask team to challenge pak before match. you should ask pak gym to dare to challenge other team who will be playing against them. don't you remember wildcats chased 300+ and won. last year challenger almost had them. this is united, challenger or wildcats will show pak what's cricket about.
well mr guess u don't have much of a clue about past matches....u r just being jealous of them and their talent...no doubt their r good teams like wildcats,united,challengers n st.louis(nowdyz)...but pak came back strong after losing a final match against wildcats which they should have won...they don't have players moving in n out alot like other teams.....that what makes the difference and keeps them united all the time.....good luck to them for this season...
Rup, I have spoken to the captain about this as i dont enter the stuff on the internet. They have decided that one of the inexperienced guys should do it so thats that. I'm sorry for the inconvenience.
This is Rashid Khan captain of Pak Gymkhana..... to all those teams n guys who think we cheated against Capital...i would tell them to f*** off n get a life...if Capital wants to play against us again we don't mind that...they had their own umpire that day..who was doing the job for last couple of years for them...no body complaint about that umpire up to now....as far as i know Capital has said nothing so far.....it's just those guys who don't like Pak Gymkhana at all...well to all those bloggers who are bitching about Pak Gym now...ther r going to continue doing that till the season ends...so keep doing that guys...that what motivates us alot....RUP u get into DIV 1 n then start saying about us...i don't think that u did anything when u were in DIV 1 against us...
zulfi your team is NO GOOD... Just over hyped sour losers... So you solve the sour loser part by making sure you get all the calls in the games go your way...You guys know it too.. My gripe fyi is not over the capital game its based on over the years bro... As for you and rup thats another story. But I think he can do a number on your team even at his age... and now he has a good side kick I hear...
When did Rup diss Pak Gymkhana? I went through this whole thread like four times and couldn't find anything. And don't get angry with one or two fools man, Pak Gymkhana are the defending champs. They don't need to prove anything to anyone.
This is Rashid Khan captain of Pak Gymkhana..... to all those teams n guys who think we cheated against Capital...i would tell them to f*** off n get a life... -------------------------- Listen up people...captain of PAK GYM sums up their attitude
radhid..chill out man u might lose hair...ooppps...my bad..
guys guys.. take it easy. First of all, lets not use this forum to personally attack teams / individuals. Second, we dont know if Zulfi is Rashid or someone else claiming to be Rashid.
neanderthal_walking I love how you exposed their attitude... Awesome! yes and Rup Never spoke badly of Pak gym but once again they act like they are God...
Jaggi... Just some pleasant fun man.. nothing personal... Its all cricket all the time... But Pak Gym SUCKS for real.. Attitude that is.. lol
Guys, Rashid Khan spoke with Jaggi - He had nothing to do with the post above. He has not even looked at this -- Whoever is doing this, please stop abusing this forum. Thank You. Hari
I guess taking a shot at me, Zulfi hope to get me on his page of uncalled for comments. Secondly even if I don't make it to Div 1 it would not make me a lesser person or cricketer. I still love being on the field and hopefully my performance help my team win. An old guy told me once when i first started playing " son, respect is earned and not given and you will only earn it to the extent of what you put in". Look at Australia, and if you were to take a census on them 8 of 10 will say can wait to see their behind get kicked because the act very unsportsman like sometimes.
Guys... I was driving to school when I recieved a call from Rashid. As Hari mentioned above, he guaranteed that he had nothing to do with the comments above.
For the record, Pak Gymkhana had nothing to do with the umpire at Capitol. We need to stop spreading rumors of this kind.. it does no good to anybody.
This blog is now read all over the world.. we had hits from Australia, Asia and Europe. Hari can probably expand on this even more.
Please recognize that what is fun to a few may not be true to others. Lets concentrate on the game and not on petty finger pointing exercises. Please !!
hey guys, to(pak gym ):you guys can bribe the umpires then let me know those umpire name so i can try it:) just joking..
umpire can be wrong sometime giving decision but that doesnot mean team has to do something with it. in all those year i seen so many time good umpires made worng decision, but guys that's cricket all about. i think most of the umpire in this league is doing nice jobs. i don't think any umpire can be bribe by anyone..not even tariq himself can do it. not only playing our game but watching other games i have learn so many time that umpire does call wrong decision in this leauge. when decision comes in team favour team never argue, but as soon as decision goes other way all team start bithching about it. guys in real time game umpire has couple of second to make call. i think most umpire doing it right. lbw is always going to be problem. i have seen it in international games too. umpire can only give decision on base of what he has see it. everyone sees differently, as long as they are consistion that's all matter. well even this year most of the umpire being trained so that might help a lot.
wat r ur guys prediction for this weeknd game i think mcc should set up a all star game on tha july 4th weekend wit sponsers so they can raise money alot of ppl will come to watch i kno its still may but getting this talk out early unlike wat happn last yr we started talking about it to late
Like I said the IDEA page was and will be always be a joke if what the players put up there are hardly ever considered. The players wanted an all star game but management came up with mini world cup. The want to hold this on Labor day week end. I don't know about you all but ICC uses these holiday week ends for Family outings seeing we dedicate the entire summer for cricket. I was asked to get a West Indies Team put together but prelim conversations say we may not be able to Field a WI team for this week end unless family plans are cancelled. We play this long draging season over 5 months yet nothing has realy changed to excite cricket in MCC. Look around the world and tell me who has done nothing to modernize the game. I personally have asked quite a few to get this season start earlier so we can have more time off and not the finals in October. I was told the weather in April and grounds are not ok for cricket..BALONEY. The players of MCC are like the employees of a Company. Management needs to listen to them and take their opinions seriously or at some point in time, when they have had enough they will either take over the Company or look for work in this case Cricket elswhere!!!!.
Does any one have any idea if the teams that won their respective leagues last year will be awarded with anything at all? We normally have a pre season banquet but for some reason there was none this year.
Ok time pass. What if we have a shorter regular season Lets say 10 games then the playoffs. this wil last 13 weeks.
Then we take the top 12 teams from DIV 1 and top 12 teams from DIV 2 and make 8 groups of 3 with 8 group winners and 4 wild cards(NRR) this will last 5 weeks.(players from teams that did not qualify can only transfer to teams in their respective DiV's) or no transfers allowed so they will perform if the want to play the second tournament. Would this not be more exciting
rup the weather was not okay in april to start tha games earlier unless we hav an indoor stadium which is impossible to get so i think they dont hav much of a choice its prob too much games im gussin either that or no off weekends cause when playoffs come it gets cold so they hav to do something about there are not any intresting games going on this weekend are they most of them are one sided
Zakir, What city you live in cause I remember the last two week ends in April were both above 70 degrees and Sunny. That i think is still much better than snow in early october
okayy bro but most of tha teams were not evn ready u kno they need to worm up it happns in evryy sports baseball basketball socer cricket u name it think about it u dont play cricket the whole winter n just got ur butt up and go to tha ground and start playing and get injured so rup think about it o yea i was bored and looking through tha stats everybody knows ur good but cmon man giv somebody else a chance in bowling u been dominating it since 3-4 years been in top 15 all tha years except one yr. man wonder how u play in div 1 like satha like rup evvrything is tha same but opposite ones bowling ones batting lets see how satha does in div 1 ull get ur chance next yr prob
Zakir Teams who r serious about their cricket do practice in winter & workout daily. Other just play 4 fun so it doesn't matter to them if u start the league in april or may but if we start the league in april we will play the playoff in much warm weather. Cricket. About MDS i think they moved to ACC with couple of other Hyderabadi Teams because they r not happy with the management & management don't care about them either. It's just my observation maybe i am wrong.
Rup, Mostly i agree with u. Couple of week earlier you suggest that we should have a Players Association i agree with you completely i think u should work on that for the sake of the game.
why are good teams moving to acc MDS was a good team as long as reasons are n't personal I guess we all want know what broke down MCC can work to see that does happen again Justice can you dig up what happened or one of mds guys reading this post something
Deccan Blues also moved to ACC. I think that these teams are moving to ACC because there are no traveling games. All games are played in the Chicagoland Areas. I was told this reason by the captain of Deccan Blues the last time i saw him a couple of weeks ago. Just thought i would let you guys know. Suburban moved because they had problems with the managment.
My 2 cents ... there is a large Hyderabadi community in ACC and around the Glendale Heights area .. is it a coincidence that the departing teams are predominently Hyderabadi?
If these teams left because they couldn't handle the travel, then too bad for them. I personally don't think the traveling is all that bad. Out of the 15 games in Division I, only 4-5 are played outside Chicago.
Its also good to have teams from all around the Midwest. The inclusion of teams like Milwaukee United, St.Louis and Purdue only elevates the level of competition in the league.
If MCC keep up the type of scheduling the are doing right now you will probably see ICC out of MCC also. Family is such an important part of society and yet little considerations is given to it by this current management to keep teams or individuals in MCC. Back a couple years it did not matter much but, currently most of these same players have extended their families and the need to spend more time there. This is going to become a big factor in how many of the Current MCC cricketers stick with MCC. MCC needs to be proactive rather that problem solving. Shorten the season for now by 3 game to 11 so players can spend more time with their families. In between Host a world cup style comp for teams or singles where family don't cause any issue.
Tango..I must disagree with you on the travelling thing. It's a big issue and will get bigger. Ex.. collinsville. You leave chicago at 5 am and get back around 1 am the next day. The whole day is gone so guys with family will take their familes cause it summer. Aprox cost for fuel will be around 100.00 that is if gas dont go up. so five games like this per season you are out about 700.00 travel expense, add memberships to MCC and we look at $1000.00 just to play cricket. If you afford it great. If you are single and car pool great. if you are married and keep this up, at some point you either become single again or quit to keep the family..your choice. Cut the game per season down, lessen traveling time, Bring those teams from down under to play in chicago for the same amount of games chicago teams have to travel. schedule games with reasoning so that the travel time is fair to all teams. EG last season ICC went to Sprigfield, Jolly rovers, & peoria back to back to back. The wallet got low on the third game. Not a lot of teams can handle these types of schedules.
-------- If these teams left because they couldn't handle the travel, then too bad for them. I personally don't think the traveling is all that bad. Out of the 15 games in Division I, only 4-5 are played outside Chicago.
Its also good to have teams from all around the Midwest. The inclusion of teams like Milwaukee United, St.Louis and Purdue only elevates the level of competition in the league. -------
BTW, it is true that Deccan Blues and Suburban left for ACC I think.. but I dont believe MDS has moved to ACC. The team just broke up, from what Ive heard. It was a team with a lot of former Continental players in it, and 4 of the 11 have IIRC returned to Continental. Munir (the captain) isnt playing anymore anywhere from what I hear. Altaf (Syed Khadry) has moved to Advancers. I believe Asif Ali may have gone to the ACC as an individual, not sure... Dr Akbar isnt playing at the moment from what I hear, but may play for some team in our league soon enough anyway. But MDS as a team never went anywhere - only some of their individuals at most (and no more than 3 or 4) went to the ACC I think.
As for travel etc.. it is something MCC will have to consider seriously in the future I think. Currently one can say there are only 4-5 games of travel, but thats increasing (as most of the new teams are outside Chicago - Moline and a new Peoria last year, Edwardsville this year). Also, there is a discrepancy in Division One and Division Two - Div1 has 5 away teams, but 2 of them are in Milwaukee (which is really the shortest travel there is - for North burb folk, its about as far as Washington Park :-)
Division Two is where the crunch will probably come sometime - there are now 8 away teams in Div2, and they are all *far* away, the closest trip is probably Urbana, and thats 2.5-3 hours away. This year there is both Collinsville *and* Edwardsville, which are almost as far as St Louis, and they arent on the same weekend (ie you might have to travel there twice!) Div2 could have 5 or 6 travel games even this year I think (after all, 8 away teams are hard to schedule otherwise), and if you have Edwardsville, Collinsville, Peoria, Moline, Madison etc, that is a lot of time spent on the road in one season.
One solution, of course, is to have sufficient grounds in Chicago, and then make the away teams come to Chicago for at least 4-5 games each. Thats probably the best long-term solution.
If that isnt feasible.. just skew more regional eventually if possible? Maybe down the road, there can be a division with a couple St Louis teams, a couple Springfield teams, a couple Peoria teams, Collinsville, Edwardsville etc... they will all be within an hour of each other maybe, and then 2 or 3 teams come out of that division to Chicago for the playoffs? Just an idea.. and its probably a ways in the future, when there is more equalization in the quality of these teams etc (until this year, only 1 of the above teams was in Division One, for example; this year 2 are, with Capitol's promotion; once the teams get closer in strength, maybe something like the above may be possible? Just an idea)
There is the likelihood of going to 3 divisions next season (something that is desperately needed - there is a *large* discrepancy in teams near the top and near the bottom of Division Two IMHO). When this happens Div2 may be even more crunched - it is possible that several of the current away teams will end up in Div2, not Div3. Once there are 17 teams in Div2 and everyone is playing everyone.. then having more than 5 or so away teams will make things very difficult on Div2 teams. In the future this is something MCC will have to think about very hard, possibly.
Well said Rup you covered genuine problems but home ground teams do incurr stuff like lunch we pay $50X12 games (3 away games currently norm for home teams) that's 600$ right there exepense for home team. We do try to up keep the pitch as much possible and run up. As per your advice (last year)we did purchase 2X4 and tarps for rainy days ($150)..We do up here quite a bit of work to up keep. I personally feel (good suggestion is) teams that are away by atleast > 3hrs travel time should find or schedule games on intermediary grounds (Not all games)..for instance Peoria (St Louis, Collinsville,Chicago teams), Bloomington (suppose to have gotten a ground)(Purdue Chicago matches or CCI ground or Sprigfield) so that burden won't be entirely on one team to travel 3 hrs or more..its just a thought. Definitely family life is affected as ourselves, PCC travelled 2 games in a row to Collinville and Springfield back to back can vouch. Management should take this into consideration. Just a thought...another good thought is to change the current model of div1 and div-II..make mix both Div-i and Div-II teams adn split them into groups pooling together away teams and local Chicago teams and seed them (Top 3 or 4 teams) from each group for playoffs..Its just takes little bit of planning and time to do this..
Madhu, valid points. I know the home teams go through expense to host. But the biggest gains for teams like you all is the Family time Saved. For some team it the expense and some the Family. agreed we have to find a common ground so all can be happy. You all have a good ground there and it's nice to know time and effort is spent by your team to keep it good or even get better. Teams with your own grounds. follow PCC lead.
Rup, I don't think everyone will be happy with fewer regular season games. Maybe we should take a poll. You guys must recruit some younger blood man, that way you don't have to play all the games. The young guys can carry you through most of the season and then Super-Rup will take care of things in the playoffs :)
I think Suburban and MDS were also sick of playing in Division II. They came close a few times, but never quiet made it. We must start promoting four teams from Division II into Division I. I'm sure ICC, Suburban and MDS can easily out perform (or at least compete with) the bottom feeders of Division I.
Tango if bottom is line is playing good cricket having fun and enjoying I don't think any team will get sick of playing the game the other crap that goes or comes with cricket (the politics, the finger pointing, Egos) is what makes people sick to play on the team..just thought for you..
cricket, Everyone wants to have fun, but it won't be as much fun if winning didn't matter. Most teams take their cricket pretty seriously. If I remember correctly, MDS used to fly down some of their players from India before a playoff game.
You are correct, "Married with Children" will have to suffer on these outer games like St. Louis, Peoria, Springfields etc. You are almost out of the weekend.
Madhu, Totally agree on expense and hardwork parts but time is the biggest issue ..
Tango, no matter what we do not everyone will be happy. If we can make the mojority happy then you have won. Jaggi/Harri can we get a poll going for the next couple days on a lower # of matches over the same time. 2. Shorter season with a world cup style event of the top 11 div 1 and 11 div 2 and 2 div 30/30. We do not have much of a younger generation to groom in ICC and only a few young ones realy take to cricket. Also most of the teams are from Pakistan or India and these teams have lots of youngsters coming over already trained and good to go and they also stick with their family teams. Thanks for the advise. we are looking to expand to cover for now
Funny you all talk in the tone of div i & div ii as if everything is discounted for div ii teams.
Reality and fact is there is no difference in talent between div i or div ii as I see it. Each team on average has two or three impact players at most and the rest are bunch of wanna be's, band wagons and braggers.
The league should consider the set up similar to MLB or NBA breaking teams in conferences and division and random scheduling with outside the division teams with only top 20 playing for the big dance come playoff time.
BINGO PLAYBALL... NOT A MAN MOVE... So good I have to say it again.. There is no real diff between Div 1 & 2... Each team has 2-3 impact studs and thats it...
Good idea playball few games to decide who tops the group and rest will play for the MCC cup that way every game you play past your group or conference will mean something
League's top agenda should be to fix the infrastructure of how best to set-up competition before thinking about having an allstar game. Have they defined the definition of an Allstar? I see no allstar in the league to have an allstar game. What a joke? Anyone can perform against anyone in the league. There is no one standout player. Everyone has this superiority complex I suppose. Didn't the league took the so called ALLSTAR to LA tournament last year and came back embarassing themselves.
----------------------------------- Playball said... The league should consider the set up similar to MLB or NBA breaking teams in conferences and division and random scheduling with outside the division teams with only top 20 playing for the big dance come playoff time. ----------------------------------- These are very good ideas playball. Keep it coming.
Playball, I'm guessing your post was addressed to me.
Playball said: "Funny you all talk in the tone of div i & div ii as if everything is discounted for div ii teams."
In a cricketing sense, everything is discounted for Division II. The top teams in Division II play at most 5-6 quality teams every year. In Division I, just about every game will be competitive.
Playball said: "Reality and fact is there is no difference in talent between div i or div ii as I see it”
Huh, maybe. Let us look at the numbers. Since 2002, we’ve had seven teams from Division II who’ve made it to Division I (GCC didn’t play the following year) Let us compare their statistics in Division II (in their winning season) and Division I (in their first year in the division)
Division II combined record: 68-19 Division I combined record: 40-51
NRR in Division II: 1.115 NRR in Division I: -.353
Out of the seven teams, IIT, Tigers and Book Club have already been relegated back to Division II.
Playball said: “Each team on average has two or three impact players at most and the rest are bunch of wanna be's, band wagons and braggers."
Your opinion.
Playball said: “The league should consider the set up similar to MLB or NBA breaking teams in conferences and division and random scheduling with outside the division teams with only top 20 playing for the big dance come playoff time.”
It will reduce the level of competition in Division I. I do believe that we must promote four teams from Division II to Division I every year. Better yet, it will be great to include these four teams in the Division I playoffs that very year.
It seems funny how some guys are defending themsleves in Division I. Majority of the players in Div I may be talented..no doubt.
But how many of them still truly sticked to their original teams when they started playing in the league.
Majority of the times Div I teams pickup good players irrespective of the division he belongs to.
This year itself when Tigers were relegated to Div II, how many guys who played last year for Tigers are with the team. Majority have joined other teams in Div I. So..the very same players who failed in Tigers are now playing in other teams.
What does it say..so there is some false sense of pride in some people about Div I.
QC said: “It seems funny how some guys are defending themsleves in Division I.”
I am not defending myself; I’m merely refuting some of the comments made by Playball.
QC said: “But how many of them still truly sticked to their original teams when they started playing in the league.”
And your point being……?
QC said: ”Majority of the times Div I teams pickup good players irrespective of the division he belongs to. “
That is why Division I is a more competitive than Division II.
QC said: ”This year itself when Tigers were relegated to Div II, how many guys who played last year for Tigers are with the team. Majority have joined other teams in Div I. So..the very same players who failed in Tigers are now playing in other teams.”
Hmm, five of them joined other teams in Division I. They had 30 players on their roster last year. Let me assure you, five out of 30 is no where close to being a MAJORITY. And the one’s who transferred must have been pretty good. Athreya has already scored a century for Phoenix. They also picked up Aditya from Division II last year, who is one hell of a batsman.
QC said: ”What does it say..so there is some false sense of pride in some people about Div I.”
No, it doesn’t say anything….your statements are baseless.
Come on guys, I’m not trying to undermine Division II. There are a lot of players in that division who can kick my butt (on and off the field). But to say that there is no difference in 'talent level' between Division I and Division II is ridiculous.
This talent thing??. We need three conferences now. Too many teams in Div 2 so it make it look weak. I order to progress one has to feel the got a chance to do so and many teams in Div 2 today don't have that chance against the top teams in their Div. We see so many players who will move to Div 1 because of the implied status of being better. some players will rather quit than be relegated if they can't find a team to play with in Div 1. There should be equal teams in each Div. this year we have 43 teams so we would have had 14 in 1, 14 in 2 and 15 in three. It becomes a 13 game season and best 8 of the Div makes the playoff. This means everyone gets a chance at the best or worst in their div. Relegation will be 2 teams in DIV 1 & 2 teams in Div 2. All new teams go to Div 3 and we can revisit for Div size as we see fit
Hello All This is Mateen from Suburban We moved to Acc for 2 reasons 1) In town games 2) As Rup stated "Family reasons" For everyone who thinks that we moved to ACC to be close to the hyderabadi community please think again as there is only one person in the team who is from Hyderabad. As far management issues yes we had a few but that was not a reason for the move at all we moved because of age factor, family reasons and last but not the least travel. I have played in MCC since 1990 when there were only 10 teams in the league I have a lot of respect for the players in MCC I will definitely miss playing with you all. Good Luck to everyone out in MCC P.S Rup if you ever decide to kick AARON out of your team I have a place for him in ACC with Suburban
Rup, The three division thing was discussed last year, but nothing happened. I'm guessing management was against it. It is a brilliant idea though. The games will be competitive in all divisions, we'll cut down one week and can probably have an All-star game that week.
ps. I'm not dissing anyone, but, does management even take these ideas into consideration? If so, it will be great to hear their reactions.
Its like when we were in school…we used to brag…”My dad will beat up your dad”…and so on..
Most of us who are bragging in here are like a bunch of school kids just trying to get attention…Div 1 will beat Div 2 etc..
I don’t see any of the proven winners in either division bragging about anything….they just go about and play their game….that’s why they win and play better….because they don’t focus on little things in life like playing in Div 1 or Div 2.
We take enough crap at home and work, do we really need to deal with that the one day you get to have fun, indulging yourselves with the favorite thing in the world?
Apart from the cream (maybe 3 or 4), rest of us are all playing in this league, because we can’t play professionally elsewhere.
Is it that important that you downgrade some of your fellow cricket leaguers?
We all play in our comfort zones, be that Div 1 or 2, we play with our friends, enjoy a good day in the field and go home.
The point of the matter is that, we are not talented enough to even judge the other person’s talent…be that Div 1 or 2. If we were, we would not be playing here…
But we are playing in MCC, so just respect each other (be that Div 1 or 2 or 3) and move on..
Mateen, Glad to hear all is ok with you and the team. All the best and i hope we will be able to see Suburban back in MCC one day. ICC don't have any reason for letting go of Aaron now or in the future. It ia all up to him though.
ok time pass start a topic you think is ok to talk about on this Blog. The reason we see so much venting and anger is because the "We take enough crap at home and work, do we really need to deal with that the one day you get to have fun, indulging yourselves with the favorite thing in the world?". Well said. BUT! to keep this one day excited for us and right now it's the same thing as has been for years, we need changes that will motivate and excite us to go out and enjoy this one thing.
Absolutely Rup, we need to do everything in our power to make that one day very exciting. And I was not talking about us discussing ideas on how to improve, those dicussions are always welcome. Matter of fact, the blog was created for such discussions. Where else can we come up with creative and positive ideas.
But the discussion goes haywire when we shift gears and start bitching about different divisions and who's better than who.
Also, all these new ideas need to be put into the idea page, so that, the management can or cannot take a look at them.
If you think the management is not responding or paying enough attention, we have to work on some change. We have the elections next year, so we have the power next year to overthrow them, if we want to.
About this year, the plans have already been laid out, at least thats what it seems like.
About a topic for Discussion.....
How about we talk about fans and how they revolutionalized cricket..
There is a huge difference between the fans in the sub continent and the ones elsewhere.. In the sub continent, the fans consider the player above the game, which is unhealthy. In places like West Indies, the player is respected for the game, outside of which he is on the same level as a layman.
I agree with time_pass.. we are not in a position to compare talent between the divisions. I agree that we need to take a hard look at div-2 and have a div-3. I also like the idea of the div-2 finalists playing in div-1 playoffs. We can do the same for div-3 teams. When Tigers won div-2 in 2002, we did play United in the div-1 playoffs. It was an awesome experience for all of us. I think it happened again in 2004 when Miwaukee United derailed Wildcats and Kutis. I dont know why it didnt happen on subsequent years, but, I do like it. I have been saying that we should take a break during the regular season(not during a long weekend) and have some sort of an all-star game. We can pick a couple of all-star teams from all the divisions and play a bunch of games over the weekend. We will have stalls at teh ground with food, games that families can enjoy. In the current structure, its a trade off between playing one less game and having a fun weekend.
Romeen, I have a couple of things going on during the long weekend, but will try to make it for a little bit. Let us know what the plans are.
In response to Tango: As I reiterate myself there are no significant differences between Div I or Div II talent wise.
Everyone is beatable by anyone on any given day. Tango stated some of the DIV II teams who moved to DIV I failed to do well, but, he fails to mention those who succeeded at the same token i.e Milwaukee/Purdue.
If I recall correctly there was a team made up of DIV I players who came in on DIV II with high hopes of winning all and failed to do so. I believe it was the lowly Royals beating up the so called DIV I. Also, If I recall correctly when top 2 of the DIV II were qualified to enter DIV I playoff one of the Div II beat the so called one of the top 8 of DIV I in the playoff.
Last year I was tired of hearing Satha is doing what he is doing because he is in DIV II. What a crap? No matter how weak the league is to be able to do it at taht level on a consistent basis is an achievement one should command and not undermine because he is not in DIV I.
Bottomline is the structure needs to be changed so that there are no variations and everyone entering the tournament is measured at the same level and let the best team take the trophy.
To close out by rebuttle I will give an example of MLB and NBA. No one gives credit to the NL and the Eastern conference of NBA teams no matter how well they do. My take is NL was the champion last year and NBA east was the champion last year. Never underestimate anyone. No one is elite and everyone is beatable. May I remind that India and Pakistan the so called DIV I type attitude in the international arena were exited out of the world cup in the first round.
We seemed to have lost touch with Aditya's blog on suggestions/improvements. I'd think we need a serious discussion on getting more grounds in chicago land area. Collective and concerted effort on the part of us will do us a lot of wonders...I am sure MCC will take whatever help we can provide. If we start today, we may be able to get one or two new grounds for next season...shall we try?
Getting more grounds. ICC tried a couple times but was unable to get a ground in the city or suburbs. We are live allover the place from south burbs to north burbs. Teams that are located in any given city are more likely to get a ground. They need to request that through their Alderman or congress rep. Devon neighborhood should be a good place to get a ground or two because of the concentration of Asian population. Mayor Daly's wife is the cordinator for special sports and I suggest managment communicate with her office to get a ground or two. Last season when i talked about approaching the politicians about getting us ground to promote our game the response was that we should not mix politics with cricket. I tought we vote these guys in to represent all of our needs??. We prefer to go to schools and rent their fields and spend monies to build grounds and then loose them. This will also happen in cities where we don't stand up for the grounds and other people/sports take them away from us. OH, also we can work with the director of Midwest Zone to get us more grounds. I heard he is doing a good job getting grounds for ACC. I think we lost Naperville to ACC??
Playball said : “Everyone is beatable by anyone on any given day. Tango stated some of the DIV II teams who moved to DIV I failed to do well, but, he fails to mention those who succeeded at the same token i.e Milwaukee/Purdue. “
Huh, but I included the records of both Purdue and Milwaukee United in the ‘Division II vs. Division I’ comparison in my previous post. No one is denying that those teams are good, but my calculations clearly show that all the Division II winners/runner-up performed significantly worse in Division I than they did in Division II.
Playball said: “If I recall correctly there was a team made up of DIV I players who came in on DIV II with high hopes of winning all and failed to do so. I believe it was the lowly Royals beating up the so called DIV I.”
If you are talking about the Rising Stars, then you might want to check their record, they dominated the regular season and had the no.2 seed. They beat up on all the Division II teams but were upset by a hungry Royals team (who are also in Division I) in the semi-finals. They might have failed to win the championship, but they were still one of the elite teams of Division II (aka. ICC last year). BTW. Both the no.1 and no.2 seeds that year were upset.
Playball said: “Also, If I recall correctly when top 2 of the DIV II were qualified to enter DIV I playoff one of the Div II beat the so called one of the top 8 of DIV I in the playoff.”
Let me take it a step further, had GCC been allowed to compete in the Division I playoffs the year they won the championship, they might have been able to beat all Division I teams in the playoffs. But I can assure you, GCC would have had a much tougher time beating Division I teams, as opposed to the ‘cake-walks’ they got in Division II. Look at the Purdue team from two years back. They played about half of their regular XI in every game in Division II, but still finished the season 12-1(most of the games being blowouts), and swept through the playoffs. Even though they performed quiet well in Division I (were screwed out of the semis by the Messiah), they had a much tougher time beating teams in Division I (finished 9-5 in Division I)
Playball said: “Last year I was tired of hearing Satha is doing what he is doing because he is in DIV II. What a crap? No matter how weak the league is to be able to do it at taht level on a consistent basis is an achievement one should command and not undermine because he is not in DIV I.”
To be honest, I highly doubt if Satha will average, err….109.12 in Division I. I won’t be surprised if he tops the division in scoring, but his average is bound to come down, because there are better bowlers in Division I.
Playball said: “Bottomline is the structure needs to be changed so that there are no variations and everyone entering the tournament is measured at the same level and let the best team take the trophy. “
I think Division II teams should earn their spot to play in Division I. I do believe that it’s a little bit unfair that only the top two teams of Division II are promoted. Instead, let’s start promoting four teams and let the winners/runners-up from Division II compete for the Division I crown.
Playball said: “To close out by rebuttal I will give an example of MLB and NBA. No one gives credit to the NL and the Eastern conference of NBA teams no matter how well they do. My take is NL was the champion last year and NBA east was the champion last year. Never underestimate anyone. No one is elite and everyone is beatable.”
Well we have somewhere around 50 teams in the MWCC, if you combine all the divisions. It will be a nightmare to come up with a non-biased schedule. I still like Rup’s idea of three divisions. Also, I don’t like or follow baseball; I think it’s a ‘stupid’ game, so I’m not going to comment on the NL. But the Eastern Conference in the NBA is soooo much weaker than the Western conference man. It’s painful to watch the Bucks and the Celtics play.
Playball said: “May I remind that India and Pakistan the so called DIV I type attitude in the international arena were exited out of the world cup in the first round.”
Aila, tereko wapas samjhana pedega kya? Don’t you know that even in International Cricket, teams have to earn their test-status?
Playball said: “Enough said.”
Finally we agree on something, people over here are getting pissed off about the Division I-Division II comparison. We’re just having fun, right? Anyways, I rest my case. Let’s move on to a different topic.
120 comments:
We lost our second game to Flames. The conditions were far from perfect, it was brutally cold and windy at WP. Flames batted first and scored 203. Kiran, as usual, was his steady best before Athreya got one to nip back in to catch him in front of the wicket. Dr Rafiq top scored with 60 odd runs(helped with three dropped catches) and Venkat chipped in with 30 odd runs. With the wind blowing southward, it was hard to score to score off the Southern end and Flames did well to post 203.
Phoenix started sedately, with both bowlers Nasir and Yousef maintaining a very steady line. Nasir bowled against the wind and still managed to keep it quick. We scored 13 runs of the first 10 overs. Considering that were were chasing a smaller target, it wasnt a bad start, but we lost both openers quickly. Aditya, started slow but then opened up very well. Athreya started well, but was out caught behind of Harish. Sameer and Aditya put on a good partnership, before Sameer top edged to slips. Aditya and I had a good partnership, going before this new 15 year old kid, Amin trapped Aditya in front. He doesnt have a smooth run up, but he can bowl fast and can makes the ball skid of the surface. With guidance from Nasir, Yousef and Kiran, am sure he will only get better. Mitul and Priyank played well(our reqd run rate was at 6), but Mitul got run out when he was looking dangerous. Even though Priyank continued the fight, he soon ran out of partners.
We have lost two games both close ones.. with a little more application we could have probably been 2 up. We now face Pak at WP next Sunday. We will have to play really good cricket to beat Pak.
Congratulations to the Flames and especially to Nasir for picking up a 5-fer.
MUCC vs. UCC at Whitewater, WI
May 12, 2007
Match Report
-------------
Well, on a good bright warm (perfect cricket playing weather)day at the scenic Univ of Whitewater cricket ground, MUCC captain Prasad won the toss for a second time in a row and decided to bat first.
MUCC openers Sharath and Sadiq put on 75 runs in the first 15 overs and yours truly was the first to be dismissed caught at third man of first change bowler Shankar for a well made 30.
From a very healthy situation of 76/1 of 16 overs, MUCC could only muster 40 runs in the next 13 overs with the other opener Sadiq being at his best and scoring a classic 34. The top order were constrained amidst the run drought brought on by some accurate slow bowling of United, particularly from southpaw Samarth who started off with 3 straight maidens in his opening spell. Good feilding, smart catching and tight field placements by UCC added to this scenario........the score card now read 139/5 after about 35 overs.
The middle order struggled before Bunty showed up and played one of his characteristic Bunty innings of 45. He was ably supported by Uday, AJ, Javed and Prashanth who all chipped in, with 10+ scores.
At the end MUCC posted a very decent 203/8 of the allotted 45 overs. Although we felt 225 was something we should have got to, given the start we had, it was a great sight to see our key batsmen come back to form early in the season and we took pride in bouncing back from our batting disaster of last week agst Roger'Park. We were also appreciative of the fact that we batted out the 45 overs much like what we did last year (IIRC, I am not sure on this, but I guess MUCC might have played the most 45 over games without being bowled out while batting first last year).
UCC started off ther run chase aggresively scoring about 30 runs in the first 4 overs. Opener Sadiq then came up with an inspired spell of 5 overs after his first 2 overs forcing edges from opener Adnan and one down Faisal while beating some other batsmen outside off often. He was ably supported by the other opening bowler, captain Prasad. From 30/0 in 4 overs, UCC were contained to 47/2 after 13 with MUCC just operating with its new ball bowlers. Enter the tested and trained spinning trio of Javed, Bunty and Shyam.
Shyam and Javed piled on the pressure with some maidens and tight spells while chipping in with 2 wickets apiece. Bunty joined the fray with his leg spin magic and claimed a wicket on his way to a 4 over first spell. Medium pacer Shashi helped provide variety while ensuring that his initial economy rate was stingy.
The score in the run chase now read 97/7 at the end of the 27th over. Mehul was at the crease at this time for about 10 overs and had been given two lives early in his innings including a sitter that went down of Bunty at short mid wicket.
He and Snehal (I guess) put on 60+ runs for the 8th wicket stand before Snehal fell for a hard run well made crucial 25. Dhiraj joined the proceedings with UCC requiring 31 of 3, 21 of 2 and 10 of 1 and pulled it off with 2 fours in the final over. UCC thus won with 3 balls to spare and 2 wickets on hand.
The match definitely defined what character and heart mean in sport. Any one watching would have to look back at the 71* that man of the match Mehul Shani came up with after bowling 9 overs and fielding for 45. His hard running, controlled aggression and ball placement were excellent and his patience and confidence that this can be done was noteworthy. Most players panic wilting under the pressure of such a herculean task with depleting resources, mounting run rate and falling wickets but not Mehul. His determination and maturity were admirable.
Great innings buddy Mehul.
Congrats to UCC for a well faught win and congrats to both teams for a good hard day of exciting meaningful cricket.
MUCC, chin up, no hard feelings, we fought and we gave it away via relaxing a bit in the middle overs. Scores of misfeilding, dropped catches, some sitters, lack of effort cost us while we let our emotions and frustration take over later on. We were the better team on the field for most of the game but we lost to a more relaxed and determined team later on. Lets understand and accept that.
Let us now sit back and look at what needs to be done to improve fielding and running between the wkts which are and will always be the main mantras of modern day cricket. This is where UCC beat us.
With the anticipated return of Satya and Todd in mid June and the confirmed return of veterans Badri, Arvind and promising new comer Dipen starting next week, we should be back to winning ways, more importanly putting in consistent performances and effort day in and day out as we aim to ape what we did over the last 2 years in Div-1 MWCC.
Once again congrats to both teams, special word of appreciation for MOM Mehul and Thank you for a job well done to umpire Sadiq Yusuf.
sharath
AAA just beat muslim gymkhana
AAA 200 all out
muslim 192 all out in 43.5 overs
really hard foght game from bot teams
Sadik Patel 6 for very little
congrats AAA on our first victory
Illinois scored 337for 7 in 40 overs against Acers. Acers all out for 42. Rup taking a 5-fer
AAA won the toss and decided to bat first. Openers Sadik and Imran built a decent partnership of 48 in 11 overs. AAA were off to a decent start. Abdul came in at one down and started off sedately but then got going as he smashed 5 sixes in an aggresive 54. Muslim Gymkhana were in a state of panic at this stage but they brought in their slow bowlers and this did the trick as AAA were restricted to 200. Sadik did the rest as he took 6 for 31 in his 9 over spell. Hafez Adam gave him good support with 3 for 41. Fellow paceman Ibrahim picked up the remaining wicket and AAA pulled off a win in a close game. Congrats to AAA for their first win in DIV 1. Special recognition for Abdul and Sadik. I wish AAA the best of luck for the rest of year.
Quick report on wildcats - chargers game:
Wildcats won the toss and decided to bat, lost both openers quickly, following which Ajit and Sanjay steadied the boat. Irfan bowled well and was rewarded with wickets. At drinks, the score read 97 for 4. Ajit continued to bat solidly as his partners departed at a regular interval.Ajit left to a good catch for a well made 56.At one stage the wildcats were 140 for 9. This is when Atul joined Vinod. Vinod made his presence felt in his very first game as a wildcat, he made a swashbuckling 36 off an equal number of balls and put up a 40 run 10th wicket partnership with Atul, who played a very solid innings himself.There are a few moments when we regret not having the luxury of replays and that moment came when Vinod picked one ball that was good length and short-arm-jab-pulled it and deposited it way over the deep square leg boundary.WC ended up with 180.
The chargers started reasonably well but the WC pacers kept them in check.Irfan batted well and hit some good boundaries and a six. But they kept losing wickets at a regular interval and after the drinks break, Krishna bowled a very tight spell. The chargers got all out for some 80 odd runs.
Batting remains a concern for the WC, except for a couple batsmen that played well. We'll have to improve in that department, and pretty quickly.
Romeen
2006 Div 1 Champs Pak Gym barely managed to squeeze out a victory over last year's Div 2 runners up Capitol. Capitol restricted the high flying Pak Gym batting to just 181 and then knocked up 139 for 3 before collapsing through a flurry of lbw's for 174 all out. New Comer Surjeet made a superb unbeaten 104 for Capitol. But, the big news was the first ball LBW dismissal of Satha by Imran.
As I said before the and will again Pak Gym are OVER-RATED.. If I am the best why would I make a living stealing to maintain my greatness?
Ha ha .. GOT to cheat Satha and his boys to beat them huh? Well Capital thats the disadvantage of playing in Div 1 its like the mafia...
Just heard (thru the Umpire Grapevine ;-) that Milwaukee Cricket Club beat the Bears in a squeaker. Milwaukee apparently made 172 or so, and Bears were allout for 157 to lose by 15 runs.
So, only one result in Division One outstanding so far (ie a result we havent heard yet)...and thats one of the fun-nest games of the season, the Royal Challenge, the Annual Patel Battle :-)...anyone heard anything yet?
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As I said before the and will again Pak Gym are OVER-RATED.. If I am the best why would I make a living stealing to maintain my greatness?
Ha ha .. GOT to cheat Satha and his boys to beat them huh? Well Capital thats the disadvantage of playing in Div 1 its like the mafia...
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Hey, steady on guys, lets at least find out details before we accuse anyone of cheating (especially an umpire). Its not like LBW isnt a legitimate form of dismissal - we dont even know yet if even Capitol thought they were harsh LBWs! As for Pak Gym being overrated... they lost *one game* on the field in the whole of last season in Division One! What sort of rating *should* we have for them for 2006, with that sort of record, other than "best team in the league all year"? :-)
Traditionally, the umpire for places like Springfield and Peoria etc are not from Chicago - we try and put umpires from the region itself, so there is less travel involved. I dont know who actually umpired this game, but it was listed to be Tanveer Alam (who is the captain of CCI, the Division Two team from the University of Illinois). If it was actually him... Tanveer umpired a couple of Division One games last year (in Purdue), and most people had nothing but good reports for his umpiring. And having met and intereacted with Tanveer a few times when I umpired UIUC games, he is a very nice guy, he has has played his share of good level cricket and has a good knowledge of the game, and is the last person one would ever expect to show bias between two sides as an umpire (especially since he has never seen one of the sides ever before in his life :-)
Lets just wait before we rush to condemn the umpire here (we get condemned easily enough as it is, at least dont hang us before the facts have even come in :-)
Cricketwallah thanks.. I will wait.. :)
Royal Challenge!
That was the whisky I used to drink when I was in India. It didn’t get me very high, but it definitely gave me a hangover the next day.
The Patel cup was a Royal challenge! At least for me…
It didn’t start of very good, as we all waited for the umpire and after about half hour wait, we figured out that the umpire was trying to hitch a ride as his car was stuck in the middle of no where. It was mother’s day and spending 9 hours away from your family was not the best idea, but to make matters worse, we didn’t start until 11:15 am.
It was decided that we will play a 40 over game instead of 45.
Challengers won the toss and decided to bat. It was little cloudy, besides that, it was a great day at Community Park.
The openers got off to a flying start, put their heads down and batted till the break, which is very unusual for challengers, but we like the unusual once in a while.
The openers put a brilliant 120 at the 20 over mark.
After the break, we lost both the openers. With some pressure induced by Royals, challengers kept loosing wickets at steady pace. The slow bowlers from Royals did a fantastic job as they teased the middle order and got wickets at regular intervals. If not for a cameo from Buchio (I crack up every time I say that), we would have not made 175.
We were bundled out for 198 in 39 overs. (After being 120/0 in 20 overs, you do the math..)
Royals started of well with some nice drives off of Daxx.
And then there was some amazing display of Swing Bowling, it was like daxx, Sanjay and Nilesh were giving all of us a lesson on swing bowling. Royals were reduced to 24/8 in 15 overs.
We thought we will have some extra beer time before we go home, but the tail wagged for Royals and it wagged really well.
They managed to hang around for another 15 -17 overs and scored another 50 odd runs to get bundled out for 84.
So, like I said, I’m still hung-over from yesterday, from a good win…thanks to Royal Challenge!
Royals top order needs to pick up the GAME, Challenger had a lucky day ..
Who was the MVP (Most Valuable Patel)?
While drinking beers :) in the stand I think Darshan from Challenger would qualify for that
I'd give it to Sexy Daxy....8-5-8-4
Rup,
Update your scorecard buddy. Everyone waiting to see who scored for you yesterday. I learnt you took 5-fer. Keep up the good job.
wait wait Rup scores not up? Thats unaccpetable... :):):)
Its good to see another new player, Srujeet(Capitol) make his presence felt right away. To score a century against Pak is definitely a good achievement. Can somebody in Capitol give us more details about the innings and the player?
A sincere request to all teams to also update scorecards and weekly summary before Monday morning.
Death Dealer said...
Royals top order needs to pick up the GAME, Challenger had a lucky day ..
hey by the time you see royals top order start picking up the game another 4 season gone by. royals trying to pick up there game since they came to division 1. i think royal had a lucky day that challenger didn't put close to 300 in 40 over after the way they got flying start. challenger do not need lucky day to win the game. they need 5 guys need to perform out of 11 and they can beat anyone. other thing is royal were 18 for 7 down since it was a lucky day for them they didn't got all out for 25. cause when you see score board sanjay didn't finish his spell as well as rupesh. i am thinking challenger didn't want to go for kill instead they took different route and maybe decided to experience little more since they had tough time against phenoix.
let's ask sheikhs who is new comer to challenger. let's get his word for challeger. after playing 2 games for challenger what do you think of challenger.
as long as challnger as daxx bowling his best and with bat he gets fired up challenger is hard to get. with nilesh/ sanjay's last game performence they can get any team. they got rupesh this year who can be very useful. sanjay need to bowl like he did against royal more often then we just have to see daxx, nilesh and rupesh taking on other team.
i till think challenger and pak is the best and both very talented and hard to get team. both team do not need lucky day. they need couple of their player to do their jobs and they are good to go. whoever playing against them they need more than a lucky day to beat them.
cricketwallah, the umpire for the capitol and Pakgymkhana game was tanveer alam (captain of CCI, a div II team). Tanveer is a fair guy and has no relationship to Pakgymkhana. As a former player of CCI, it is very offensive to read such accusations of bias about him. Please stop making baseless accusations.
Who are the captains of all the Division I teams? I only know a few.
Pak Gymkhana - Rashid
Challengers - Bhavesh
Phoenix - Aditya/Diwakar (not sure)
St.Louis - Sohail
United - Faisal
Bears - Faisal
Wildcats - Romeen
Flames - Kiran
Muslim - Farhat
Milwaukee United - Prasad
Purdue - Pradeep
Who are the others?
Royals - Dimpy?
Ahh, I should have looked at the team profiles first. Now I look like an idiot :)
I guess
Royas - Shetul Patel
Flames - Tariq
Chargers - Javed Arshad
Capitol - Madan
AAA - Munaf
Phoenix - Mitul (captain), Aditya(vice captain)
"let's ask sheikhs who is new comer to challenger. let's get his word for challeger. after playing 2 games for challenger what do you think of challenger"
I got to say, they are a bunch of fun loving guys....I joined just for the festivities after the game.......win or lose.
But now I have to learn Gujarati...just bought a book..Gujarati in 15 days...
sorry for not getting ICC scores and summary in as yet.
We had a fun day at the park yesterday and I still feel a little dizzzzzy.
Will enter the scores once I am able to find our score book. We had an easy game. finished early after scoring over 300 we bowled the young and inexperienced Acers out for 40 couple.
So, as usual we had more drinking time and party we did.
I see a lot of interesting things happened over the week end.
My brain is hurting so i will most likely blog later today or tomorrow.
Rup,
Chasers always help with hangovers. I am sure you have a life time subscription to those magic pills.
Shekhs you will get some lingo by the time you play 4-5 games.. Yes Royal Challange fun loving people.. for others GUESS ;)
Mastakilla, Can you all add more players to your rooster.
You have only 10 people and we need to enter 11.
Is there any monitoring by our league to make sure we have at least 11 people on the rooster???
well let me tell to all those people who don't like pak for some unknown reasons.. sayin that pak is over rated...they suck as a team....they have been winning their games for last 2-3 years consistently...no one has played better cricket than them...and they r going to defend their title and will go all the way...any team who think can challenge them...i dare you to do so before playing the match with them.....
zulfi why would a team say that before the game.. so they can go pay off people to get bogus calls?
Man they win like cheaters..not like Champs
zulfi why would a team say that before the game.. so they can go pay off people to get bogus calls?
Man they win like cheaters..not like Champs
mr fast_n_furious
were u there? whn they were playing the match...man this thing is getting so old cheaters n all that....capital had their own umpire who used to do umpiring before for them......so shut the f*** up n stop making excuses for not winning the match....they have always won like champs n will in future...
zulfi said,
they have been winning their games for last 2-3 years consistently...no one has played better cricket than them...and they r going to defend their title and will go all the way...any team who think can challenge them...i dare you to do so before playing the match with them.....
well zulfi let me tell you this they only won last year championship, so stop bithching about it. don't you go around and ask team to challenge pak before match. you should ask pak gym to dare to challenge other team who will be playing against them. don't you remember wildcats chased 300+ and won. last year challenger almost had them. this is united, challenger or wildcats will show pak what's cricket about.
good luck
"last year challenger almost had them."
Last year: legaue match - Chall 135 a.o. , Pak won by 5 wkts
Final: Pak 228, Chall 74 a.o. (after being 30/8)
which match are you talking about guess?
well zulfi let me tell you this they only won last year championship, so stop bithching about it. don't you go around and ask team to challenge pak before match. you should ask pak gym to dare to challenge other team who will be playing against them. don't you remember wildcats chased 300+ and won. last year challenger almost had them. this is united, challenger or wildcats will show pak what's cricket about.
well mr guess u don't have much of a clue about past matches....u r just being jealous of them and their talent...no doubt their r good teams like wildcats,united,challengers n st.louis(nowdyz)...but pak came back strong after losing a final match against wildcats which they should have won...they don't have players moving in n out alot like other teams.....that what makes the difference and keeps them united all the time.....good luck to them for this season...
Rup, I have spoken to the captain about this as i dont enter the stuff on the internet. They have decided that one of the inexperienced guys should do it so thats that. I'm sorry for the inconvenience.
u kno wats fd up that there is more grounds outside chicago and most of the teams are in chicago midwest needs to do something
yes I agree with you Zakir... We have to travel so far each season.
This is Rashid Khan captain of Pak Gymkhana.....
to all those teams n guys who think we cheated against Capital...i would tell them to f*** off n get a life...if Capital wants to play against us again we don't mind that...they had their own umpire that day..who was doing the job for last couple of years for them...no body complaint about that umpire up to now....as far as i know Capital has said nothing so far.....it's just those guys who don't like Pak Gymkhana at all...well to all those bloggers who are bitching about Pak Gym now...ther r going to continue doing that till the season ends...so keep doing that guys...that what motivates us alot....RUP u get into DIV 1 n then start saying about us...i don't think that u did anything when u were in DIV 1 against us...
zulfi your team is NO GOOD...
Just over hyped sour losers... So you solve the sour loser part by making sure you get all the calls in the games go your way...You guys know it too..
My gripe fyi is not over the capital game its based on over the years bro...
As for you and rup thats another story. But I think he can do a number on your team even at his age... and now he has a good side kick I hear...
Rashid,
When did Rup diss Pak Gymkhana? I went through this whole thread like four times and couldn't find anything.
And don't get angry with one or two fools man, Pak Gymkhana are the defending champs. They don't need to prove anything to anyone.
This is Rashid Khan captain of Pak Gymkhana.....
to all those teams n guys who think we cheated against Capital...i would tell them to f*** off n get a life...
--------------------------
Listen up people...captain of PAK GYM sums up their attitude
radhid..chill out man u might lose hair...ooppps...my bad..
guys guys.. take it easy. First of all, lets not use this forum to personally attack teams / individuals. Second, we dont know if Zulfi is Rashid or someone else claiming to be Rashid.
neanderthal_walking I love how you exposed their attitude... Awesome!
yes and Rup Never spoke badly of Pak gym but once again they act like they are God...
Jaggi... Just some pleasant fun man.. nothing personal... Its all cricket all the time...
But Pak Gym SUCKS for real..
Attitude that is.. lol
Guys,
Rashid Khan spoke with Jaggi - He had nothing to do with the post above. He has not even looked at this -- Whoever is doing this, please stop abusing this forum. Thank You.
Hari
I guess taking a shot at me, Zulfi hope to get me on his page of uncalled for comments.
Secondly even if I don't make it to Div 1 it would not make me a lesser person or cricketer.
I still love being on the field and hopefully my performance help my team win.
An old guy told me once when i first started playing " son, respect is earned and not given and you will only earn it to the extent of what you put in".
Look at Australia, and if you were to take a census on them 8 of 10 will say can wait to see their behind get kicked because the act very unsportsman like sometimes.
Guys... I was driving to school when I recieved a call from Rashid. As Hari mentioned above, he guaranteed that he had nothing to do with the comments above.
For the record, Pak Gymkhana had nothing to do with the umpire at Capitol. We need to stop spreading rumors of this kind.. it does no good to anybody.
This blog is now read all over the world.. we had hits from Australia, Asia and Europe. Hari can probably expand on this even more.
Please recognize that what is fun to a few may not be true to others. Lets concentrate on the game and not on petty finger pointing exercises. Please !!
Am I seeing right..West suburban IX has already played 3 games but only two on the score cards.
Do we have a drop out team already??
Nope .. Rup ..
West Suburban has played only 2 games so far ... they will be playing their 3rd game coming sunday ...
hey guys,
to(pak gym ):you guys can bribe the umpires then let me know those umpire name so i can try it:) just joking..
umpire can be wrong sometime giving decision but that doesnot mean team has to do something with it. in all those year i seen so many time good umpires made worng decision, but guys that's cricket all about. i think most of the umpire in this league is doing nice jobs. i don't think any umpire can be bribe by anyone..not even tariq himself can do it. not only playing our game but watching other games i have learn so many time that umpire does call wrong decision in this leauge. when decision comes in team favour team never argue, but as soon as decision goes other way all team start bithching about it. guys in real time game umpire has couple of second to make call. i think most umpire doing it right. lbw is always going to be problem. i have seen it in international games too. umpire can only give decision on base of what he has see it.
everyone sees differently, as long as they are consistion that's all matter. well even this year most of the umpire being trained so that might help a lot.
Alpesh said, Nope .. Rup ..
West Suburban has played only 2 games so far ... they will be playing their 3rd game coming sunday ...
3 2 1 8 -0.874 570/115 653/112
Points table Div 2 2007 says played 3 games won 2 lost 1
Rup, that definitely is a bug. I will fwd this to Sohail. Good catch !!
wat r ur guys prediction for this weeknd game i think mcc should set up a all star game on tha july 4th weekend wit sponsers so they can raise money alot of ppl will come to watch i kno its still may but getting this talk out early unlike wat happn last yr we started talking about it to late
Aiite fellas..
The blog's getting really boring...we need some entertainment.
Good entertainment, not beating up on Pak Gym or Flames...
C'mon now, lets get creative ..
I was thinking about a topic "What if?"
What ifs of World Cup 2007!
What if Dilhara Fernando had taken Gilchrist's catch?
Come up with some cool "What if"s...
Like I said the IDEA page was and will be always be a joke if what the players put up there are hardly ever considered.
The players wanted an all star game but management came up with mini world cup. The want to hold this on Labor day week end. I don't know about you all but ICC uses these holiday week ends for Family outings seeing we dedicate the entire summer for cricket.
I was asked to get a West Indies Team put together but prelim conversations say we may not be able to Field a WI team for this week end unless family plans are cancelled.
We play this long draging season over 5 months yet nothing has realy changed to excite cricket in MCC. Look around the world and tell me who has done nothing to modernize the game.
I personally have asked quite a few to get this season start earlier so we can have more time off and not the finals in October. I was told the weather in April and grounds are not ok for cricket..BALONEY.
The players of MCC are like the employees of a Company. Management needs to listen to them and take their opinions seriously or at some point in time, when they have had enough they will either take over the Company or look for work in this case Cricket elswhere!!!!.
Does any one have any idea if the teams that won their respective leagues last year will be awarded with anything at all?
We normally have a pre season banquet but for some reason there was none this year.
Ok time pass.
What if we have a shorter regular season
Lets say 10 games then the playoffs. this wil last 13 weeks.
Then we take the top 12 teams from DIV 1 and top 12 teams from DIV 2 and make 8 groups of 3 with 8 group winners and 4 wild cards(NRR)
this will last 5 weeks.(players from teams that did not qualify can only transfer to teams in their respective DiV's) or no transfers allowed so they will perform if the want to play the second tournament.
Would this not be more exciting
rup the weather was not okay in april to start tha games earlier unless we hav an indoor stadium which is impossible to get so i think they dont hav much of a choice its prob too much games im gussin either that or no off weekends cause when playoffs come it gets cold so they hav to do something about there are not any intresting games going on this weekend are they most of them are one sided
Zimbo,
At the last meeting we were told banquet will be held sometime mid season this year.
Zakir,
What city you live in cause I remember the last two week ends in April were both above 70 degrees and Sunny.
That i think is still much better than snow in early october
okayy bro but most of tha teams were not evn ready u kno they need to worm up it happns in evryy sports baseball basketball socer cricket u name it think about it u dont play cricket the whole winter n just got ur butt up and go to tha ground and start playing and get injured so rup think about it o yea i was bored and looking through tha stats everybody knows ur good but cmon man giv somebody else a chance in bowling u been dominating it since 3-4 years been in top 15 all tha years except one yr. man wonder how u play in div 1 like satha like rup evvrything is tha same but opposite ones bowling ones batting lets see how satha does in div 1 ull get ur chance next yr prob
does any one know what happened to MDS cricket club They were a good team last year...what happened...
Zakir
Teams who r serious about their cricket do practice in winter & workout daily. Other just play 4 fun so it doesn't matter to them if u start the league in april or may but if we start the league in april we will play the playoff in much warm weather.
Cricket.
About MDS i think they moved to ACC with couple of other Hyderabadi Teams because they r not happy with the management & management don't care about them either. It's just my observation maybe i am wrong.
Rup,
Mostly i agree with u. Couple of week earlier you suggest that we should have a Players Association i agree with you completely i think u should work on that for the sake of the game.
why are good teams moving to acc MDS was a good team as long as reasons are n't personal I guess we all want know what broke down MCC can work to see that does happen again Justice can you dig up what happened or one of mds guys reading this post something
Suburban & MDS to ACC. Makes one wonder who is next???.
I guess these teams are getting old in age so the prefer the shorter games in ACC.
Deccan Blues also moved to ACC. I think that these teams are moving to ACC because there are no traveling games. All games are played in the Chicagoland Areas. I was told this reason by the captain of Deccan Blues the last time i saw him a couple of weeks ago. Just thought i would let you guys know. Suburban moved because they had problems with the managment.
My 2 cents ... there is a large Hyderabadi community in ACC and around the Glendale Heights area .. is it a coincidence that the departing teams are predominently Hyderabadi?
Mastakilla....could you give a quick feedback about the SIUE ground...the wicket and the outfield..Any feedback would be appreciated...
Thanks,
Lakshmikumar
If these teams left because they couldn't handle the travel, then too bad for them. I personally don't think the traveling is all that bad. Out of the 15 games in Division I, only 4-5 are played outside Chicago.
Its also good to have teams from all around the Midwest. The inclusion of teams like Milwaukee United, St.Louis and Purdue only elevates the level of competition in the league.
I for sure know suburban lost because of management. I know some guys there and they told me that.
Sad to see MDS go as well. Those two are perennial playoff teams in Div 2 with some great guys.
If MCC keep up the type of scheduling the are doing right now you will probably see ICC out of MCC also.
Family is such an important part of society and yet little considerations is given to it by this current management to keep teams or individuals in MCC.
Back a couple years it did not matter much but, currently most of these same players have extended their families and the need to spend more time there. This is going to become a big factor in how many of the Current MCC cricketers stick with MCC.
MCC needs to be proactive rather that problem solving. Shorten the season for now by 3 game to 11 so players can spend more time with their families.
In between Host a world cup style comp for teams or singles where family don't cause any issue.
Tango..I must disagree with you on the travelling thing.
It's a big issue and will get bigger.
Ex.. collinsville. You leave chicago at 5 am and get back around 1 am the next day. The whole day is gone so guys with family will take their familes cause it summer.
Aprox cost for fuel will be around 100.00 that is if gas dont go up. so five games like this per season you are out about 700.00 travel expense, add memberships to MCC and we look at $1000.00 just to play cricket.
If you afford it great. If you are single and car pool great. if you are married and keep this up, at some point you either become single again or quit to keep the family..your choice.
Cut the game per season down, lessen traveling time, Bring those teams from down under to play in chicago for the same amount of games chicago teams have to travel. schedule games with reasoning so that the travel time is fair to all teams.
EG last season ICC went to Sprigfield, Jolly rovers, & peoria back to back to back. The wallet got low on the third game. Not a lot of teams can handle these types of schedules.
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If these teams left because they couldn't handle the travel, then too bad for them. I personally don't think the traveling is all that bad. Out of the 15 games in Division I, only 4-5 are played outside Chicago.
Its also good to have teams from all around the Midwest. The inclusion of teams like Milwaukee United, St.Louis and Purdue only elevates the level of competition in the league.
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BTW, it is true that Deccan Blues and Suburban left for ACC I think.. but I dont believe MDS has moved to ACC. The team just broke up, from what Ive heard. It was a team with a lot of former Continental players in it, and 4 of the 11 have IIRC returned to Continental. Munir (the captain) isnt playing anymore anywhere from what I hear. Altaf (Syed Khadry) has moved to Advancers. I believe Asif Ali may have gone to the ACC as an individual, not sure... Dr Akbar isnt playing at the moment from what I hear, but may play for some team in our league soon enough anyway. But MDS as a team never went anywhere - only some of their individuals at most (and no more than 3 or 4) went to the ACC I think.
As for travel etc.. it is something MCC will have to consider seriously in the future I think. Currently one can say there are only 4-5 games of travel, but thats increasing (as most of the new teams are outside Chicago - Moline and a new Peoria last year, Edwardsville this year). Also, there is a discrepancy in Division One and Division Two - Div1 has 5 away teams, but 2 of them are in Milwaukee (which is really the shortest travel there is - for North burb folk, its about as far as Washington Park :-)
Division Two is where the crunch will probably come sometime - there are now 8 away teams in Div2, and they are all *far* away, the closest trip is probably Urbana, and thats 2.5-3 hours away. This year there is both Collinsville *and* Edwardsville, which are almost as far as St Louis, and they arent on the same weekend (ie you might have to travel there twice!) Div2 could have 5 or 6 travel games even this year I think (after all, 8 away teams are hard to schedule otherwise), and if you have Edwardsville, Collinsville, Peoria, Moline, Madison etc, that is a lot of time spent on the road in one season.
One solution, of course, is to have sufficient grounds in Chicago, and then make the away teams come to Chicago for at least 4-5 games each. Thats probably the best long-term solution.
If that isnt feasible.. just skew more regional eventually if possible? Maybe down the road, there can be a division with a couple St Louis teams, a couple Springfield teams, a couple Peoria teams, Collinsville, Edwardsville etc... they will all be within an hour of each other maybe, and then 2 or 3 teams come out of that division to Chicago for the playoffs? Just an idea.. and its probably a ways in the future, when there is more equalization in the quality of these teams etc (until this year, only 1 of the above teams was in Division One, for example; this year 2 are, with Capitol's promotion; once the teams get closer in strength, maybe something like the above may be possible? Just an idea)
There is the likelihood of going to 3 divisions next season (something that is desperately needed - there is a *large* discrepancy in teams near the top and near the bottom of Division Two IMHO). When this happens Div2 may be even more crunched - it is possible that several of the current away teams will end up in Div2, not Div3. Once there are 17 teams in Div2 and everyone is playing everyone.. then having more than 5 or so away teams will make things very difficult on Div2 teams. In the future this is something MCC will have to think about very hard, possibly.
cricketwallah,
Do you have any information on the Edwardsville ground? The pitch, the outfield, run-ups etc.?
Well said Rup you covered genuine problems but home ground teams do incurr stuff like lunch we pay $50X12 games (3 away games currently norm for home teams) that's 600$ right there exepense for home team. We do try to up keep the pitch as much possible and run up. As per your advice (last year)we did purchase 2X4 and tarps for rainy days ($150)..We do up here quite a bit of work to up keep. I personally feel (good suggestion is) teams that are away by atleast > 3hrs travel time should find or schedule games on intermediary grounds (Not all games)..for instance Peoria (St Louis, Collinsville,Chicago teams), Bloomington (suppose to have gotten a ground)(Purdue Chicago matches or CCI ground or Sprigfield) so that burden won't be entirely on one team to travel 3 hrs or more..its just a thought. Definitely family life is affected as ourselves, PCC travelled 2 games in a row to Collinville and Springfield back to back can vouch. Management should take this into consideration. Just a thought...another good thought is to change the current model of div1 and div-II..make mix both Div-i and Div-II teams adn split them into groups pooling together away teams and local Chicago teams and seed them (Top 3 or 4 teams) from each group for playoffs..Its just takes little bit of planning and time to do this..
Cricketwallah said... In the future this is something MCC will have to think about very hard, possibly.
Bro the problem is they dont do much thinking... Just calling it as I see it
Madhu, valid points.
I know the home teams go through expense to host. But the biggest gains for teams like you all is the Family time Saved.
For some team it the expense and some the Family. agreed we have to find a common ground so all can be happy.
You all have a good ground there and it's nice to know time and effort is spent by your team to keep it good or even get better. Teams with your own grounds. follow PCC lead.
Rup,
I don't think everyone will be happy with fewer regular season games. Maybe we should take a poll.
You guys must recruit some younger blood man, that way you don't have to play all the games. The young guys can carry you through most of the season and then Super-Rup will take care of things in the playoffs :)
I think Suburban and MDS were also sick of playing in Division II. They came close a few times, but never quiet made it.
We must start promoting four teams from Division II into Division I.
I'm sure ICC, Suburban and MDS can easily out perform (or at least compete with) the bottom feeders of Division I.
Tango if bottom is line is playing good cricket having fun and enjoying I don't think any team will get sick of playing the game the other crap that goes or comes with cricket (the politics, the finger pointing, Egos) is what makes people sick to play on the team..just thought for you..
cricket,
Everyone wants to have fun, but it won't be as much fun if winning didn't matter. Most teams take their cricket pretty seriously. If I remember correctly, MDS used to fly down some of their players from India before a playoff game.
Rup,
You are correct, "Married with Children" will have to suffer on these outer games like St. Louis, Peoria, Springfields etc. You are almost out of the weekend.
Madhu, Totally agree on expense and hardwork parts but time is the biggest issue ..
Tango, no matter what we do not everyone will be happy. If we can make the mojority happy then you have won.
Jaggi/Harri can we get a poll going for the next couple days on a lower # of matches over the same time. 2. Shorter season with a world cup style event of the top 11 div 1 and 11 div 2 and 2 div 30/30.
We do not have much of a younger generation to groom in ICC and only a few young ones realy take to cricket. Also most of the teams are from Pakistan or India and these teams have lots of youngsters coming over already trained and good to go and they also stick with their family teams.
Thanks for the advise. we are looking to expand to cover for now
test
Funny you all talk in the tone of div i & div ii as if everything is discounted for div ii teams.
Reality and fact is there is no difference in talent between div i or div ii as I see it. Each team on average has two or three impact players at most and the rest are bunch of wanna be's, band wagons and braggers.
The league should consider the set up similar to MLB or NBA breaking teams in conferences and division and random scheduling with outside the division teams with only top 20 playing for the big dance come playoff time.
BINGO PLAYBALL...
NOT A MAN MOVE...
So good I have to say it again..
There is no real diff between Div 1 & 2... Each team has 2-3 impact studs and thats it...
Good idea playball few games to decide who tops the group and rest will play for the MCC cup that way every game you play past your group or conference will mean something
but the Div 1 teams are in DENIAL so they love the image thing of being in Div one that make them feel elite.. But the truth is they aren't elite.
Every cricketer should be refrained from using the word ELITE accept if you are the member of team Australia.
League's top agenda should be to fix the infrastructure of how best to set-up competition before thinking about having an allstar game. Have they defined the definition of an Allstar? I see no allstar in the league to have an allstar game. What a joke? Anyone can perform against anyone in the league. There is no one standout player. Everyone has this superiority complex I suppose. Didn't the league took the so called ALLSTAR to LA tournament last year and came back embarassing themselves.
Rup,
We had a poll last year about how far our readers were willing to drive for a road game. (http://tinyurl.com/yp4kcu)
We should probably have a new poll asking how many road games we can live with.
-----------------------------------
Playball said...
The league should consider the set up similar to MLB or NBA breaking teams in conferences and division and random scheduling with outside the division teams with only top 20 playing for the big dance come playoff time.
-----------------------------------
These are very good ideas playball. Keep it coming.
Adnan Baig, UCC
Playball, I'm guessing your post was addressed to me.
Playball said: "Funny you all talk in the tone of div i & div ii as if everything is discounted for div ii teams."
In a cricketing sense, everything is discounted for Division II. The top teams in Division II play at most 5-6 quality teams every year. In Division I, just about every game will be competitive.
Playball said: "Reality and fact is there is no difference in talent between div i or div ii as I see it”
Huh, maybe. Let us look at the numbers.
Since 2002, we’ve had seven teams from Division II who’ve made it to Division I (GCC didn’t play the following year)
Let us compare their statistics in Division II (in their winning season) and Division I (in their first year in the division)
Division II combined record: 68-19
Division I combined record: 40-51
NRR in Division II: 1.115
NRR in Division I: -.353
Out of the seven teams, IIT, Tigers and Book Club have already been relegated back to Division II.
Playball said: “Each team on average has two or three impact players at most and the rest are bunch of wanna be's, band wagons and braggers."
Your opinion.
Playball said: “The league should consider the set up similar to MLB or NBA breaking teams in conferences and division and random scheduling with outside the division teams with only top 20 playing for the big dance come playoff time.”
It will reduce the level of competition in Division I. I do believe that we must promote four teams from Division II to Division I every year. Better yet, it will be great to include these four teams in the Division I playoffs that very year.
"These are very good ideas playball. Keep it coming."
Adnan Baig, UCC"
Adnan looking to boost his batting average playing against weaker bowling ;)
You don't need em Adnan, your a great bat regardless.
It seems funny how some guys are defending themsleves in Division I.
Majority of the players in Div I may be talented..no doubt.
But how many of them still truly sticked to their original teams when they started playing in the league.
Majority of the times Div I teams pickup good players irrespective of the division he belongs to.
This year itself when Tigers were relegated to Div II, how many guys who played last year for Tigers are with the team. Majority have joined other teams in Div I. So..the very same players who failed in Tigers are now playing in other teams.
What does it say..so there is some false sense of pride in some people about Div I.
QC said: “It seems funny how some guys are defending themsleves in Division I.”
I am not defending myself; I’m merely refuting some of the comments made by Playball.
QC said: “But how many of them still truly sticked to their original teams when they started playing in the league.”
And your point being……?
QC said: ”Majority of the times Div I teams pickup good players irrespective of the division he belongs to. “
That is why Division I is a more competitive than Division II.
QC said: ”This year itself when Tigers were relegated to Div II, how many guys who played last year for Tigers are with the team. Majority have joined other teams in Div I. So..the very same players who failed in Tigers are now playing in other teams.”
Hmm, five of them joined other teams in Division I. They had 30 players on their roster last year. Let me assure you, five out of 30 is no where close to being a MAJORITY.
And the one’s who transferred must have been pretty good. Athreya has already scored a century for Phoenix. They also picked up Aditya from Division II last year, who is one hell of a batsman.
QC said: ”What does it say..so there is some false sense of pride in some people about Div I.”
No, it doesn’t say anything….your statements are baseless.
Come on guys, I’m not trying to undermine Division II. There are a lot of players in that division who can kick my butt (on and off the field). But to say that there is no difference in 'talent level' between Division I and Division II is ridiculous.
This talent thing??.
We need three conferences now. Too many teams in Div 2 so it make it look weak.
I order to progress one has to feel the got a chance to do so and many teams in Div 2 today don't have that chance against the top teams in their Div.
We see so many players who will move to Div 1 because of the implied status of being better. some players will rather quit than be relegated if they can't find a team to play with in Div 1.
There should be equal teams in each Div. this year we have 43 teams so we would have had 14 in 1, 14 in 2 and 15 in three. It becomes a 13 game season and best 8 of the Div makes the playoff. This means everyone gets a chance at the best or worst in their div.
Relegation will be 2 teams in DIV 1 & 2 teams in Div 2.
All new teams go to Div 3 and we can revisit for Div size as we see fit
Hello All
This is Mateen from Suburban
We moved to Acc for 2 reasons
1) In town games
2) As Rup stated "Family reasons"
For everyone who thinks that we moved to ACC to be close to the hyderabadi community please think again as there is only one person in the team who is from Hyderabad.
As far management issues yes we had a few but that was not a reason for the move at all we moved because of age factor, family reasons and last but not the least travel.
I have played in MCC since 1990 when there were only 10 teams in the league I have a lot of respect for the players in MCC
I will definitely miss playing with you all.
Good Luck to everyone out in MCC
P.S
Rup if you ever decide to kick AARON out of your team I have a place for him in ACC with Suburban
Rup,
The three division thing was discussed last year, but nothing happened. I'm guessing management was against it. It is a brilliant idea though. The games will be competitive in all divisions, we'll cut down one week and can probably have an All-star game that week.
ps. I'm not dissing anyone, but, does management even take these ideas into consideration? If so, it will be great to hear their reactions.
Its like when we were in school…we used to brag…”My dad will beat up your dad”…and so on..
Most of us who are bragging in here are like a bunch of school kids just trying to get attention…Div 1 will beat Div 2 etc..
I don’t see any of the proven winners in either division bragging about anything….they just go about and play their game….that’s why they win and play better….because they don’t focus on little things in life like playing in Div 1 or Div 2.
We take enough crap at home and work, do we really need to deal with that the one day you get to have fun, indulging yourselves with the favorite thing in the world?
Apart from the cream (maybe 3 or 4), rest of us are all playing in this league, because we can’t play professionally elsewhere.
Is it that important that you downgrade some of your fellow cricket leaguers?
We all play in our comfort zones, be that Div 1 or 2, we play with our friends, enjoy a good day in the field and go home.
The point of the matter is that, we are not talented enough to even judge the other person’s talent…be that Div 1 or 2. If we were, we would not be playing here…
But we are playing in MCC, so just respect each other (be that Div 1 or 2 or 3) and move on..
time_pass,
Well said.
You are definitely notliving up to your name, everything you say makes sense and its actually time well spent reading it.
I come in here to entertain and get entertained...but its depressing to see people judging talent and then bitching about it.
This is a blog, and lets blog...lets talk something interesting...
Leave your talent on the field...
Romeen, we still have not had our blog party...why dont you be the ring leader...you dont have to twist my arm..
Mateen,
Glad to hear all is ok with you and the team.
All the best and i hope we will be able to see Suburban back in MCC one day.
ICC don't have any reason for letting go of Aaron now or in the future. It ia all up to him though.
I'm up for the blog party. Are you guys in town for the long weekend?
Well, whoever is, just let us know on this blog and we'll figure something out.
ok time pass start a topic you think is ok to talk about on this Blog.
The reason we see so much venting and anger is because the
"We take enough crap at home and work, do we really need to deal with that the one day you get to have fun, indulging yourselves with the favorite thing in the world?". Well said.
BUT! to keep this one day excited for us and right now it's the same thing as has been for years, we need changes that will motivate and excite us to go out and enjoy this one thing.
I say that we go to a desi party and see if cricketers have the same luck as football players?
There are two parties coming up...one on May 26 and one on May 27 @ sound bar.
Absolutely Rup, we need to do everything in our power to make that one day very exciting.
And I was not talking about us discussing ideas on how to improve, those dicussions are always welcome. Matter of fact, the blog was created for such discussions.
Where else can we come up with creative and positive ideas.
But the discussion goes haywire when we shift gears and start bitching about different divisions and who's better than who.
Also, all these new ideas need to be put into the idea page, so that, the management can or cannot take a look at them.
If you think the management is not responding or paying enough attention, we have to work on some change. We have the elections next year, so we have the power next year to overthrow them, if we want to.
About this year, the plans have already been laid out, at least thats what it seems like.
About a topic for Discussion.....
How about we talk about fans and how they revolutionalized cricket..
There is a huge difference between the fans in the sub continent and the ones elsewhere..
In the sub continent, the fans consider the player above the game, which is unhealthy.
In places like West Indies, the player is respected for the game, outside of which he is on the same level as a layman.
What do you guys think?
I agree with time_pass.. we are not in a position to compare talent between the divisions. I agree that we need to take a hard look at div-2 and have a div-3. I also like the idea of the div-2 finalists playing in div-1 playoffs. We can do the same for div-3 teams.
When Tigers won div-2 in 2002, we did play United in the div-1 playoffs. It was an awesome experience for all of us. I think it happened again in 2004 when Miwaukee United derailed Wildcats and Kutis. I dont know why it didnt happen on subsequent years, but, I do like it.
I have been saying that we should take a break during the regular season(not during a long weekend) and have some sort of an all-star game. We can pick a couple of all-star teams from all the divisions and play a bunch of games over the weekend. We will have stalls at teh ground with food, games that families can enjoy. In the current structure, its a trade off between playing one less game and having a fun weekend.
Romeen, I have a couple of things going on during the long weekend, but will try to make it for a little bit. Let us know what the plans are.
In response to Tango:
As I reiterate myself there are no significant differences between Div I or Div II talent wise.
Everyone is beatable by anyone on any given day. Tango stated some of the DIV II teams who moved to DIV I failed to do well, but, he fails to mention those who succeeded at the same token i.e Milwaukee/Purdue.
If I recall correctly there was a team made up of DIV I players who came in on DIV II with high hopes of winning all and failed to do so. I believe it was the lowly Royals beating up the so called DIV I. Also, If I recall correctly when top 2 of the DIV II were qualified to enter DIV I playoff one of the Div II beat the so called one of the top 8 of DIV I in the playoff.
Last year I was tired of hearing Satha is doing what he is doing because he is in DIV II. What a crap? No matter how weak the league is to be able to do it at taht level on a consistent basis is an achievement one should command and not undermine because he is not in DIV I.
Bottomline is the structure needs to be changed so that there are no variations and everyone entering the tournament is measured at the same level and let the best team take the trophy.
To close out by rebuttle I will give an example of MLB and NBA. No one gives credit to the NL and the Eastern conference of NBA teams no matter how well they do. My take is NL was the champion last year and NBA east was the champion last year. Never underestimate anyone. No one is elite and everyone is beatable. May I remind that India and Pakistan the so called DIV I type attitude in the international arena were exited out of the world cup in the first round.
Enough said.
Guyz,
We seemed to have lost touch with Aditya's blog on suggestions/improvements. I'd think we need a serious discussion on getting more grounds in chicago land area. Collective and concerted effort on the part of us will do us a lot of wonders...I am sure MCC will take whatever help we can provide. If we start today, we may be able to get one or two new grounds for next season...shall we try?
cheers
- Ram L
Ram,
You guys managed to get a ground in Naperville last year, how did you do it?
Who do you go to? Park Distt?
Are there any tricks to this?
Getting more grounds.
ICC tried a couple times but was unable to get a ground in the city or suburbs.
We are live allover the place from south burbs to north burbs.
Teams that are located in any given city are more likely to get a ground. They need to request that through their Alderman or congress rep.
Devon neighborhood should be a good place to get a ground or two because of the concentration of Asian population.
Mayor Daly's wife is the cordinator for special sports and I suggest managment communicate with her office to get a ground or two.
Last season when i talked about approaching the politicians about getting us ground to promote our game the response was that we should not mix politics with cricket. I tought we vote these guys in to represent all of our needs??.
We prefer to go to schools and rent their fields and spend monies to build grounds and then loose them. This will also happen in cities where we don't stand up for the grounds and other people/sports take them away from us.
OH, also we can work with the director of Midwest Zone to get us more grounds. I heard he is doing a good job getting grounds for ACC. I think we lost Naperville to ACC??
Playball said : “Everyone is beatable by anyone on any given day. Tango stated some of the DIV II teams who moved to DIV I failed to do well, but, he fails to mention those who succeeded at the same token i.e Milwaukee/Purdue. “
Huh, but I included the records of both Purdue and Milwaukee United in the ‘Division II vs. Division I’ comparison in my previous post. No one is denying that those teams are good, but my calculations clearly show that all the Division II winners/runner-up performed significantly worse in Division I than they did in Division II.
Playball said: “If I recall correctly there was a team made up of DIV I players who came in on DIV II with high hopes of winning all and failed to do so. I believe it was the lowly Royals beating up the so called DIV I.”
If you are talking about the Rising Stars, then you might want to check their record, they dominated the regular season and had the no.2 seed. They beat up on all the Division II teams but were upset by a hungry Royals team (who are also in Division I) in the semi-finals. They might have failed to win the championship, but they were still one of the elite teams of Division II (aka. ICC last year).
BTW. Both the no.1 and no.2 seeds that year were upset.
Playball said: “Also, If I recall correctly when top 2 of the DIV II were qualified to enter DIV I playoff one of the Div II beat the so called one of the top 8 of DIV I in the playoff.”
Let me take it a step further, had GCC been allowed to compete in the Division I playoffs the year they won the championship, they might have been able to beat all Division I teams in the playoffs. But I can assure you, GCC would have had a much tougher time beating Division I teams, as opposed to the ‘cake-walks’ they got in Division II.
Look at the Purdue team from two years back. They played about half of their regular XI in every game in Division II, but still finished the season 12-1(most of the games being blowouts), and swept through the playoffs. Even though they performed quiet well in Division I (were screwed out of the semis by the Messiah), they had a much tougher time beating teams in Division I (finished 9-5 in Division I)
Playball said: “Last year I was tired of hearing Satha is doing what he is doing because he is in DIV II. What a crap? No matter how weak the league is to be able to do it at taht level on a consistent basis is an achievement one should command and not undermine because he is not in DIV I.”
To be honest, I highly doubt if Satha will average, err….109.12 in Division I. I won’t be surprised if he tops the division in scoring, but his average is bound to come down, because there are better bowlers in Division I.
Playball said: “Bottomline is the structure needs to be changed so that there are no variations and everyone entering the tournament is measured at the same level and let the best team take the trophy. “
I think Division II teams should earn their spot to play in Division I. I do believe that it’s a little bit unfair that only the top two teams of Division II are promoted. Instead, let’s start promoting four teams and let the winners/runners-up from Division II compete for the Division I crown.
Playball said: “To close out by rebuttal I will give an example of MLB and NBA. No one gives credit to the NL and the Eastern conference of NBA teams no matter how well they do. My take is NL was the champion last year and NBA east was the champion last year. Never underestimate anyone. No one is elite and everyone is beatable.”
Well we have somewhere around 50 teams in the MWCC, if you combine all the divisions. It will be a nightmare to come up with a non-biased schedule. I still like Rup’s idea of three divisions.
Also, I don’t like or follow baseball; I think it’s a ‘stupid’ game, so I’m not going to comment on the NL. But the Eastern Conference in the NBA is soooo much weaker than the Western conference man. It’s painful to watch the Bucks and the Celtics play.
Playball said: “May I remind that India and Pakistan the so called DIV I type attitude in the international arena were exited out of the world cup in the first round.”
Aila, tereko wapas samjhana pedega kya?
Don’t you know that even in International Cricket, teams have to earn their test-status?
Playball said: “Enough said.”
Finally we agree on something, people over here are getting pissed off about the Division I-Division II comparison. We’re just having fun, right? Anyways, I rest my case. Let’s move on to a different topic.
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