LOL NW you can't pick your own game? PHX. V PURDUE, i'll take purdue to dominate. PHX. will not stand up to their bowling! St. Louis home field will be no good. Pak should take care of WC, WC bowling is not what it used to be. United in a close one with Flames. Flames are desperate for a win and will fight hard. Challengers should murder Capitols week bowling attack, especially on that batting track. look for 300+ from challengers. Milwaukee in a cakewalk over Royals. Muslim Bears should be very close, but Bears will sneak past Muslim. No offense to anyone.
United beat Flames close - may be by 2 wickets or about 30 runs
Challengers beat St.Louis I'm praying challengers will bat first. Wildcats beat Pak Gymkhana clinical performance by CATS. disapointly game is not close.
Challengers beat Capitol satha can't stop challengers Milwaukee CC beat Royals a mismatch Muslim Gym beat Bears close game. i put my money on star players in muslim Purdue beat Phoenix close game. purdue will come through
n_w said.. jaggi, how are your perparations going on againts purdue. ----------------------------------- n_w, our preparations are going fine. It should be an interesting game, hopefully we will come out with 4 points. I will not give out the team composition before the game.. :)
I like Tango's confidence in our team..hopefully we can prove him right.
There are a bunch of interesting games this weekend. Good luck to all teams.
Alpesh.. the web team has not been able to find time to help us with the fantasy league. My skills with asp are very limited. If its a static page, please compile a list in an excel or html page(preferred) and I will ask the team to upload it.
romeen i thought you are one who said ajait good right heart for the cricket. well let me tell you who ever playes cricket they always comes on a ground with right heart. everyone in this leauge has cricket fever inside them. ajit is no a special. if you go around the leauge and ask everyone individuals you would not get good rating for ajit and krishna from your team. both of them are cry baby, they both does not have sportman spirit. both never respect other player or other team. only person in your team deserve respect as a cricketer as well as person is satish, nikhil, and urself. i would pick mahesh from challenger over ajit any given day. he is good left handed bat than ajit. mahesh can go after anykind of bowling. keep ajit in ur pocket and try to win coming up games.
Predications of Week#6 1.United will beat Flames. 2.Purdue will beat Phoenix in a close one. 3.Pak will easily beat the Wildcats. 4.St.louis will win in a close game over Challengers. 5.Challengers will easily beat the Capitol. 6.MCC will win against Royals. 7.Muslim vs Bears is going to be a good one but in the end Muslim will overcome against da Bears. My predication is just 4 fun don't meant to offend anybody.
Good luck to all the teams this weekend. My predictions are:
1. United over Flames 2. Phoenix over Purdue 3. Pak over Wildcats but it will be a close one. 4. St. Louis over Challengers 5. Capitol over Challengers. Satha scores his first century this week. 6. MCC over the Gujjus - I am one also but hey wtf :) (A GUJJU I MEAN) 7. Bears over Muslim. Farhat will once again flash a part of anatomy that no one wants to see. lol.
Just thought i would let you guys knoe that there was a fight during the bears muslim game but this one didnt involve farhat or anyone from Muslim. Bears fought within themselves.
n_w, Phoenix lost a very close game. Phoenix batting first was in deep trouble(55/5 and 60/6). Priyank(59 runs) and Venu had an excellent partnership and got Phoenix to a very competitive 190+ runs. Unfortunately, the bowling was not upto the mark. We gave away 42 wides.. Purdue(7 wiks down) won with 2 overs to spare.
Since I didnt play, I will ask Aditya to give a more detailed match report.
I heard the ground is one of the best we have.
Any updates on the Pak Vs Cats game.. Raheel, Romeen??
--------- Jaggi said... n_w, Phoenix lost a very close game. Phoenix batting first was in deep trouble(55/5 and 60/6). Priyank(59 runs) and Venu had an excellent partnership and got Phoenix to a very competitive 190+ runs. Unfortunately, the bowling was not upto the mark. We gave away 42 wides.. Purdue(7 wiks down) won with 2 overs to spare.
Since I didnt play, I will ask Aditya to give a more detailed match report.
I heard the ground is one of the best we have.
Any updates on the Pak Vs Cats game.. Raheel, Romeen?? ----------
Yes, a match report would be greatly appreciated, from both Raheel and Romeen. I picked up a few snippets yesterday - Wildcats batted first and got nearly 240 IIRC, with lots of contributions from everyone up and down the order (no one big score was mentioned). I was told Pak Gym was about 120/2 near the break, but collapsed to 190-odd allout to lose in the second half. No details on who took wickets for the Wildcats (or who scored runs for either team). Next door, United chased down 190-odd fairly easily against the Flames apparently (Kiran batted a long time and did the bulk of the scoring for the Flames, 70-odd I hear).
The Phoenix-Purdue game was very good - Phoenix was 54/2 in 11 overs, then slid to 66/7 (some loose batting, and very good bowling by Ruchir and Neeraj in tandem - Ruchir was very quick on Saturday, with good control this time, only 2 wides in his 9 overs IIRC). Then Priyank batted terrifically with great support from Venu (and then from Arun and Deepak). Priyank actually got 64 or so IIRC, and dragged Phoenix to 190 in the end. He was cramping up a lot by the end of it (which affected Phoenix as he is their best bowler too - he only could bowl one injury-affected over to open, and then bowled his remaining overs in the middle rather than with the new ball). The ball was moving, Deepak especially was moving it a *lot* for Phoenix, but that resulted in a lot of wides too (42 or so overall, as you say), and Purdue finally got home by 3 wickets with barely 2 overs to spare.
The "one of the best grounds we have" is more than a bit of an exaggeration IMHO :-) Its a pretty decent-sized ground, which is great IMHO (Whitewater is bigger still, and much much better overall). But the outfield can occasionally be bumpy (though the grass was cut well and the outfield quick), and the pitch is narrower than it ought to be (which can make followthru difficult for pacemen, as Dhiraj from United can attest to from last year - he twisted his ankle and was out for a 2-3 weeks). And there are no facilites immediately close by (all grounds struggle with this, really - Hanover is the exception, and Mossville has the best facilities bar none, though theyre about 50 yards away from the edge of the ground). No trees nearby either - Ive umpired here on occasion when its been very hot (90-odd), and it feels *much* worse than the same temperature at WP.
Yesterday Muslim beat Bears - Muslim put up 260 in their 45 overs (lots of hitting at the end from Rizwan - I was next door, Muslim were 210/8 with 5 overs left when our break ended, but Rizwan apparently hit 24 off one over near the end, got his personal 50, and took Muslim to 260). Bears were about 70/1 in about 12 overs I think - when I got there after my game, they were still in great shape at 98/3 in 16 overs with Sameer going great guns. But there was a runout, then Sameer fell for 55, and wickets fell in a heap as the Bears eventually faded to about 140 allout I think.
So most Div1 results are in (except from MCC-Royals from yesterday) I think. Div2 is a different story - very few results are in so far (in the few that are, Illinois was upset in Collinsville, the Peoria juggernaut rolled on, Jolly Rovers and Evanston won).
BTW, its interesting how little comment there is about Div2 (some games that would be talked about for weeks if they happened in Div1 dont even get remarked on here :-) Last week, for example, there was this ridiculous game in Peoria between Jolly Rovers and Evanston. JR apparently got 217 batting first. Evanston claimed (yesterday, when I chatted with them) that they needed 3 to tie and 4 to win off the last over with 9 down, got 2 singles and 1 wide to tie.. but the extra ball for the wide was not bowled at all, and so the game was tied despite one ball less being bowled! Their scorecard reflects this too. However, the summary from Jolly Rovers says that Evanston actually got 216 in their full 40 overs and so Jolly Rovers *won* by 1 run! I got only the Evanston version of events yesterday, obviously - it would be nice if someone from Jolly Rovers could comment on here and let us know their version? :-)
I already got 3 missed calls from various MCC folks asking abt that game. :-) Cats batted first and made 238 with contributions from Romeen, Ajit, and Satish (who shepherded the tail well).
Bakshi hit 2-3 fours in the first couple of overs, but was soon out. Irfan was bowled in spectacular fashion by Satish. Hasan and Mazhar batted well, Cats dropped a couple of catches, and it was well-poised at 63/2 in 10 overs. But suddenly Pak Gym collapsed. Hasan and Mazhar were out in quick succession, and crucially, Shahid was run-out. (You should have seen Cats' celebration!) When we left, Rashid and Farman were looking to stabilize, while Cats were definitely on top, looking to wrap up the lower order.
I can't even move my fingers this morning to type after 2 full days of cricket.. :-) Aint complaining...it was a blast!
Challengers Vs St. Louis
Our batting collapsed, managed to get bundled out for 164, no highlights..except for a lionheart performance from Tehsin 3/25 (his mother passed away last week, so please give him your condolences when you have a chance). We managed to get some early wickets, but Amit played a gem (62 no) and along with Tehsin (31 no) managed to finish it in 40.
Capitol vs. challengers
Finally, our batting clicked!Darshan(115) and I put 78 for the 1st, and then we saw some breathtaking hits from Mahesh (49), Darshan, Tushar and Daxx.
Daxx, rupesh and Nilesh gave Capitol some swing bowling lessons. My fav. was when Rupesh moved a ball from way outside the leg to uproot the opener's off stump. Daxx (7/14) was at his best, took the key wickets of Srujeet and Satha. Srujeet tried to leave a ball which took the edge of his bat and then knocked the stumps. Satha tried to drive on a fuller ball and edged it to see Mahesh dive full length to take a brilliant catch. daxx and Nilesh ran through the rest of the line up.
i guess it kinda proves that st louis is only good at home..they mostly loose in playoffs in the first round and this yr lost both their away games. Ajoy what is ur take on your poor away performance.
Ajoy, It was our pleasure to be there and we did enjoy a good day's cricket. Didn't enjoy losing it, but it exposed some of our weaknesses, something to think about..
Thanks for being a great host, really appreciate that..!
maybe capitol should have practised on the pitch during lunch;) anyword on royals? ajoy can you do a write up 0f your game. it would be nice to get st. louis take.
Wildcats Vs Pak Wildcats won the toss and elected to bat, Balaji got out to a very good slower ball initially and then Romeen and Sanjay consolidated the score without taking too many risks, romeen was unfortuate to be runout for a well made 36. Ajit came next and along with Sanjay he was scoring easily untill he mis hit a shot making a well made 37, Sanjay made a well made 48 and he got out. SP took the game with a couple of good hits and eventually got out trying to play a defensive shot. Vikram got out to a good ball and all of a sudden we slipped from a good position to a precarious one, but a late cameo from Nikhil and Satish got us to a good enough score of 238 all out of the last ball. Pak started aggressively with Bakshi playing a couple of good shots, but he was out soon and pak were 60/2 for 10 overs and then wildcats left a couple of catches just before the drinks session and at that time Pak were on top scoring 107 in 22 overs. Soon came the wildcats after the break and got the wicket of Hasan who was playing sensible cricket till then. then Sanjay started bowling beautifully along with Giri to stiffle Pak and we were getting wickets at regular intervals. Giri made a gem of a stop to get the danger man Shahid run out and from there on the rest of the batting folded except for a couple of good hits from Raheel at the end. All said it was a good game played in the right spirit and last but not the least the umpiring by Mr. Anwer Khan was absolutely spot on.
Bakshi had very good things to say about Anwer Khan as an umpire in the Pak Vs Flames game. Its good to see that he umpired well in the Pak Vs Cats game.
It appears that he doesnt play but only umpires. Can anybody give more details about him?
Jaggi, Purdue has one of the best grounds? Are you kidding me?
Its one of the toughest places to play in. Large ground (Sadiq, its as big as Whitewater), very slow outfield, bumpy infield. Its out in the wilderness, far away from civilization. Its no where close to being the best ground in the league. It only looks beautiful from outside, since its clean n green (Unlike Washington Park where we have to in the middle of dog crap).
Romeen, I'd like to know what you had for breakfast on Sat man! ;). Got dropped in 3rd over by Farman off his own bowling - a catch that was even easier than a dolly! And then got out ct at short cover off my bowling only for it to be a no ball (the only no ball I bowled in 7 overs! lol). Anyways, it was a good game, our middle / lower order batting needs to apply itself more while chasing and not rely on Shahid's brilliance all the time! Off to St. Louis next weekend where temperatures are supposed to hit 95!!
Another week has gone by. Some of the games which took my attention
ICC v/s Collinsville QCKings v/s Lucky XI Peoria v/s SIUE
All the 3 games were low scoring. Looks like either the bowling departments are getting stronger or the batting is getting weaker. Congratulations to Collinsville for beating ICC (2nd loss in a row), QCKings (My favorites and looks like these guys took my words too seriously and proved me wrong 5 times in a row..if they read what I wrote when the league was just starting) beat Lucky XI by 6 wickets and Peoria continued their dominance over their opposition. Anyone has any other game details from division II?
rup now you know why there is no talk about DIV II players when it comes to LA open. Champions and runners up are struggling to even win a game in Div I.
"rup now you know why there is no talk about DIV II players when it comes to LA open. Champions and runners up are struggling to even win a game in Div I."
Rup does get a bit carried away with the Division I and Division II comparisons, but lets not count Capitol and AAA out just yet.
They've barely played four games. Remember last year, Purdue started the season 1-3, but finished the season no.5 in standings.
i'm disapointed withe the way AAA and capitol play. i expected much better show from them. but tango is right :) there is a learning curve when you come to Div I. i hope AAA and capitol will buckle down soon enough to catch up.
its look like this year Div i has brocken down to two tier competition because of weakening of some teams.
thank god you disgreed. it started lokking like same dude in different names for while. like UNITED and ADDY do.
anyway lets get to the bottom of this.
PAK and CATS on top.
i would rate CHALLENGERS right up there (or even higher) with PAK as far as talent goes. but they are the most inconsistent team in the league probably.so its matter of whether they would bring their A game to park on a game day.
UNITED is playing smart cricket at the moment. got few stars. MEHUL and ADDY scoring runs and look liked they have glued toghether much better this year.
then we have Milwaukee on a bull run and four more wins will put them on PLAY OFFS spot. St loius - talent wise they do not deserve a play off spot. but they know how to use their slow bowlers at home. so they will manage another 5/8 to get into playoffs.
six spots gone, then you have the rest and the rest of the rest. who will get the next two spots. front runners are ROGERS PARK / MUSLIM / PHOENIX / PURDUE and may be if buckle up soon CAPITOL.
i dont think BEARS/CHARGERS/FLAMES/AAA/MIL UNITED/ ROYAL are play off teams this year.
Arsenal beat Eagles by 1 wicket...chasing 180 odd to win, Arsenal were reduced to 117-8 and still managed to win...Infact the last wicket scored aroundd 40 runs to enable the victory.
"rup now you know why there is no talk about DIV II players when it comes to LA open"
anhonestquery,
I think it would be very unfair to rate DIV II players on team performance. Individuals like Satha, Rup, Laxmi, etc. will perform well in DIV I. Infact, they would do even better if they were playing for a decent/good team. If your team is one/two man show, it puts a lot of pressure and restricts you in playing freely. I witnessed that in our last game against Flames. Kiran who usually is more of an aggressive player played very subdued innings. I would say somebody like him or satha playing for WC, Pak gym or challengers might do amazingly well. I remember Shahid played for Suburban for two yrs and did not do that great, and his performance playing for Pak gym is history. I think on the contrary it is amazing of these guys to keep performing in a loosing cause.
I think the key to LA open is young players. I have participated once and it is very very hot and playing back to back games is very very hard.
Ram did provide a brief summary of the Arsenal-Eagles game. To add on to his comments.....This was a game that we (Arsenal) had no business winning - thanks mainly to our consitently inconsistent top and middle order bats - but the last 4 wickets accounted for 120+ runs. At the end, the extras that the Eagles gave us at in-oppurtunate (oppurtunate for us) times and their dropped catches towards the end cost them a win that I thought they had more than sealed up.
For us, the last pair of Vijay (23 *) and Prasanna (21 *) accounted for 45+ runs to bring us home, to account for one of the most improbable wins that I have been a part off in recent times !
Subbu for the Eagles had another awesome masterful knock as he stood at one end while wickets kept falling at the other end at regular intervals.
ICC vs Collinsville. We got out behind kicked again. We started of ok. a lot of extras but then we lost two quick wickets. Myself an collins steadied thing for a while but then lost Colins at 70+. I just got going. Hit two sixes of the over then got a stinker. pitched on off nipped back and kept low and clipped leg. A lot of balls kep low on this track. Jack got bowled with one the never left the ground. disaster struck as we collapsed from 84/3 to 88/7. Dan then rallied the tail to get us to 149 whils making 34. The rain came at our inning end. the ground was wet when we started our defense. We have to leave the first time even before we start bowling. We started off good as i bowled the opener but after 4 over the miosture killed the ball. We kep our selves in the hunt by picking up a couple wickets but Nitesh came in and played a great innings(bar a couple chances)got 50+ and Collinsville won by 6 wickets and 9 overs to go. Our only effective Bowler was George. The rain realy hurt us but we need to take care of that wicket. It keep very low and frequently skids through ankle height. Collinsville is not of express bowling but i guess they know the wicket and bowled to it's ways. When collinsville batted you one could see the differnece of knowing the wicket. They played late and played low as if expecting a creeper most of the times. ICC is now 2&2 and we got some catching up to do.. and before you all start shooting, no ICC is not done we are just going through a rough patch.
Naren, Thanks for providing the Pak Gym -WC summary. I'd like to add that you bowled extremely well and would have had more wickets if we hadnt dropped so many catches. Also, you were being extremely generous when you said the WC dropped a 'couple' catches before drinks, it was exactly 6 in the space of 4 overs!
Raheel, I have to agree with you, I was extremely fortunate to have survived those 2 catches. I've not seen Farman drop any, I think just like a bowler can fox a batsman with a slower one, the batsman could possibly do the same back to the bowler :) The ball went so slowly (inadvertently ofcourse) back to Farman that he completely misjudged it.
And finally about Mr. Anwer, he's great. Very unassuming but always in control and extremely even keeled. Would love to see him umpire more games.
Tango and n_w, I think you guys are the stars of this blog, both of you think alike, write funny stuff, and are overall very entertaining. And whats with the ties every week?
Mehul, my personal opinion is that if its not a turf wicket, you can do whatever the heck you want on it during the lunch break (including eating lunch on it ).
neanderthal_walking was kidding dude... no reason to hate us we play fair, hard and we have fun... And when we winning we beat u good and quickly so you can go home to your families ASAP.. lol..
you said the blog was dead.. so I was waking it up
We've all done that, havent we? That was one cold morning, I remember (ofcourse its always cold that early in the morning, especially if you are laying on a pitch at WP).
thanks romeen. i try. anyway whats the secret with CATS this year? look like in great shape but being devils advocate i think CATS peaking little too early. anyway i'm big fan of brand of cricket CATS play
Mehulshani said.. I remember once u were sleeping on it from 5am in order to reserve the pitch for practice games. ----------------------------------- Lol :) reminds me of good old days back at home.
mehulshani well I am glad you ask... I am a bowler and i dont waste time not energy.. to appeal for something I know is not out. Neither would appeal and want the umpire to agree and give the batsman out. I feel I should earn your wicket and it must not be given to me..
n_w, First of all, these are very early days, I know people are already talking about playoff contenders and such but IMHO, there's a long way to go before a better picture emerges. Remember the last couple seasons? IIRC, 4-5 playoff positions were uncertain until the last league game of the season. And about peaking too early, we'd rather take every win we get right now, who knows how hard it'll be later on. With all teams being as good as they are, i guess the best approach is to think about winning one week at a time. Thanks for your comments about our team though.
============================ hey romeen any comments about practicing on the middle of the pitch during lunch break. You knew I was going to ask you this. ============================== Don't forget Shani, you were also warned for running on the pitch:)
This is the most funny thing i have ever heard. Umpire told me not to stand on the pitch while the bowler is bowling, since it could interfere his fielding, just incase the ball is hit back toward the non-stricker. I should stand on the grass and then walk across the ridge and use the pitch to run between the wickets. One of the flames players twisted his ankle on very first run he took. I am not sure from where did he come up with this.
If you call dropping top batsmen's catches (Satha dropped on less than 10, scored 76, Kiran dropped on 0, scored 72), and conceding 35+ extras per game, as "smart cricket", then yes, we are playing very smart cricket. :-)
We dropped 8 catches in the last game. After first 2-3 catches, we asked Kiran what he ate for breakfast. After that, we realized it's not what he ate, but what we drank...
There are also other things we need to work on, but I won't elaborate. :-)
"anhonestquery", Capitol's first 5 games in Div I are all against semi-finalists of last 2 years! It is a tough schedule for anyone.
You have the right to appeal but the unpire also has the right to see that you do not appeal excessively or find a nice piece of land , Far, Far away so you stop being a nuisance. Some team just appeal for anything. not sure why or it's just excitement. For a long time i have not seen a team appeal like collinsville. There was hardly a stifled appeal cause all 11 guys go up no matter where they are. When i was batting got hit on the pad, bowler stifled his appeal but the guy at deep midwicket went up like a lion behind him and he is yelling for help. I had to laugh!!!!. You will only see me appeal if I am sure i got my man. Or the first to stifled my appeal and walk back to the bowling mark if I went up wrongfully. Excessive appealing is wrong to the umpires and teams need to controll this.
Who was the umpire that said you had to run on the grass?. A batsman has the right to run from anywhre he so chooses at the non striker end once he is not on the same side as the bowler. the only time he should be pulled up is if he is running on the restricted area of the pitch in out case we don't have a restricted area. However he can be given out if the umpire feels he deliberately ran infront of a fielder and obstructing the fielder from fielding the ball which could have made an out.
-------- Romeen said... Mehul, my personal opinion is that if its not a turf wicket, you can do whatever the heck you want on it during the lunch break (including eating lunch on it ). ------------
I think we really need to have a ruling on this by management :-)
You saw last week, in international cricket (Eng vs WI)... you arent allowed to practice *on the square* once the game has begun. Not on the pitch - on the square. It doesnt just have to do with "damaging the pitch", the "parallel practice pitches" are on the square, after all, and you can practice there before the game begins etc. But between innings, lunch-time etc, you cant do *anything* on those pitches either.
I dont think the idea is just "damage", its more. Its also getting used to a runup on the pitch between innings, getting adjusted to the sight-lines, maybe even getting a "feel" of the middle etc. During the game, *none* of it is allowed at the international level - and while we dont have damage-able pitches, those other reasons apply to us as much as anyone else IMHO.
But it cant be just an umpire's call in this respect (we all have different views, probably :-) Lets have a uniform rule set for our league on this once and for all, and be done with it :-)
guys i don't know have you been noticing that challenger bowler are creating record here. last week bhavesh took 6 wickets for only 18 runs and this week daxx took 7 wickets for only 14 runs. that's amazing. satha can you tell us about challenger bowling. i was just wondering what's the highest wicket taken by bowler in one match in midwest cricket. can you guys give update on this. looking at numbers i think challenger have best bowling side. that's what i think i don't know what rest of you think . i would like to get rest of ur opionion
---------- St loius - talent wise they do not deserve a play off spot. but they know how to use their slow bowlers at home. so they will manage another 5/8 to get into playoffs. ----------
On what basis, BTW? St Louis has basically a new pace bowling attack, that almost nobody has seen so far - how do we know they arent very good? In their first game Ajoy Lal got 5/10 opening the bowling.. he didnt play in their 2 losses (in Chicago and in Milwaukee back-to-back - now *thats* a difficult travel!) Their new guy Sameer Raorane has gotten wickets and made runs - I dont even know if he's young or old so far, but if he's from Shivaji Park, he's gotta be pretty good ;-)
We all know St Louis' veterans - Tehsin, Mujahid, Masoor etc, stars in our league for a long itme. Sohail is still one of the best batsmen in the league even this year (didnt even get out for the first 3 weeks!). Last year they got a young new batsman, Amit - he ended up #2 in averages for the entire season, and is up there again this year (and just won MOM against Challengers) - Ive seen the guy once, and he looked pretty damn good to me.
Sure they know how to play at home etc - but on what basis can anyone allege they lack talent, in a side with Sohail, Amit etc (and a couple new bowlers with great stats who most of the league hasnt actually seen)?
----------- We dropped 8 catches in the last game. After first 2-3 catches, we asked Kiran what he ate for breakfast. After that, we realized it's not what he ate, but what we drank... -------
What *did* you guys drink? Inquiring minds want to know...
--------- anhonestquery said... rup now you know why there is no talk about DIV II players when it comes to LA open. Champions and runners up are struggling to even win a game in Div I. -------
OTOH, it might be pointed out that the Div1 team that went to Div2 hasnt yet won a game in Div2 yet either! Tigers may have lost 4 players, but they still retained 7 out of 11 from a Div1 team last year after all.
Honestly, I think Div2 was *very* strong 2-3 years ago - I think a Div2 allstar side that year could have really pushed a Div1 allstar side, maybe even beaten them! Those couple years, Div2 had Tarunreddy, Deven Patel, Satha (3rd highest rungetter in Div2 that year!!), Girish Kamthe and Ashwin (Purdue), Afroze, Jahangir (Rising Stars), Rup, Jack (Illinois), Samarth (United), Priyank (Phoenix), Aditya (Madison) etc.
I think Div2 has weakened for the past couple of years now. This is not exactly surprising - you had first Royals, then Milwaukee United, then Purdue, then Phoenix all get promoted, and Rising Stars and GCC break up (with all 11 of Rising Stars players currently playing in Div1, some GCC playrs playign Div1 and others not in our league anymore). Thats effectively almost 6 teams worth - 60-65 good players - that went from Div2 to Div1. And meanwhile, *nobody* went from Div1 to Div2 - every team that got "demoted" broke up and didnt actually go to Div2, their players staying with other teams in Div1.
The consequences of this are pretty natural IMHO - there is more of a concentration of talent in Div1 than there used to be even 3-4 years ago. That doesnt mean Div2 doesnt have good players - they have some *very* good players, and an all-star Div2 side would be very good indeed even now (just this week I saw Perrin Doneike of Evanston who is a very good *quick* bowler - maybe up there with Jack amongst the quicker ones in Div2). But *in general* IMHO Div2 isnt as strong as it was a few years ago, and thats pretty natural. Even now, however, an all-star Div2 team would be pretty damn good (people Jack, Rup, Perrin, Madhu, Laxmi, Ajay, Subbu, Maninder Bola, Khadry - and thats just off the top of my head, Iam missing plenty more Iam sure).
In one sense, IMHO the 2 teams that were promoted from Div2 this year (AAA and Capitol) arent quite what we saw the previous 2 years, in that their depth isnt quite as good. Purdue, Milwaukee United etc, they had very good depth, batted all the way down to #10 or so etc (and this was known even in their Div2 days - when Purdue was a Div2 team they were actually much better than they are now that they are in Div1 IMHO... they still had Girish Kamthe, Ashwin, Sharath who is now opening for Milwaukee etc). Capitol has the best single bat in Div2 (and Srujeet looks very good, even though he's young - but Capitol has lost a lot of their student players for the entire summer), and AAA has some very good strokeplayers and a solid bowling attack, but 1-thru-11 they arent quite what the batting teams that came up before them were, IMHO. And thats the big thing in Div1, you need batting depth all the way down if you are to really succeed IMHO.
--------- Ramsundar Lakshminarayanan said... Arsenal beat Eagles by 1 wicket...chasing 180 odd to win, Arsenal were reduced to 117-8 and still managed to win...Infact the last wicket scored aroundd 40 runs to enable the victory. ------
So this is the Eagle's second consecutive 1-wicket loss this season (to 2 probable playoff teams, at that)? Damn, thats rough. Such a solid side, and yet theyre really struggling this year.
Nice win for Arsenal though, after their upset by the Warriors last weekend.
C8W, We did see sameer raorane (or does he spell his name samir?) when they visited us. Very impressive, both with bat and ball. Yeah, Shivaji park rules!
Sadiq bhai, my understanding about practicing on the square is that it is not allowed because future tests/ODIs/county matches are to be played on those pitches and it takes a long time to prepare good turf wickets. If it were a well known ICC rule I think Allan Donald of all people would have known who played international cricket for a long time and even county cricket.
I am with Romeen on this one - you can eat your lunch if you please on the matting over concrete wickets - as long as you clean up the mess afterwards ;).
Sachin, Kambli et al' s proving grounds. They grew up their pretty much.
Basically a strech of land dotted with 10's of 'pitches'. Most of them serve as 'coaching camps' in the summer and early morning and then are leased out daily for matches.
Amongst these camps, Ramakant Achrekar's is legendary (Sachin and Kambli's coach). I believe its now run my his daughter.
Its a mecca for cricket lovers in mumbai (along with azad maidan) and there are so many games going on at one time that you may well find yourself chasing the ball from another game or take a catch when youre not suppoed to.
Varad, good description. Shekhs, I was gonna say pretty much the same things, these are the hallowed grounds where some of the greatest cricketers were trained. But the beauty of it is that its open to all kinds of people and its just fun to play there.I didnt play a very high level of club cricket in bombay but I did play some games at Shivaji park, but some of my current teammates played very high up in Kanga league and I'm sure they have fond memories.Just like varad, most of us are amazed that so many teams can be packed into one park at the same time! And Nadiad is where Swetal went to college, its in Gujarat and has some nice grounds. But the Gujarat heat doesnt allow much grass to grow and the outfields are lightning quick. So its understandable that my dear friend swet has some ground envy :)
Maybe this is a good idea for discussion. Some of you can talk about the famous cricket parks in your cities/countries and maybe tell us some anecdotes/stories about running into/playing with famous cricketers. Shekhs, you are from chennai, right? Whats the most popular park there?Mehul, ahmedabad, right? Raheel, Rup, what are the fun local parks in your cities?
Thanks Varad and Romeen... I was trying to put things into perspective.... Varad, I liked your typo comment...make sure you dont have typos a work.. :-)
shekhs said: Shivaji Park, Horses, Nadiad....hey you guys want to throw some light on for the non-mumbaiites? :-) ------------
Well, Varad explained the Shivaji park angle.
Horses was my morning fart as Shivaji rode around on horses.
Nadiad is an "inside" connection that Romeen and I share. That jagbag (Romeen) is from Nadiad (a town 30 miles from Ahmedabad, Gujarat) but moved to Mumbai to go to school. I did my undergrad at an Engg. school in Nadiad. Nadiad was Romeen's fart of the morning.....
I played mostly tennis ball cricket in Bangalore and would run into Kumble(who happens to be my brother's classmate(my senior in school.. I also worked for his company after engineering). Anybody you speak to in Blore (especially in a suburb in and around Basavanagudi) will tell you that they have hit Kumble for a six :). He used to bowl medium pace. One of the most famous grounds was the National College ground where again a lot of games would go at any given time(its not as big as Shivaji Park).
Vinod Bommaiah(my classmate from 1st grade to 7th..ex-Tigers and now Wildcats) has played under 15 Ranji for the state of Karnataka. His dad still has paper clippings of his century stand with Rahul Dravid(with whom he went to school).
Romeen, I'm not from Chennai... I grew up in Cochin (now you can assess, how much cricket I've played :-) ). About the grounds in Cochin, we hardly had any good ones until early 90s, I was out of there by then. You defnitely dont want to dive in the grounds that I played cricket in Cochin, as it was dry like Thar desert....will defnitely lose some skin...
Most of them were batting paradises, as there was very little grass...but there were hardly any batsmen to score runs.. :-)
Vinod had a century stand with dravid! Did not know that. Thats awesome! Well,Vinod's currently preparing for another long partnership, he gets married this weekend.
Romeen said... "Vinod had a century stand with dravid! Did not know that. Thats awesome! Well,Vinod's currently preparing for another long partnership, he gets married this weekend. "
Romeen, did you try to talk him outta that.. Check with Swetal, he has no idea what partnership he is getting into.. :-)
He had more than one century stand with Dravid. At one point, he had to chose between cricket and education and he chose the latter. I have a lot of friends who played at Ranji level. The problem in those days was that you didnt make enuff money if you didnt make it to the national team. Its definitely changing now.
Blog has went up a few notches in quality! My cousin used to play for Lahore U-19 and Ludhiana club around 1991-92 where Wasim Akram and Saqlain Mushtaq came from. He played with Saqlain and Shabbir Ahmed and has stories of how Saqlain would trun it both ways on cement pitches.
Our team mate Imran's younger brother Kamran Sajid has played in U-19 WC in NZ in 2002 and currently plays first class cricket for Lahore and PIA, he has had partnerships with Mo Yousuf and Salman Butt. At one point was in running with Salman Butt over a place in the national side (Butt got 200+ and he got out for 147 in that partnership and Butt was picked subsequently for the national team).
Jaggi, thats a good point you bring up about having to choose between cricket and education.A few years ago, even if you did decide to pick cricket, there were huge risks and sacrifices involved. Sanjay Bangar's brother is a good friend of mine and I know the sacricices his family made to nurture Sanjay's cricketing career, it involved part fo the family moving to another city.Eventually, Sanjay did play for India but in most people's opinion, a little too late and when he was past his prime.
It is pretty strange what rules most umpires come up with during a match in our league. Not mentioning bowlers (specially in Div 2) appealing for anything. I have come across many who dont even know ball pitching outside the leg cant be given LBW. I have one incident happened in 30/30 game, where the umpire was telling the bowlers how and where to bowl to batsmen. In the end the captain of that team admitted the umpire game 2-3 bad decision against the batting side. Talk about neutral umpiring!!!
Raheel said, I am with Romeen on this one - you can eat your lunch if you please on the matting over concrete wickets - as long as you clean up the mess afterwards ;). ============================. so, taking out the spikes, tighten the matting up and nail it down back. On Astro get a rake and ruffle up the turf would be considered cleaning up your mess..what da ya say Raheel. or just keep your mess off the wicket, in fact out of the boundry line and it's your mess so do whatever you want with it???. Which mess beter serves us all?
same story here too fellas..........had to choose between cricket and education.....I played for Hyd U-13 and south zone U-13 and later on the initial stages of U-16 alongwith Afroze Siddiqui of Bears.....Afroze do you remmeber me from those days?
had to give up cricket for 2 years during my +2 as I was preparing for my IIT/engg entrance exams while attending college. got back to cricket during my first 2 yrs of engg, was in the consideration for my univ team in south zone inter university tourney (satish reddy of wildcats was in that team before me, I guess IIRC) and a grape vine suggested Hyd U-19 probabale list but I dropped off later on once agin preparing for my GRE/TOEFL....and not to mention good old politics discouraged me from further pursuing cricket at a professional level.....revived my cricket once I got to purdue...
the best experience I have had as a cricketer was to watch Amol Mazumdar bat.........I still consider him to the best batsmen in India behind Sachin and ahead of Dravid....guys just an opinion
Girish Kamthe from Purdue had similar experiences having played for Maharashtra U-13/16/19 based out of Pune.........last yrs captain Pradeep's elder brother is a good freind of Mahela and the list goes on......coming back to the same pt.....cricket vs. education.
Sharath, The whole Tintin series is available at some borders in chicago (the one in oak park for sure). In fact I once bought a book on 'the making of tintin and about herge' from that store. Havent seen asterix anywhere though.
too much about Cricket Vs Educations. How about cricket Vs family?. When I came to the US I had to think Family cause i had just got Married. So I went to school, evenings, work nights and Family Time. Could not play cricket. After my associates in 93 I wanted to play but could not find a team. New years morning around 3am 1994 a bunch of not so sober guys formed ICC to play cricket. still could not play when season started as we were not allowed to join??. I think a Michigan Team dropped out mid season and ICC was allowed in to fill the spot and that's how i started to play Cricket in the USA. Today family Life is starting to take a bite of my Cricket Career. At my Age I can live with that, can you?
Romeen, Tintin entire series is availabe as colored scanned softcopy on desitorrents.com same with Asterix &Obelix too. I got Titin downloaded. I will burn it for you..
I guess people from Hyderebad remember Gymkhana grounds in Secuderabd resemble Shivaji park looks. I have played lots of games there. I have not been to Bombay except for my flight to here in US. Ihaven't seen shivaji park how closely it resembles..I captain my high school, St. Josephs high schoo and we were Inter Diocese champs in 10th grade. Played for plus + team mostly stuck local B2 and A2 leagues in Hyd. Went to nets in Marredpally (Shenoy nursing home) and Hari Kiran Gogisetti QC kigns is from there too. I played in My eng college team, with Satish Reddy, when he was off-Spinner:) I guess fast pitches of MCC made Satish Reddy a fast bowler. OU campus grounds have red soil ground and pretty slow. I still remember Satish to be offensive bat. Opening and fast paced. He kinda slowed down now..:) but more mature knocks now..plays a great knock always..for the team...
thanks madhu....what batch were you in, I was in the 1996-2000 batch.....yup the greneer gymkhana ground and bison polo ground alongwith the barren soil parade grounds next to them, were the hub of cricketing activity in Hyd......but my perosnal favs were the Thapa stadium at AOC center, Artillery center at Golconda and NFC/ECIL grounds......not to be outdone, my good old HPS school ground.....any other grounds worth mentioning, fellow hyderabadis?
Rup I hear u buddy..Havin been sigle for long time got married couple years ago..now with little baby..its tough man..Here is something to cheer you up....
When going gets tough....Tough play cricket...hehe...:)
I ripped it from some where...but neverthless..fits my stage of life..
Cheers All to all those who juggle, wiggle, struggle to keep afloat between cricket and family life..Kudos..to all those..Happy Father Day..
Sharath..I graduated in 1995 from CBIT..was here in sept 95 started playing MCC from 1996 season...I played on those grounds you mentioned..what sweet memories..Especially..AOC turf was my favorite..Have played in Nizam college grounds..ECIL is very close to my house..I live in Sainikpuri...There was one by ground by Medina, Charminar, we had Inter School tounis there..Man..it been while...wow..
guess said - --------------------- ..i was just wondering what's the highest wicket taken by bowler in one match in midwest cricket. .. ---------------------
Mohd. Ali took 8 wickets in a game against Ace/Swingers when he played for Rogers Park a few years back.
dude no way, I lived in sainikpuri for 2 years.....defence colny X roads....I did my 1 to 8 at HPS(R) and my 9th and 10th from Bhavan's Sanikipuri were my dad was the princi....moved to St. Mary's for my college and then engg happened. I was at Ou for my first pahse and then moved to Vasavi after my second sem.....came to Purdue in July 2000 and been there till April 2006.
Guys I got this from a friend of mine..may be few of you already read it..Its was very funny..Married guys can sense it and singles guys can try to make sense out of it..enjoy..
When a man steals your wife, there is no better revenge than to let him keep her. Sacha Guitry
After marriage, husband and wife become two sides of a coin; they just can't face each other, but still they stay together. Hemant Joshi
By all means marry. If you get a good wife, you'll be happy. If you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher. Socrates
Woman inspires us to great things, and prevents us from achieving them. Dumas
The great question... which I have not been able to answer... is, "What does a woman want? Sigmund Freud
I had some words with my wife, and she had some paragraphs with me. Anonymous
"Some people ask the secret of our long marriage. We take time to go to a restaurant two times a week. A little candlelight, dinner, soft music and dancing. She goes Tuesdays, I go Fridays." Henny Youngman
"I don't worry about terrorism. I was married for two years." Sam Kinison
"There's a way of transferring funds that is even faster than electronic banking. It's called marriage." James Holt McGavran
"I've had bad luck with both my wives. The first one left me, and the second one didn't." Patrick Murray
Two secrets to keep your marriage brimming 1. Whenever you're wrong, admit it, 2. Whenever you're right, shut up. Nash
The most effective way to remember your wife's birthday is to forget it once... Anonymous
You know what I did before I married? Anything I wanted to. Henny Youngman
My wife and I were happy for twenty years. Then we met. Rodney Dangerfield
A good wife always forgives her husband when she's wrong. Milton Berle
Marriage is the only war where one sleeps with the enemy. Anonymous
A man inserted an 'ad' in the classifieds: "Wife wanted". Next day he received a hundred letters. They all said the same thing: "You can have mine." Anonymous
First Guy (proudly): "My wife's an angel!" Second Guy: "You're lucky, mine's still alive."
I recently read that love is entirely a matter of chemistry. That must be why my wife treats me like toxic waste. David Bissonette
It was the same for me Cricket/Education, so had to choose Education out of family pressure :-). I played for B2 for a couple of yrs and a yr in A1, used to play for Victory Play Ground(VPG) Chaderghat. I played at the OU Grounds as well as the Gymkhana and used to like both the grounds...
You right Romeen, very interesting stuff discussed today. Starting with our beloved Shivaji Park. I never played hard-ball cricket there. Me and a couple of my friends from school from 9th and 10th standard used to go there to play some pick-up games (rubber ball). The first month or so, those kids (by kids I mean 12-13 year olds) only made us field. Later on, after we got to know them a little better, we got to bat and bowl.
My fondest memories were when we used to have 'seal matches' (played for money). We all got Rs.15 from mom for the evening. Used to spend Rs.5 on energy drink, Rs.3 on Wada Pav, and the rest of the money was chipped in to buy a bottle of desi daru (the devils that we were).
thats sum good discussions guys keep it goin. so milw made it 5-0 wow and pak lost to wc! this season is getting really interesting, st louis doin well too.
dude how abt me....i made the original request, Rommen is a good friend of mine....so on that count, how about a soft copy for me too....thanks
sharath ---------------------------------- Madew, Dude.. Can you send me a copy too.. I should have animation/cartoon movies of all Tintin and Astrix adventures somewhere in my house.. need to locate them.
I would aslo like to know if any one out there happens to have a copy of the Malgudi Days CD collection......I tried getting one in dec when I was back home in hyd for my wedding.....couldn't find one....even in established music and movie retail chains....apparently sold out....any one having one, we shall all be grateful if you could let us borrow it, or guide to us to getting one.
Also if you can check www.rajshri.com. There you will get to see malgudi days episodes for free. Also if you want to download they let you do so for nominal rates ...
I remember someone saying Div 2 players not doing well in Div 1. Check out Shekhs stats only this year ... He is doing very well opening for Challengers this year ...
wo........looks like i guess i can get the entire collection of chiranjeevi, K. vishwanath, ram gopal verma, jandhyala telugu movies from you too.....picked a good day and time span to blog...:))....just kidding though.....
malgudi days, tintin and asterix should suffice and keep me ocupied reading for a while, i am up in milwaukee though, we are playing wildcats in 2 weeks time, if it is OK with you, do drop off the CDs/DVDs with romeen. i can pick it up from him. Thanks again Madhu. Hope that it is fine with you Romeen.
Ram...just have ecclectic collection..What bloggers are talking about are just Golden collection.. memories from Childhood..Tintin/Asterix/Richie rich and stuff....u know...but you are looking for something particular do let me know...do check desitorrents.com they are out there..by the way we playing you this weekend...may be I can send it via you to Chicago..to Romeen and Sharath...
By any chance any if you have any/all episodes of "Bharat Ek Khoj". Was willing to pay top dollars to get the whole collection but from what I gather, the Indian govt. decided to make that a national treasure of some sorts....not for sale ! Gave up looking for that a couple yrs back; havent looked for 'em in recent times. That was one heck of a series......IMHO.
you are right swetal....that was one darn good show of the 80s and early 90s.....cable invasion did screw up a lot of quality programming on Indian TV, IMHO.
----------- Ramsundar Lakshminarayanan said... Madew- Thanks...If I come to Peoria I'll bring the DVD's for folks here. ---------
Ah, so your schedule has been changed already, then? You guys are going up to Peoria, instead of them coming down here on Saturday?
Heard yesterday that a change might be in the works - I was lobbying Marghoob-bhai to nominate me to umpire your game at WP on Saturday, actually (ie Madhew had no objection, that is :-), cos I was sorta keen to see young mister Bola play :-).. and I was told there was probably a schedule change in the works. Oh well.
--------- the best experience I have had as a cricketer was to watch Amol Mazumdar bat.........I still consider him to the best batsmen in India behind Sachin and ahead of Dravid....guys just an opinion ------
I knew there was a reason I thought this guy Sharath was smart (apart from his habit of gifting me solid gold rings). Amol Muzumdar is one of my favourite cricketer's ever - a *terrific* batsman, horribly illtreated by the selectors. Still piling up runs, but will never get a chance now.
BTW, nice synopsis of Shivaji Park by Varad yesterday - but it would be a great pity if only Tendulkar and Kambli were seen as Shivaji Park products (thats only the case for kids like Varad :-) Shivaji Park has been the cradle of Bombay batting (not to say India batting) since about the 1950s. The first great bat from that area was Vijay Manjrekar.. and that was followed by lots of others thru the 60s, 70s and 80s. Wadekar, Solkar, Sardesai, Gavaskar, Vengsarkar, Sandy Patil, even Shastri and then Sanjay Manjrekar and Amre all played a fair bit at Shivaji Park (though people like Gavaskar and Vengsarkar played *for* Dadar Union CC, the biggest rival of Shivaji Park Gymkhana CC there is). And since then there has been a lot of Bombay "emigration" to other Ranji teams... Amre played all his years there growing up, before playing for Railways, Rajasthan etc (and then progressing to the Indian team); Sanjay Bangar opens the batting for Shivaji Park Gymkhana even today, as he has for a decade (and yet he played Ranjis for Railways and made the test team "from there").
Anyway. There is a long and storied history there... and thats where Samir (thanks Romeen) Raorane of St Louis is from (even though he may have played only in the lower divisions of the Kanga League, not A, B or C maybe, I dont know). But there are good players in every division - Romeen himself played only like F division or something, right, Romeen? And he's one of the better openers we have in Div1.
Well, I don't claim to be a Shivaji Park product although I've played an occasional game there.
I played most of my cricket at the BCA (now Mumbai Cricket Association) nets at Azad Maidan (was closer to my residence at the time) apart from playing at school. But, there were plenty of people at the nets better than me, so I never really had pangs to try out for the Indian team or anything. Also, the fact that my then team captain used to buy 'sabji' and run errands for our coach (to get a reccomendation) to make it to the next level didn't really inspire me much.
So much for the education v/s cricket choice others had to make :D
I am not aware if Sameer played any league in Kanga league or not but I can say with certainity that he is not only a very good bowler but a better batsman. Whatever little time I have spent in this league and playing against 4 teams, I have not seen anyone show full face of the bat the way he does while batting. Ajoy
Whatever little time I have spent in this league and playing against 4 teams, I have not seen anyone show full face of the bat the way he does while batting. Ajoy --------------------\ thats because St Louis sucks so much others need only half of the bat. :)))))
Sure they know how to play at home etc - but on what basis can anyone allege they lack talent, in a side with Sohail, Amit etc (and a couple new bowlers with great stats who most of the league hasnt actually seen)? -------------------------------
Thank you Cricketwallah for your comments. Also one of the away game was decided based on run rate in first 20 overs. Not many of you have seen some of us (new players) but I am sure that those who have played against us sure know that we can be a force to reckon with. I must also add that it has been a enjoyable experience so far playing in MCC, bowling to some very good batsmen and I am sure many more to come.
Sharath, Sadiq bhai regarding Amol Muzumdar - unless a batsman is tested at the test level you can never be sure what he will be like based on just talent. Prime example Graeme Hick: he murdered county attacks for years and before he had made his debut people were talking about 8000+ runs and 50+ avg. It didn't quite turn out like that! Also there were a lot more naturally talented batsmen than Steve Waugh - his brother amongst one of them, but he was a fighter in pressure situations and has a better record than many more talented batsmen.
I do not disagree with what you said.....just that Amol deserved a chance always way ahead of any one else ever since he made his debut but could never find one.....since his debut for Bombay in the Ranji team (IIRC he was 17/18 then), he was frequently in the line up for the west zone team in the deodhar and duleep trophies, for India A, India U-21 and what not.....
the problem was he was thrown into the shadows stemming from the illustrious company he had around him.....Ravi Shastri, Dilip Vengsarkar, Sanjay Manjrekar, Sachin Tendulkar, Vinod Kambli, Sairaj Bahutule, Nilesh Kulkarni, Paras Mhambrey, Abhey Kuruvilla, Ajit Agarkar, Jatin Paranjape, Wasim Jaffer, Samir Dighe, Romesh Powar etc all wnet onto play for India and all of them were from Bombay.....even ppl from in and around Bombay who could not make it into the Bombay team like Rohan Gavaskar, Zaheer Khan initially (played for Maharshtra --Baroda-- now Bombay) got a chance defecting to bengal/baroda....
the point being, he did deserve a definite chance more than a number of people in the group listed above, his misfortune was as a #3/#4 batsmen he was stuck in the oblivion with Manjrekar in the XI for a while later taken over by Dravid, Laxman and Kambli....and he was never ever considered and I guess never will be.....dude may be max 30 by now...
Thats another problem in subcontinent, someone hits 30 and he's automatically discarded. Aus gave debuts to Mike Hussey and Brad Hodge at 32-33 after their consistent performances in domestic circuit and they've done so well, esp. Hussey!
Tango, Thats why I enjoy reading what you write. You can call somebody 'aging' and still make it sound like a compliment :) That takes talent. I'm really curious who you are, I know you are from bombay, care to give us some clues?
sounds like fun Shekhs. I cant think of a better way of spending my day off (i'm such a loser). Lets see, we know Tango is from bombay, cant claim to know everybody from bombay in our league,but we can try. He also seems like somebody from Div 1, he seems to be in sync with all the goings on of div-1. Is tango a reference to the dance form or a variation of something he is or he likes, a drink, for instance?
So, what do we have here: bombay div-1 likes to dance?
Romeen, No clues my man. I've rubbed a lot of people the wrong way on this blog. Especially Adnan....not that I'm afraid of Adnan...maybe his brother, Faisal Schwarzenegger Jr, YAAA! (now I mean that as a complement) I'll stop by and say 'hello' the next time I see you.
OK Tango, its a deal. I'll stop this if you promise to stop by. Just come and say something in code (like they do it in the movies), maybe you can say 'it takes two to....' :)
Shekhs, not only is he a conversationalist, he's got a sick sense of humor. Tango, I know you are not Shekhs,(Shekhs had no clue about Shivaji Park). Also, Shekhs is not very good at hiding his nick, I busted him last year :)
Tango.. Now you really intrigue me.. I got your back..if you are my teammate.. Romeen busted me the last time I used a nick.. :-) I like the code word - 'it takes two to...."
That;ll work with me too..just come and say that...and I'll know who you are.. you are off the hook my friend..
328 comments:
1 – 200 of 328 Newer› Newest»soo any predictions bout division two this weekend ???
"guys lets predict the weekend match, some good gamed in Div 1. Tango etc?"
Yes boss:
Here are my predictions,
United beat Flames
Challengers beat St.Louis
Wildcats beat Pak Gymkhana
Challengers beat Capitol
Milwaukee CC beat Royals
Muslim Gym beat Bears
Purdue beat Phoenix
Wilcats-Pak Gymkhana game is going to be killer.
tnago,
i think you stole my brain. i had the same.
purdue - phoenix should be a cracker too. if purdue stand up.
jaggi, how are your perparations going on againts purdue.
challenger will come through easily in both games although satha might crack another fifty.
wildcats won't be a cracker. clinical CATS will take care of arrogant PAKS.
muslim/bears will be a close one
United will sneak past FLAMES...the game of TWO BIG EGOS.
in s second thought i have a bad feeeling about CHALLENGERS/St loius game. if only St loius put up 200 that would be a interesting
saale ND,
stole my predictions?
Okay, I'm going change mine now, cos I wanna kick u'r butt :)
Changes:
St.Louis beat Challengers
Phoenix beat Purdue
in s second thought i have a bad feeeling about CHALLENGERS/St loius game. if only St loius put up 200 that would be a interesting
-------------------------
Tango said...
saale ND,
stole my predictions?
Okay, I'm going change mine now, cos I wanna kick u'r butt :)
Changes:
St.Louis beat Challengers
----------------
see now again you did that
:))))))
LOL
NW you can't pick your own game?
PHX. V PURDUE, i'll take purdue to dominate. PHX. will not stand up to their bowling!
St. Louis home field will be no good.
Pak should take care of WC, WC bowling is not what it used to be.
United in a close one with Flames.
Flames are desperate for a win and will fight hard.
Challengers should murder Capitols week bowling attack, especially on that batting track. look for 300+ from challengers.
Milwaukee in a cakewalk over Royals.
Muslim Bears should be very close, but Bears will sneak past Muslim.
No offense to anyone.
"in s second thought i have a bad feeeling about CHALLENGERS/St loius game. if only St loius put up 200 that would be a interesting"
ND, buddy,
so who are you picking to win? state that clearly. I can't read minds boss :)
here are mine.
United beat Flames
close - may be by 2 wickets or about 30 runs
Challengers beat St.Louis
I'm praying challengers will bat first.
Wildcats beat Pak Gymkhana
clinical performance by CATS. disapointly game is not close.
Challengers beat Capitol
satha can't stop challengers
Milwaukee CC beat Royals
a mismatch
Muslim Gym beat Bears
close game. i put my money on star players in muslim
Purdue beat Phoenix
close game. purdue will come through
n_w said.. jaggi, how are your perparations going on againts purdue.
-----------------------------------
n_w, our preparations are going fine. It should be an interesting game, hopefully we will come out with 4 points. I will not give out the team composition before the game.. :)
I like Tango's confidence in our team..hopefully we can prove him right.
There are a bunch of interesting games this weekend. Good luck to all teams.
me thinks game of the wknd is pak v wc and it will be a close one, i dont wanna predict if both teams play to potential it will be great match.
Jaggi..
I was wondering if we can have a page on website, which has information about winners, runners-up for all the divisions for all the years ...
Alpesh.. the web team has not been able to find time to help us with the fantasy league. My skills with asp are very limited. If its a static page, please compile a list in an excel or html page(preferred) and I will ask the team to upload it.
romeen i thought you are one who said ajait good right heart for the cricket. well let me tell you who ever playes cricket they always comes on a ground with right heart. everyone in this leauge has cricket fever inside them. ajit is no a special. if you go around the leauge and ask everyone individuals you would not get good rating for ajit and krishna from your team. both of them are cry baby, they both does not have sportman spirit. both never respect other player or other team. only person in your team deserve respect as a cricketer as well as person is satish, nikhil, and urself. i would pick mahesh from challenger over ajit any given day. he is good left handed bat than ajit. mahesh can go after anykind of bowling. keep ajit in ur pocket and try to win coming up games.
Predications of Week#6
1.United will beat Flames.
2.Purdue will beat Phoenix in a close one.
3.Pak will easily beat the Wildcats.
4.St.louis will win in a close game over Challengers.
5.Challengers will easily beat the Capitol.
6.MCC will win against Royals.
7.Muslim vs Bears is going to be a good one but in the end Muslim will overcome against da Bears.
My predication is just 4 fun don't meant to offend anybody.
My predictions for this week:
Sunny and Nice weekend to play cricket
The best team may Win, Cheers!
Hey guys i was looking over the schedule and noticed that there is a new ground number one. Does anyone have any idea where this ground is located?
Good luck to all the teams this weekend. My predictions are:
1. United over Flames
2. Phoenix over Purdue
3. Pak over Wildcats but it will be a close one.
4. St. Louis over Challengers
5. Capitol over Challengers. Satha scores his first century this week.
6. MCC over the Gujjus - I am one also but hey wtf :) (A GUJJU I MEAN)
7. Bears over Muslim. Farhat will once again flash a part of anatomy that no one wants to see. lol.
enough bout division 1 guys ... how bout some division 2 predictions ... let um rip
Any updates
Just thought i would let you guys knoe that there was a fight during the bears muslim game but this one didnt involve farhat or anyone from Muslim. Bears fought within themselves.
jaggi,
what happened to your game against purdue..any other updates?
n_w, Phoenix lost a very close game. Phoenix batting first was in deep trouble(55/5 and 60/6). Priyank(59 runs) and Venu had an excellent partnership and got Phoenix to a very competitive 190+ runs.
Unfortunately, the bowling was not upto the mark. We gave away 42 wides.. Purdue(7 wiks down) won with 2 overs to spare.
Since I didnt play, I will ask Aditya to give a more detailed match report.
I heard the ground is one of the best we have.
Any updates on the Pak Vs Cats game.. Raheel, Romeen??
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Jaggi said...
n_w, Phoenix lost a very close game. Phoenix batting first was in deep trouble(55/5 and 60/6). Priyank(59 runs) and Venu had an excellent partnership and got Phoenix to a very competitive 190+ runs.
Unfortunately, the bowling was not upto the mark. We gave away 42 wides.. Purdue(7 wiks down) won with 2 overs to spare.
Since I didnt play, I will ask Aditya to give a more detailed match report.
I heard the ground is one of the best we have.
Any updates on the Pak Vs Cats game.. Raheel, Romeen??
----------
Yes, a match report would be greatly appreciated, from both Raheel and Romeen. I picked up a few snippets yesterday - Wildcats batted first and got nearly 240 IIRC, with lots of contributions from everyone up and down the order (no one big score was mentioned). I was told Pak Gym was about 120/2 near the break, but collapsed to 190-odd allout to lose in the second half. No details on who took wickets for the Wildcats (or who scored runs for either team). Next door, United chased down 190-odd fairly easily against the Flames apparently (Kiran batted a long time and did the bulk of the scoring for the Flames, 70-odd I hear).
The Phoenix-Purdue game was very good - Phoenix was 54/2 in 11 overs, then slid to 66/7 (some loose batting, and very good bowling by Ruchir and Neeraj in tandem - Ruchir was very quick on Saturday, with good control this time, only 2 wides in his 9 overs IIRC). Then Priyank batted terrifically with great support from Venu (and then from Arun and Deepak). Priyank actually got 64 or so IIRC, and dragged Phoenix to 190 in the end. He was cramping up a lot by the end of it (which affected Phoenix as he is their best bowler too - he only could bowl one injury-affected over to open, and then bowled his remaining overs in the middle rather than with the new ball). The ball was moving, Deepak especially was moving it a *lot* for Phoenix, but that resulted in a lot of wides too (42 or so overall, as you say), and Purdue finally got home by 3 wickets with barely 2 overs to spare.
The "one of the best grounds we have" is more than a bit of an exaggeration IMHO :-) Its a pretty decent-sized ground, which is great IMHO (Whitewater is bigger still, and much much better overall). But the outfield can occasionally be bumpy (though the grass was cut well and the outfield quick), and the pitch is narrower than it ought to be (which can make followthru difficult for pacemen, as Dhiraj from United can attest to from last year - he twisted his ankle and was out for a 2-3 weeks). And there are no facilites immediately close by (all grounds struggle with this, really - Hanover is the exception, and Mossville has the best facilities bar none, though theyre about 50 yards away from the edge of the ground). No trees nearby either - Ive umpired here on occasion when its been very hot (90-odd), and it feels *much* worse than the same temperature at WP.
Yesterday Muslim beat Bears - Muslim put up 260 in their 45 overs (lots of hitting at the end from Rizwan - I was next door, Muslim were 210/8 with 5 overs left when our break ended, but Rizwan apparently hit 24 off one over near the end, got his personal 50, and took Muslim to 260). Bears were about 70/1 in about 12 overs I think - when I got there after my game, they were still in great shape at 98/3 in 16 overs with Sameer going great guns. But there was a runout, then Sameer fell for 55, and wickets fell in a heap as the Bears eventually faded to about 140 allout I think.
So most Div1 results are in (except from MCC-Royals from yesterday) I think. Div2 is a different story - very few results are in so far (in the few that are, Illinois was upset in Collinsville, the Peoria juggernaut rolled on, Jolly Rovers and Evanston won).
BTW, its interesting how little comment there is about Div2 (some games that would be talked about for weeks if they happened in Div1 dont even get remarked on here :-) Last week, for example, there was this ridiculous game in Peoria between Jolly Rovers and Evanston. JR apparently got 217 batting first. Evanston claimed (yesterday, when I chatted with them) that they needed 3 to tie and 4 to win off the last over with 9 down, got 2 singles and 1 wide to tie.. but the extra ball for the wide was not bowled at all, and so the game was tied despite one ball less being bowled! Their scorecard reflects this too. However, the summary from Jolly Rovers says that Evanston actually got 216 in their full 40 overs and so Jolly Rovers *won* by 1 run! I got only the Evanston version of events yesterday, obviously - it would be nice if someone from Jolly Rovers could comment on here and let us know their version? :-)
c8w
P.S. Hang in there, Shivnarine!
I already got 3 missed calls from various MCC folks asking abt that game. :-) Cats batted first and made 238 with contributions from Romeen, Ajit, and Satish (who shepherded the tail well).
Bakshi hit 2-3 fours in the first couple of overs, but was soon out. Irfan was bowled in spectacular fashion by Satish. Hasan and Mazhar batted well, Cats dropped a couple of catches, and it was well-poised at 63/2 in 10 overs. But suddenly Pak Gym collapsed. Hasan and Mazhar were out in quick succession, and crucially, Shahid was run-out. (You should have seen Cats' celebration!) When we left, Rashid and Farman were looking to stabilize, while Cats were definitely on top, looking to wrap up the lower order.
-Samarth.
Capitol 39 all out???
sheks care to elaborate?
hehehe
39/10 That is some serious drubbing
welcome to DIV I capitol...
Capitol 39 all out???
I can't even move my fingers this morning to type after 2 full days of cricket.. :-) Aint complaining...it was a blast!
Challengers Vs St. Louis
Our batting collapsed, managed to get bundled out for 164, no highlights..except for a lionheart performance from Tehsin 3/25 (his mother passed away last week, so please give him your condolences when you have a chance).
We managed to get some early wickets, but Amit played a gem (62 no) and along with Tehsin (31 no) managed to finish it in 40.
Capitol vs. challengers
Finally, our batting clicked!Darshan(115) and I put 78 for the 1st, and then we saw some breathtaking hits from Mahesh (49), Darshan, Tushar and Daxx.
Daxx, rupesh and Nilesh gave Capitol some swing bowling lessons.
My fav. was when Rupesh moved a ball from way outside the leg to uproot the opener's off stump.
Daxx (7/14) was at his best, took the key wickets of Srujeet and Satha.
Srujeet tried to leave a ball which took the edge of his bat and then knocked the stumps.
Satha tried to drive on a fuller ball and edged it to see Mahesh dive full length to take a brilliant catch.
daxx and Nilesh ran through the rest of the line up.
Shekhs,
It was nice to have you guys in saint Louis and the game was enjoyed every minute.
It was nice to see some good batsmen and bowlers after all.
Ajoy
i guess it kinda proves that st louis is only good at home..they mostly loose in playoffs in the first round and this yr lost both their away games. Ajoy what is ur take on your poor away performance.
Ajoy,
It was our pleasure to be there and we did enjoy a good day's cricket. Didn't enjoy losing it, but it exposed some of our weaknesses, something to think about..
Thanks for being a great host, really appreciate that..!
maybe capitol should have practised on the pitch during lunch;)
anyword on royals?
ajoy can you do a write up 0f your game. it would be nice to get st. louis take.
anhonestquery said...
i guess it kinda proves that st louis is only good at home..
----------------------------
Sorry, I am not in a position to comment on this for two reasons.
Firstly this is my first season in MCC and with STL.
Secondly I was not personally presnt for both away games and would be inappropriate for me to comment on those games.
Ajoy
Wildcats Vs Pak
Wildcats won the toss and elected to bat, Balaji got out to a very good slower ball initially and then Romeen and Sanjay consolidated the score without taking too many risks, romeen was unfortuate to be runout for a well made 36. Ajit came next and along with Sanjay he was scoring easily untill he mis hit a shot making a well made 37, Sanjay made a well made 48 and he got out.
SP took the game with a couple of good hits and eventually got out trying to play a defensive shot. Vikram got out to a good ball and all of a sudden we slipped from a good position to a precarious one, but a late cameo from Nikhil and Satish got us to a good enough score of 238 all out of the last ball.
Pak started aggressively with Bakshi playing a couple of good shots, but he was out soon and pak were 60/2 for 10 overs and then wildcats left a couple of catches just before the drinks session and at that time Pak were on top scoring 107 in 22 overs.
Soon came the wildcats after the break and got the wicket of Hasan who was playing sensible cricket till then. then Sanjay started bowling beautifully along with Giri to stiffle Pak and we were getting wickets at regular intervals. Giri made a gem of a stop to get the danger man Shahid run out and from there on the rest of the batting folded except for a couple of good hits from Raheel at the end.
All said it was a good game played in the right spirit and last but not the least the umpiring by Mr. Anwer Khan was absolutely spot on.
Royals lost again an easy one. They got MCC all out for 130-135. Bharat taking SIX. Royals all out under 30-35!!
Bakshi had very good things to say about Anwer Khan as an umpire in the Pak Vs Flames game. Its good to see that he umpired well in the Pak Vs Cats game.
It appears that he doesnt play but only umpires. Can anybody give more details about him?
Jaggi, Purdue has one of the best grounds? Are you kidding me?
Its one of the toughest places to play in. Large ground (Sadiq, its as big as Whitewater), very slow outfield, bumpy infield. Its out in the wilderness, far away from civilization. Its no where close to being the best ground in the league. It only looks beautiful from outside, since its clean n green (Unlike Washington Park where we have to in the middle of dog crap).
Three way tie in the predictions battle:
ND: 6-1
Justice for All: 6-1
Tango: 6-1
Cro_mag_Crawling: 4-3
Mastakilla: 3-4
Tango,
another week went by....and another tie
Romeen, I'd like to know what you had for breakfast on Sat man! ;). Got dropped in 3rd over by Farman off his own bowling - a catch that was even easier than a dolly! And then got out ct at short cover off my bowling only for it to be a no ball (the only no ball I bowled in 7 overs! lol). Anyways, it was a good game, our middle / lower order batting needs to apply itself more while chasing and not rely on Shahid's brilliance all the time! Off to St. Louis next weekend where temperatures are supposed to hit 95!!
Another week has gone by. Some of the games which took my attention
ICC v/s Collinsville
QCKings v/s Lucky XI
Peoria v/s SIUE
All the 3 games were low scoring. Looks like either the bowling departments are getting stronger or the batting is getting weaker.
Congratulations to Collinsville for beating ICC (2nd loss in a row), QCKings (My favorites and looks like these guys took my words too seriously and proved me wrong 5 times in a row..if they read what I wrote when the league was just starting) beat Lucky XI by 6 wickets and Peoria continued their dominance over their opposition. Anyone has any other game details from division II?
"another week went by....and another tie"
ND,
Great minds think alike ;)
rup now you know why there is no talk about DIV II players when it comes to LA open. Champions and runners up are struggling to even win a game in Div I.
can some one update summary for Arsenal/Eagles, Giants/Madison game
"rup now you know why there is no talk about DIV II players when it comes to LA open. Champions and runners up are struggling to even win a game in Div I."
Rup does get a bit carried away with the Division I and Division II comparisons, but lets not count Capitol and AAA out just yet.
They've barely played four games. Remember last year, Purdue started the season 1-3, but finished the season no.5 in standings.
Also, Capitol's had a ruthless schedule.
i'm disapointed withe the way AAA and capitol play. i expected much better show from them. but tango is right :) there is a learning curve when you come to Div I. i hope AAA and capitol will buckle down soon enough to catch up.
its look like this year Div i has brocken down to two tier competition because of weakening of some teams.
it is more like,
PAK, CATS, CHALLENGERS, UNITED,
and then the rest.
that would be my semi final four
ND,
I must disagree. I think its just Pak and Cats at the top. The rest of the division is wide open.
thank god you disgreed. it started lokking like same dude in different names for while. like UNITED and ADDY do.
anyway lets get to the bottom of this.
PAK and CATS on top.
i would rate CHALLENGERS right up there (or even higher) with PAK as far as talent goes. but they are the most inconsistent team in the league probably.so its matter of whether they would bring their A game to park on a game day.
UNITED is playing smart cricket at the moment. got few stars. MEHUL and ADDY scoring runs and look liked they have glued toghether much better this year.
then we have Milwaukee on a bull run and four more wins will put them on PLAY OFFS spot.
St loius - talent wise they do not deserve a play off spot. but they know how to use their slow bowlers at home. so they will manage another 5/8 to get into playoffs.
six spots gone, then you have the rest and the rest of the rest. who will get the next two spots. front runners are ROGERS PARK / MUSLIM / PHOENIX / PURDUE and may be if buckle up soon CAPITOL.
i dont think BEARS/CHARGERS/FLAMES/AAA/MIL UNITED/ ROYAL are play off teams this year.
SADIQ wanna join the party?
Arsenal beat Eagles by 1 wicket...chasing 180 odd to win, Arsenal were reduced to 117-8 and still managed to win...Infact the last wicket scored aroundd 40 runs to enable the victory.
"rup now you know why there is no talk about DIV II players when it comes to LA open"
anhonestquery,
I think it would be very unfair to rate DIV II players on team performance. Individuals like Satha, Rup, Laxmi, etc. will perform well in DIV I. Infact, they would do even better if they were playing for a decent/good team. If your team is one/two man show, it puts a lot of pressure and restricts you in playing freely. I witnessed that in our last game against Flames. Kiran who usually is more of an aggressive player played very subdued innings. I would say somebody like him or satha playing for WC, Pak gym or challengers might do amazingly well. I remember Shahid played for Suburban for two yrs and did not do that great, and his performance playing for Pak gym is history. I think on the contrary it is amazing of these guys to keep performing in a loosing cause.
I think the key to LA open is young players. I have participated once and it is very very hot and playing back to back games is very very hard.
Mehul
Honest,
A team to La is not a Div two team but the best players in MWCC.
Ram did provide a brief summary of the Arsenal-Eagles game. To add on to his comments.....This was a game that we (Arsenal) had no business winning - thanks mainly to our consitently inconsistent top and middle order bats - but the last 4 wickets accounted for 120+ runs. At the end, the extras that the Eagles gave us at in-oppurtunate (oppurtunate for us) times and their dropped catches towards the end cost them a win that I thought they had more than sealed up.
For us, the last pair of Vijay (23 *) and Prasanna (21 *) accounted for 45+ runs to bring us home, to account for one of the most improbable wins that I have been a part off in recent times !
Subbu for the Eagles had another awesome masterful knock as he stood at one end while wickets kept falling at the other end at regular intervals.
ICC vs Collinsville.
We got out behind kicked again.
We started of ok. a lot of extras but then we lost two quick wickets. Myself an collins steadied thing for a while but then lost Colins at 70+. I just got going. Hit two sixes of the over then got a stinker. pitched on off nipped back and kept low and clipped leg. A lot of balls kep low on this track. Jack got bowled with one the never left the ground. disaster struck as we collapsed from 84/3 to 88/7.
Dan then rallied the tail to get us to 149 whils making 34.
The rain came at our inning end. the ground was wet when we started our defense. We have to leave the first time even before we start bowling. We started off good as i bowled the opener but after 4 over the miosture killed the ball. We kep our selves in the hunt by picking up a couple wickets but Nitesh came in and played a great innings(bar a couple chances)got 50+ and Collinsville won by 6 wickets and 9 overs to go. Our only effective Bowler was George.
The rain realy hurt us but we need to take care of that wicket. It keep very low and frequently skids through ankle height. Collinsville is not of express bowling but i guess they know the wicket and bowled to it's ways. When collinsville batted you one could see the differnece of knowing the wicket. They played late and played low as if expecting a creeper most of the times.
ICC is now 2&2 and we got some catching up to do..
and before you all start shooting, no ICC is not done we are just going through a rough patch.
this blog is as dead as milwaukee United chances in play offs:))))
what you expect ICC not winning so we dont have much haters.. lol :):) Please ICC start winning... lol
Naren,
Thanks for providing the Pak Gym -WC summary.
I'd like to add that you bowled extremely well and would have had more wickets if we hadnt dropped so many catches. Also, you were being extremely generous when you said the WC dropped a 'couple' catches before drinks, it was exactly 6 in the space of 4 overs!
Raheel,
I have to agree with you, I was extremely fortunate to have survived those 2 catches. I've not seen Farman drop any, I think just like a bowler can fox a batsman with a slower one, the batsman could possibly do the same back to the bowler :) The ball went so slowly (inadvertently ofcourse) back to Farman that he completely misjudged it.
And finally about Mr. Anwer, he's great. Very unassuming but always in control and extremely even keeled. Would love to see him umpire more games.
chally,
why do u think everone hates ICC? i certainly dont.
Tango and n_w, I think you guys are the stars of this blog, both of you think alike, write funny stuff, and are overall very entertaining. And whats with the ties every week?
hey romeen any comments about practicing on the middle of the pitch during lunch break. You knew I was going to ask you this.
Mehul, my personal opinion is that if its not a turf wicket, you can do whatever the heck you want on it during the lunch break (including eating lunch on it ).
And raheel, it was 2 eggs over-hard (what I had for breakfast, I guess one egg for each catch! :)
On the money bro!!
I remember once u were sleeping on it from 5am in order to reserve the pitch for practice games.
neanderthal_walking
was kidding dude... no reason to hate us we play fair, hard and we have fun... And when we winning we beat u good and quickly so you can go home to your families ASAP.. lol..
you said the blog was dead.. so I was waking it up
We've all done that, havent we?
That was one cold morning, I remember (ofcourse its always cold that early in the morning, especially if you are laying on a pitch at WP).
I have a quick question for all you good cricketers, especially bowlers...
Is it fair to appeal for an obvious not out situation? Could be anything, caught behind, lbw, run out, etc etc.
thanks romeen. i try. anyway whats the secret with CATS this year? look like in great shape but being devils advocate i think CATS peaking little too early.
anyway i'm big fan of brand of cricket CATS play
Mehulshani said..
I remember once u were sleeping on it from 5am in order to reserve the pitch for practice games.
-----------------------------------
Lol :) reminds me of good old days back at home.
mehulshani well I am glad you ask...
I am a bowler and i dont waste time not energy.. to appeal for something I know is not out. Neither would appeal and want the umpire to agree and give the batsman out. I feel I should earn your wicket and it must not be given to me..
I would appeal for LBW half hearted when not out. otherwise i won't. its just to win the umpires trust
n_w,
First of all, these are very early days, I know people are already talking about playoff contenders and such but IMHO, there's a long way to go before a better picture emerges. Remember the last couple seasons? IIRC, 4-5 playoff positions were uncertain until the last league game of the season. And about peaking too early, we'd rather take every win we get right now, who knows how hard it'll be later on. With all teams being as good as they are, i guess the best approach is to think about winning one week at a time.
Thanks for your comments about our team though.
============================
hey romeen any comments about practicing on the middle of the pitch during lunch break. You knew I was going to ask you this.
==============================
Don't forget Shani, you were also warned for running on the pitch:)
Adnan Baig
United Cricket Club
This is the most funny thing i have ever heard. Umpire told me not to stand on the pitch while the bowler is bowling, since it could interfere his fielding, just incase the ball is hit back toward the non-stricker. I should stand on the grass and then walk across the ridge and use the pitch to run between the wickets. One of the flames players twisted his ankle on very first run he took. I am not sure from where did he come up with this.
UNITED radiate lot of negative energy all around. cant remember a day they said something positive or even funny
"UNITED is playing smart cricket at the moment."
If you call dropping top batsmen's catches (Satha dropped on less than 10, scored 76, Kiran dropped on 0, scored 72), and conceding 35+ extras per game, as "smart cricket", then yes, we are playing very smart cricket. :-)
We dropped 8 catches in the last game. After first 2-3 catches, we asked Kiran what he ate for breakfast. After that, we realized it's not what he ate, but what we drank...
There are also other things we need to work on, but I won't elaborate. :-)
"anhonestquery", Capitol's first 5 games in Div I are all against semi-finalists of last 2 years! It is a tough schedule for anyone.
-Samarth.
You have the right to appeal but the unpire also has the right to see that you do not appeal excessively or find a nice piece of land , Far, Far away so you stop being a nuisance.
Some team just appeal for anything. not sure why or it's just excitement.
For a long time i have not seen a team appeal like collinsville. There was hardly a stifled appeal cause all 11 guys go up no matter where they are. When i was batting got hit on the pad, bowler stifled his appeal but the guy at deep midwicket went up like a lion behind him and he is yelling for help. I had to laugh!!!!.
You will only see me appeal if I am sure i got my man. Or the first to stifled my appeal and walk back to the bowling mark if I went up wrongfully.
Excessive appealing is wrong to the umpires and teams need to controll this.
Who was the umpire that said you had to run on the grass?.
A batsman has the right to run from anywhre he so chooses at the non striker end once he is not on the same side as the bowler. the only time he should be pulled up is if he is running on the restricted area of the pitch in out case we don't have a restricted area.
However he can be given out if the umpire feels he deliberately ran infront of a fielder and obstructing the fielder from fielding the ball which could have made an out.
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Romeen said...
Mehul, my personal opinion is that if its not a turf wicket, you can do whatever the heck you want on it during the lunch break (including eating lunch on it ).
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I think we really need to have a ruling on this by management :-)
You saw last week, in international cricket (Eng vs WI)... you arent allowed to practice *on the square* once the game has begun. Not on the pitch - on the square. It doesnt just have to do with "damaging the pitch", the "parallel practice pitches" are on the square, after all, and you can practice there before the game begins etc. But between innings, lunch-time etc, you cant do *anything* on those pitches either.
I dont think the idea is just "damage", its more. Its also getting used to a runup on the pitch between innings, getting adjusted to the sight-lines, maybe even getting a "feel" of the middle etc. During the game, *none* of it is allowed at the international level - and while we dont have damage-able pitches, those other reasons apply to us as much as anyone else IMHO.
But it cant be just an umpire's call in this respect (we all have different views, probably :-) Lets have a uniform rule set for our league on this once and for all, and be done with it :-)
c8w
guys i don't know have you been noticing that challenger bowler are creating record here. last week bhavesh took 6 wickets for only 18 runs and this week daxx took 7 wickets for only 14 runs. that's amazing. satha can you tell us about challenger bowling. i was just wondering what's the highest wicket taken by bowler in one match in midwest cricket. can you guys give update on this. looking at numbers i think challenger have best bowling side. that's what i think i don't know what rest of you think . i would like to get rest of ur opionion
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St loius - talent wise they do not deserve a play off spot. but they know how to use their slow bowlers at home. so they will manage another 5/8 to get into playoffs.
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On what basis, BTW? St Louis has basically a new pace bowling attack, that almost nobody has seen so far - how do we know they arent very good? In their first game Ajoy Lal got 5/10 opening the bowling.. he didnt play in their 2 losses (in Chicago and in Milwaukee back-to-back - now *thats* a difficult travel!) Their new guy Sameer Raorane has gotten wickets and made runs - I dont even know if he's young or old so far, but if he's from Shivaji Park, he's gotta be pretty good ;-)
We all know St Louis' veterans - Tehsin, Mujahid, Masoor etc, stars in our league for a long itme. Sohail is still one of the best batsmen in the league even this year (didnt even get out for the first 3 weeks!). Last year they got a young new batsman, Amit - he ended up #2 in averages for the entire season, and is up there again this year (and just won MOM against Challengers) - Ive seen the guy once, and he looked pretty damn good to me.
Sure they know how to play at home etc - but on what basis can anyone allege they lack talent, in a side with Sohail, Amit etc (and a couple new bowlers with great stats who most of the league hasnt actually seen)?
c8w
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We dropped 8 catches in the last game. After first 2-3 catches, we asked Kiran what he ate for breakfast. After that, we realized it's not what he ate, but what we drank...
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What *did* you guys drink? Inquiring minds want to know...
c8w
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anhonestquery said...
rup now you know why there is no talk about DIV II players when it comes to LA open. Champions and runners up are struggling to even win a game in Div I.
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OTOH, it might be pointed out that the Div1 team that went to Div2 hasnt yet won a game in Div2 yet either! Tigers may have lost 4 players, but they still retained 7 out of 11 from a Div1 team last year after all.
Honestly, I think Div2 was *very* strong 2-3 years ago - I think a Div2 allstar side that year could have really pushed a Div1 allstar side, maybe even beaten them! Those couple years, Div2 had Tarunreddy, Deven Patel, Satha (3rd highest rungetter in Div2 that year!!), Girish Kamthe and Ashwin (Purdue), Afroze, Jahangir (Rising Stars), Rup, Jack (Illinois), Samarth (United), Priyank (Phoenix), Aditya (Madison) etc.
I think Div2 has weakened for the past couple of years now. This is not exactly surprising - you had first Royals, then Milwaukee United, then Purdue, then Phoenix all get promoted, and Rising Stars and GCC break up (with all 11 of Rising Stars players currently playing in Div1, some GCC playrs playign Div1 and others not in our league anymore). Thats effectively almost 6 teams worth - 60-65 good players - that went from Div2 to Div1. And meanwhile, *nobody* went from Div1 to Div2 - every team that got "demoted" broke up and didnt actually go to Div2, their players staying with other teams in Div1.
The consequences of this are pretty natural IMHO - there is more of a concentration of talent in Div1 than there used to be even 3-4 years ago. That doesnt mean Div2 doesnt have good players - they have some *very* good players, and an all-star Div2 side would be very good indeed even now (just this week I saw Perrin Doneike of Evanston who is a very good *quick* bowler - maybe up there with Jack amongst the quicker ones in Div2). But *in general* IMHO Div2 isnt as strong as it was a few years ago, and thats pretty natural. Even now, however, an all-star Div2 team would be pretty damn good (people Jack, Rup, Perrin, Madhu, Laxmi, Ajay, Subbu, Maninder Bola, Khadry - and thats just off the top of my head, Iam missing plenty more Iam sure).
In one sense, IMHO the 2 teams that were promoted from Div2 this year (AAA and Capitol) arent quite what we saw the previous 2 years, in that their depth isnt quite as good. Purdue, Milwaukee United etc, they had very good depth, batted all the way down to #10 or so etc (and this was known even in their Div2 days - when Purdue was a Div2 team they were actually much better than they are now that they are in Div1 IMHO... they still had Girish Kamthe, Ashwin, Sharath who is now opening for Milwaukee etc). Capitol has the best single bat in Div2 (and Srujeet looks very good, even though he's young - but Capitol has lost a lot of their student players for the entire summer), and AAA has some very good strokeplayers and a solid bowling attack, but 1-thru-11 they arent quite what the batting teams that came up before them were, IMHO. And thats the big thing in Div1, you need batting depth all the way down if you are to really succeed IMHO.
c8w
---------
Ramsundar Lakshminarayanan said...
Arsenal beat Eagles by 1 wicket...chasing 180 odd to win, Arsenal were reduced to 117-8 and still managed to win...Infact the last wicket scored aroundd 40 runs to enable the victory.
------
So this is the Eagle's second consecutive 1-wicket loss this season (to 2 probable playoff teams, at that)? Damn, thats rough. Such a solid side, and yet theyre really struggling this year.
Nice win for Arsenal though, after their upset by the Warriors last weekend.
c8w
C8W,
We did see sameer raorane (or does he spell his name samir?) when they visited us. Very impressive, both with bat and ball. Yeah, Shivaji park rules!
"I dont even know if he's young or old so far, but if he's from Shivaji Park, he's gotta be pretty good ;-)"
Sadiq, thats the most sensible thing you've EVER said.
Romeen, hell yeah, Shivaji Park rules!
Romeen/Sadiq: Shivaji Park....Shivaji Park...WTF !?
Am seeing visions of cricketers riding around on horses :)
Swet,
Nadiad rules doesn't have that nice a ring to it! :)
Romeen/ Swetal,
Shivaji Park, Horses, Nadiad....hey you guys want to throw some light on for the non-mumbaiites? :-)
Unless Shivaji Park is in Chicago..
Sadiq bhai, my understanding about practicing on the square is that it is not allowed because future tests/ODIs/county matches are to be played on those pitches and it takes a long time to prepare good turf wickets. If it were a well known ICC rule I think Allan Donald of all people would have known who played international cricket for a long time and even county cricket.
I am with Romeen on this one - you can eat your lunch if you please on the matting over concrete wickets - as long as you clean up the mess afterwards ;).
Shivaji Park:
Sachin, Kambli et al' s proving grounds. They grew up their pretty much.
Basically a strech of land dotted with 10's of 'pitches'. Most of them serve as 'coaching camps' in the summer and early morning and then are leased out daily for matches.
Amongst these camps, Ramakant Achrekar's is legendary (Sachin and Kambli's coach). I believe its now run my his daughter.
Its a mecca for cricket lovers in mumbai (along with azad maidan) and there are so many games going on at one time that you may well find yourself chasing the ball from another game or take a catch when youre not suppoed to.
apologies for the numerous typos, im at work ..
Varad, good description. Shekhs, I was gonna say pretty much the same things, these are the hallowed grounds where some of the greatest cricketers were trained. But the beauty of it is that its open to all kinds of people and its just fun to play there.I didnt play a very high level of club cricket in bombay but I did play some games at Shivaji park, but some of my current teammates played very high up in Kanga league and I'm sure they have fond memories.Just like varad, most of us are amazed that so many teams can be packed into one park at the same time!
And Nadiad is where Swetal went to college, its in Gujarat and has some nice grounds. But the Gujarat heat doesnt allow much grass to grow and the outfields are lightning quick. So its understandable that my dear friend swet has some ground envy :)
Maybe this is a good idea for discussion. Some of you can talk about the famous cricket parks in your cities/countries and maybe tell us some anecdotes/stories about running into/playing with famous cricketers.
Shekhs, you are from chennai, right? Whats the most popular park there?Mehul, ahmedabad, right?
Raheel, Rup, what are the fun local parks in your cities?
Thanks Varad and Romeen...
I was trying to put things into perspective....
Varad, I liked your typo comment...make sure you dont have typos a work..
:-)
shekhs said:
Shivaji Park, Horses, Nadiad....hey you guys want to throw some light on for the non-mumbaiites? :-)
------------
Well, Varad explained the Shivaji park angle.
Horses was my morning fart as Shivaji rode around on horses.
Nadiad is an "inside" connection that Romeen and I share. That jagbag (Romeen) is from Nadiad (a town 30 miles from Ahmedabad, Gujarat) but moved to Mumbai to go to school. I did my undergrad at an Engg. school in Nadiad. Nadiad was Romeen's fart of the morning.....
Man, it smells in here !
Thanks for stinking the blog Swetal...but sure was entertaining..
shekhs,
Just trying to do my bit man......some one was biatching about the blog being too boring yesterday...might as well stink it up
I played mostly tennis ball cricket in Bangalore and would run into Kumble(who happens to be my brother's classmate(my senior in school.. I also worked for his company after engineering). Anybody you speak to in Blore (especially in a suburb in and around Basavanagudi) will tell you that they have hit Kumble for a six :). He used to bowl medium pace. One of the most famous grounds was the National College ground where again a lot of games would go at any given time(its not as big as Shivaji Park).
Vinod Bommaiah(my classmate from 1st grade to 7th..ex-Tigers and now Wildcats) has played under 15 Ranji for the state of Karnataka. His dad still has paper clippings of his century stand with Rahul Dravid(with whom he went to school).
Romeen,
I'm not from Chennai...
I grew up in Cochin (now you can assess, how much cricket I've played :-) ).
About the grounds in Cochin, we hardly had any good ones until early 90s, I was out of there by then.
You defnitely dont want to dive in the grounds that I played cricket in Cochin, as it was dry like Thar desert....will defnitely lose some skin...
Most of them were batting paradises, as there was very little grass...but there were hardly any batsmen to score runs.. :-)
Swetal,
I'm glad you guys are ligthening it up...I was beginning to snore..
Vinod had a century stand with dravid! Did not know that. Thats awesome! Well,Vinod's currently preparing for another long partnership, he gets married this weekend.
Romeen said...
"Vinod had a century stand with dravid! Did not know that. Thats awesome! Well,Vinod's currently preparing for another long partnership, he gets married this weekend. "
Romeen, did you try to talk him outta that..
Check with Swetal, he has no idea what partnership he is getting into.. :-)
He had more than one century stand with Dravid. At one point, he had to chose between cricket and education and he chose the latter. I have a lot of friends who played at Ranji level. The problem in those days was that you didnt make enuff money if you didnt make it to the national team. Its definitely changing now.
Blog has went up a few notches in quality! My cousin used to play for Lahore U-19 and Ludhiana club around 1991-92 where Wasim Akram and Saqlain Mushtaq came from. He played with Saqlain and Shabbir Ahmed and has stories of how Saqlain would trun it both ways on cement pitches.
Our team mate Imran's younger brother Kamran Sajid has played in U-19 WC in NZ in 2002 and currently plays first class cricket for Lahore and PIA, he has had partnerships with Mo Yousuf and Salman Butt. At one point was in running with Salman Butt over a place in the national side (Butt got 200+ and he got out for 147 in that partnership and Butt was picked subsequently for the national team).
Raheel, does Kamran plan to move to the US?
Jaggi, thats a good point you bring up about having to choose between cricket and education.A few years ago, even if you did decide to pick cricket, there were huge risks and sacrifices involved. Sanjay Bangar's brother is a good friend of mine and I know the sacricices his family made to nurture Sanjay's cricketing career, it involved part fo the family moving to another city.Eventually, Sanjay did play for India but in most people's opinion, a little too late and when he was past his prime.
It is pretty strange what rules most umpires come up with during a match in our league. Not mentioning bowlers (specially in Div 2) appealing for anything. I have come across many who dont even know ball pitching outside the leg cant be given LBW. I have one incident happened in 30/30 game, where the umpire was telling the bowlers how and where to bowl to batsmen. In the end the captain of that team admitted the umpire game 2-3 bad decision against the batting side. Talk about neutral umpiring!!!
I agree with you both..
same with my case..
When it came to choose between Cricket and Education...it was an easy decision..
I became a bartender..
Couldn't play cricket and education didn't make any sense..
Shekhs, you crack me up. No wonder you are always so happy, it must be all the passive drinking you were exposed to at the bar!
Raheel said,
I am with Romeen on this one - you can eat your lunch if you please on the matting over concrete wickets - as long as you clean up the mess afterwards ;).
============================.
so, taking out the spikes, tighten the matting up and nail it down back. On Astro get a rake and ruffle up the turf would be considered cleaning up your mess..what da ya say Raheel.
or just keep your mess off the wicket, in fact out of the boundry line and it's your mess so do whatever you want with it???.
Which mess beter serves us all?
same story here too fellas..........had to choose between cricket and education.....I played for Hyd U-13 and south zone U-13 and later on the initial stages of U-16 alongwith Afroze Siddiqui of Bears.....Afroze do you remmeber me from those days?
had to give up cricket for 2 years during my +2 as I was preparing for my IIT/engg entrance exams while attending college. got back to cricket during my first 2 yrs of engg, was in the consideration for my univ team in south zone inter university tourney (satish reddy of wildcats was in that team before me, I guess IIRC) and a grape vine suggested Hyd U-19 probabale list but I dropped off later on once agin preparing for my GRE/TOEFL....and not to mention good old politics discouraged me from further pursuing cricket at a professional level.....revived my cricket once I got to purdue...
the best experience I have had as a cricketer was to watch Amol Mazumdar bat.........I still consider him to the best batsmen in India behind Sachin and ahead of Dravid....guys just an opinion
Girish Kamthe from Purdue had similar experiences having played for Maharashtra U-13/16/19 based out of Pune.........last yrs captain Pradeep's elder brother is a good freind of Mahela and the list goes on......coming back to the same pt.....cricket vs. education.
sharath
Romeen,
My case is like Obelix in Asterix...
I think I was thrown into the magic "DRINKING" qualdron when I was young....
Yeah, its all that passive drinking...if I only I drank..
shekhs,
glad you brought that up.........guys can any one suggest a store/website where I can buy the complete collection of Tintin and Asterix please.
sharath
Well Romeen he's currently playing league cricket in England which is pretty well paid, I don't think Pak Gym can afford him at this point ;)lol.
raheel,
well, lets keep it that way then :)
Sharath,
The whole Tintin series is available at some borders in chicago (the one in oak park for sure). In fact I once bought a book on 'the making of tintin and about herge' from that store.
Havent seen asterix anywhere though.
too much about Cricket Vs Educations.
How about cricket Vs family?.
When I came to the US I had to think Family cause i had just got Married.
So I went to school, evenings, work nights and Family Time.
Could not play cricket. After my associates in 93 I wanted to play but could not find a team.
New years morning around 3am 1994 a bunch of not so sober guys formed ICC to play cricket. still could not play when season started as we were not allowed to join??. I think a Michigan Team dropped out mid season and ICC was allowed in to fill the spot and that's how i started to play Cricket in the USA.
Today family Life is starting to take a bite of my Cricket Career. At my Age I can live with that, can you?
Romeen,
Tintin entire series is availabe as colored scanned softcopy on desitorrents.com same with Asterix &Obelix too. I got Titin downloaded. I will burn it for you..
Cheers
Madhu Reddy
PCC
madew,
dude how abt me....i made the original request, Rommen is a good friend of mine....so on that count, how about a soft copy for me too....thanks
sharath
Madew,
You cut them CDs/ DVDs and I'll sell them for you here...how about that..50-50 :-)
dont forget that as blog admins, Hari and I also have a share in it. :)
I guess people from Hyderebad remember Gymkhana grounds in Secuderabd resemble Shivaji park looks. I have played lots of games there. I have not been to Bombay except for my flight to here in US. Ihaven't seen shivaji park how closely it resembles..I captain my high school, St. Josephs high schoo and we were Inter Diocese champs in 10th grade. Played for plus + team mostly stuck local B2 and A2 leagues in Hyd. Went to nets in Marredpally (Shenoy nursing home) and Hari Kiran Gogisetti QC kigns is from there too. I played in My eng college team, with Satish Reddy, when he was off-Spinner:) I guess fast pitches of MCC made Satish Reddy a fast bowler. OU campus grounds have red soil ground and pretty slow. I still remember Satish to be offensive bat. Opening and fast paced. He kinda slowed down now..:) but more mature knocks now..plays a great knock always..for the team...
Madhu Reddy
PCC
I will burn one...for each...next time I am in Chicago..Romeen will have a copy...just in case..
thanks madhu....what batch were you in, I was in the 1996-2000 batch.....yup the greneer gymkhana ground and bison polo ground alongwith the barren soil parade grounds next to them, were the hub of cricketing activity in Hyd......but my perosnal favs were the Thapa stadium at AOC center, Artillery center at Golconda and NFC/ECIL grounds......not to be outdone, my good old HPS school ground.....any other grounds worth mentioning, fellow hyderabadis?
sharath
Rup I hear u buddy..Havin been sigle for long time got married couple years ago..now with little baby..its tough man..Here is something to cheer you up....
When going gets tough....Tough play cricket...hehe...:)
I ripped it from some where...but neverthless..fits my stage of life..
Cheers All to all those who juggle, wiggle, struggle to keep afloat between cricket and family life..Kudos..to all those..Happy Father Day..
Wait a minute..we have a game on Fathers day...
Cheers
Madhu Reddy
PCC
Sharath..I graduated in 1995 from CBIT..was here in sept 95 started playing MCC from 1996 season...I played on those grounds you mentioned..what sweet memories..Especially..AOC turf was my favorite..Have played in Nizam college grounds..ECIL is very close to my house..I live in Sainikpuri...There was one by ground by Medina, Charminar, we had Inter School tounis there..Man..it been while...wow..
guess said -
---------------------
..i was just wondering what's the highest wicket taken by bowler in one match in midwest cricket. ..
---------------------
Mohd. Ali took 8 wickets in a game against Ace/Swingers when he played for Rogers Park a few years back.
-Asmar
dude no way, I lived in sainikpuri for 2 years.....defence colny X roads....I did my 1 to 8 at HPS(R) and my 9th and 10th from Bhavan's Sanikipuri were my dad was the princi....moved to St. Mary's for my college and then engg happened. I was at Ou for my first pahse and then moved to Vasavi after my second sem.....came to Purdue in July 2000 and been there till April 2006.
sharath
Guys I got this from a friend of mine..may be few of you already read it..Its was very funny..Married guys can sense it and singles guys can try to make sense out of it..enjoy..
When a man steals your wife, there is no better revenge than to let him keep her.
Sacha Guitry
After marriage, husband and wife become two sides of a coin; they just can't face each other, but still they stay together.
Hemant Joshi
By all means marry. If you get a good wife, you'll be happy. If you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher. Socrates
Woman inspires us to great things, and prevents us from achieving them.
Dumas
The great question... which I have not been able to answer... is, "What does a woman want?
Sigmund Freud
I had some words with my wife, and she had some paragraphs with me.
Anonymous
"Some people ask the secret of our long marriage. We take time to go to a restaurant two times a week. A little candlelight, dinner, soft music and dancing. She goes Tuesdays, I go Fridays."
Henny Youngman
"I don't worry about terrorism. I was married for two years."
Sam Kinison
"There's a way of transferring funds that is even faster than electronic banking. It's called marriage."
James Holt McGavran
"I've had bad luck with both my wives. The first one left me, and the second one didn't."
Patrick Murray
Two secrets to keep your marriage brimming
1. Whenever you're wrong, admit it,
2. Whenever you're right, shut up.
Nash
The most effective way to remember your wife's birthday is to forget it once...
Anonymous
You know what I did before I married? Anything I wanted to.
Henny Youngman
My wife and I were happy for twenty years. Then we met.
Rodney Dangerfield
A good wife always forgives her husband when she's wrong.
Milton Berle
Marriage is the only war where one sleeps with the enemy.
Anonymous
A man inserted an 'ad' in the classifieds: "Wife wanted". Next day he received a hundred letters. They all said the same thing: "You can have mine."
Anonymous
First Guy (proudly): "My wife's an angel!"
Second Guy: "You're lucky, mine's still alive."
I recently read that love is entirely a matter of chemistry.
That must be why my wife treats me like toxic waste.
David Bissonette
Romeen,
forward that to Vinod please..
Madhu,thanks for the tintin info and CDs. You've pretty much guaranteed yourself an opening slot for the wildcats in the AL tourney :)
Highest No of wickets in one game in the history of MCC
Nitesh Patel from Giants took a 9-fer in a game against collinsville back in 2004.
http://www.midwestcricket.org/asp/Score88.asp?id=1086
krk Mohan(a fellow kelloggite) took an 8-fer against Lucky XI back in 2002.
http://www.midwestcricket.org/asp/Score88.asp?id=283
Syed Razi got an 8-fer against Arsenal last month.
http://www.midwestcricket.org/asp/Score88.asp?id=2502
Ali's 8-fer against Ace was in 2004.
http://www.midwestcricket.org/asp/Score88.asp?id=1104
If there ever is a situation in MCC that a bowler gets 10 wickets (could happen), who do you guys think would be the most likely candidates?
I hope that, I'm not in the opposite batting side...
I can see Nilesh taking 10...on his best day..
Asif Mehmood .. if Wade doesn't get an opener or 2 esp. on that Milwaukee matting over turf wicket!
At WP, I would add Mehul to that list. He can swing the ball both ways and has an excellent slow ball.
jaggi,
why didnt u play last game? going ot retire on a high note?
yo tango where are you dude
It was the same for me Cricket/Education, so had to choose Education out of family pressure :-).
I played for B2 for a couple of yrs and a yr in A1, used to play for Victory Play Ground(VPG) Chaderghat. I played at the OU Grounds as well as the Gymkhana and used to like both the grounds...
How about shahid? ie if raheel raheel and farman dont get the openers.
n-w and tango, you guys have been missing some interesting conversations today.
neanderthal_walking said...
jaggi,
why didnt u play last game? going ot retire on a high note?
-----------------------------------
Retire.. hopefully not so soon. :)Will be tough for me this season to play any away games due to family obligations.
Whoa!
You right Romeen, very interesting stuff discussed today. Starting with our beloved Shivaji Park.
I never played hard-ball cricket there. Me and a couple of my friends from school from 9th and 10th standard used to go there to play some pick-up games (rubber ball). The first month or so, those kids (by kids I mean 12-13 year olds) only made us field. Later on, after we got to know them a little better, we got to bat and bowl.
My fondest memories were when we used to have 'seal matches' (played for money). We all got Rs.15 from mom for the evening. Used to spend Rs.5 on energy drink, Rs.3 on Wada Pav, and the rest of the money was chipped in to buy a bottle of desi daru (the devils that we were).
ohh, the great memories :)
thats sum good discussions guys keep it goin. so milw made it 5-0 wow and pak lost to wc! this season is getting really interesting, st louis doin well too.
i bet most of us would not be playing cricket if we were back home
madew,
dude how abt me....i made the original request, Rommen is a good friend of mine....so on that count, how about a soft copy for me too....thanks
sharath
----------------------------------
Madew,
Dude.. Can you send me a copy too..
I should have animation/cartoon movies of all Tintin and Astrix adventures somewhere in my house.. need to locate them.
-Naveen
did u guys see farhat gonna umpire two games next weekend. i wonder what is he gonna show when someone appeal.
the finger :-)
i hope so....he is known to show something else...
guys,
I would aslo like to know if any one out there happens to have a copy of the Malgudi Days CD collection......I tried getting one in dec when I was back home in hyd for my wedding.....couldn't find one....even in established music and movie retail chains....apparently sold out....any one having one, we shall all be grateful if you could let us borrow it, or guide to us to getting one.
sharath
Milwaukee CC are 5-0, last year they went 5-9
Milwaukee United are 0-3, last year they went 10-3.
Unbelievable!
mcc, wildcats, st. louis, united and pak definetly look good right now. four of those teams would be my semi-finalist.
Sharath
check out amazon.com, they carry 'em.
Sharath,
Also if you can check www.rajshri.com. There you will get to see malgudi days episodes for free. Also if you want to download they let you do so for nominal rates ...
c8w,
We are having a rough year...too many wides and shit...can't win if we give away runs on a silver platter...
ram,
call c8w to umpire. dont call wides at all. its like he is paying out of his pocket.
just kidding c8w
I remember someone saying Div 2 players not doing well in Div 1. Check out Shekhs stats only this year ... He is doing very well opening for Challengers this year ...
Good goin .. Shekhs sir ...
alpesh and ram,
thanks for the info guys...stuff though is too damn expensive here!!
sharath
sharath..U got lucky again man.
I got one series..DVD of Malgudi days...I will try to burn it..for you..
I will get it next time I am in Chicago..
Cheers
Madhu
Appu,
Got lucky man...bahut mushkil se do teen run banaye hein...nazar mat laga mere bhai..
Thanks man..
madhu,
wo........looks like i guess i can get the entire collection of chiranjeevi, K. vishwanath, ram gopal verma, jandhyala telugu movies from you too.....picked a good day and time span to blog...:))....just kidding though.....
malgudi days, tintin and asterix should suffice and keep me ocupied reading for a while, i am up in milwaukee though, we are playing wildcats in 2 weeks time, if it is OK with you, do drop off the CDs/DVDs with romeen. i can pick it up from him. Thanks again Madhu. Hope that it is fine with you Romeen.
sharath
Madew - you appear to be very resourceful..can u list out all interesting collections you have :)
sharath,
do you want a collection of GIRLS GONE WILD? gotta get rid of parents coming to town
Ram...just have ecclectic collection..What bloggers are talking about are just Golden collection.. memories from Childhood..Tintin/Asterix/Richie rich and stuff....u know...but you are looking for something particular do let me know...do check desitorrents.com they are out there..by the way we playing you this weekend...may be I can send it via you to Chicago..to Romeen and Sharath...
Cheers
Madhu Reddy
PCC
same problem here too nd...my wife is coming to the US early next month....GGW would hav been awesome otherwise....thx anyways
sharath
Madew- Thanks...If I come to Peoria I'll bring the DVD's for folks here.
By any chance any if you have any/all episodes of "Bharat Ek Khoj". Was willing to pay top dollars to get the whole collection but from what I gather, the Indian govt. decided to make that a national treasure of some sorts....not for sale ! Gave up looking for that a couple yrs back; havent looked for 'em in recent times. That was one heck of a series......IMHO.
you are right swetal....that was one darn good show of the 80s and early 90s.....cable invasion did screw up a lot of quality programming on Indian TV, IMHO.
sharath
Hello All,
When does the Abid Laheri Night Tournament starts? Is it to late? There is nothing posted on web for it.
Any info will be appreciated.
thanks
kb, look at the comments under the Abid Laheri Tournament posting. Shiraz has updated us.
itna sannata kyun hain bhai !!!
Appu,
Tu Chicago kab wapas aa raha hein?
Shekhs Sir ..
Still searching ... nothing positive so far ...
-----------
Ramsundar Lakshminarayanan said...
Madew- Thanks...If I come to Peoria I'll bring the DVD's for folks here.
---------
Ah, so your schedule has been changed already, then? You guys are going up to Peoria, instead of them coming down here on Saturday?
Heard yesterday that a change might be in the works - I was lobbying Marghoob-bhai to nominate me to umpire your game at WP on Saturday, actually (ie Madhew had no objection, that is :-), cos I was sorta keen to see young mister Bola play :-).. and I was told there was probably a schedule change in the works. Oh well.
c8w
---------
the best experience I have had as a cricketer was to watch Amol Mazumdar bat.........I still consider him to the best batsmen in India behind Sachin and ahead of Dravid....guys just an opinion
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I knew there was a reason I thought this guy Sharath was smart (apart from his habit of gifting me solid gold rings). Amol Muzumdar is one of my favourite cricketer's ever - a *terrific* batsman, horribly illtreated by the selectors. Still piling up runs, but will never get a chance now.
BTW, nice synopsis of Shivaji Park by Varad yesterday - but it would be a great pity if only Tendulkar and Kambli were seen as Shivaji Park products (thats only the case for kids like Varad :-) Shivaji Park has been the cradle of Bombay batting (not to say India batting) since about the 1950s. The first great bat from that area was Vijay Manjrekar.. and that was followed by lots of others thru the 60s, 70s and 80s. Wadekar, Solkar, Sardesai, Gavaskar, Vengsarkar, Sandy Patil, even Shastri and then Sanjay Manjrekar and Amre all played a fair bit at Shivaji Park (though people like Gavaskar and Vengsarkar played *for* Dadar Union CC, the biggest rival of Shivaji Park Gymkhana CC there is). And since then there has been a lot of Bombay "emigration" to other Ranji teams... Amre played all his years there growing up, before playing for Railways, Rajasthan etc (and then progressing to the Indian team); Sanjay Bangar opens the batting for Shivaji Park Gymkhana even today, as he has for a decade (and yet he played Ranjis for Railways and made the test team "from there").
Anyway. There is a long and storied history there... and thats where Samir (thanks Romeen) Raorane of St Louis is from (even though he may have played only in the lower divisions of the Kanga League, not A, B or C maybe, I dont know). But there are good players in every division - Romeen himself played only like F division or something, right, Romeen? And he's one of the better openers we have in Div1.
c8w
c8w
Well, I don't claim to be a Shivaji Park product although I've played an occasional game there.
I played most of my cricket at the BCA (now Mumbai Cricket Association) nets at Azad Maidan (was closer to my residence at the time) apart from playing at school. But, there were plenty of people at the nets better than me, so I never really had pangs to try out for the Indian team or anything. Also, the fact that my then team captain used to buy 'sabji' and run errands for our coach (to get a reccomendation) to make it to the next level didn't really inspire me much.
So much for the education v/s cricket choice others had to make :D
I am not aware if Sameer played any league in Kanga league or not but I can say with certainity that he is not only a very good bowler but a better batsman.
Whatever little time I have spent in this league and playing against 4 teams, I have not seen anyone show full face of the bat the way he does while batting.
Ajoy
Whatever little time I have spent in this league and playing against 4 teams, I have not seen anyone show full face of the bat the way he does while batting.
Ajoy
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thats because St Louis sucks so much others need only half of the bat. :)))))
Sure they know how to play at home etc - but on what basis can anyone allege they lack talent, in a side with Sohail, Amit etc (and a couple new bowlers with great stats who most of the league hasnt actually seen)?
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Thank you Cricketwallah for your comments.
Also one of the away game was decided based on run rate in first 20 overs.
Not many of you have seen some of us (new players) but I am sure that those who have played against us sure know that we can be a force to reckon with.
I must also add that it has been a enjoyable experience so far playing in MCC, bowling to some very good batsmen and I am sure many more to come.
Ajoy
ajoy your test will come against wildcats and pak gym. challengers are good team but they blow hot/cold. good luck v pak this wkd.
Sharath, Sadiq bhai regarding Amol Muzumdar - unless a batsman is tested at the test level you can never be sure what he will be like based on just talent. Prime example Graeme Hick: he murdered county attacks for years and before he had made his debut people were talking about 8000+ runs and 50+ avg. It didn't quite turn out like that! Also there were a lot more naturally talented batsmen than Steve Waugh - his brother amongst one of them, but he was a fighter in pressure situations and has a better record than many more talented batsmen.
raheel,
I do not disagree with what you said.....just that Amol deserved a chance always way ahead of any one else ever since he made his debut but could never find one.....since his debut for Bombay in the Ranji team (IIRC he was 17/18 then), he was frequently in the line up for the west zone team in the deodhar and duleep trophies, for India A, India U-21 and what not.....
the problem was he was thrown into the shadows stemming from the illustrious company he had around him.....Ravi Shastri, Dilip Vengsarkar, Sanjay Manjrekar, Sachin Tendulkar, Vinod Kambli, Sairaj Bahutule, Nilesh Kulkarni, Paras Mhambrey, Abhey Kuruvilla, Ajit Agarkar, Jatin Paranjape, Wasim Jaffer, Samir Dighe, Romesh Powar etc all wnet onto play for India and all of them were from Bombay.....even ppl from in and around Bombay who could not make it into the Bombay team like Rohan Gavaskar, Zaheer Khan initially (played for Maharshtra --Baroda-- now Bombay) got a chance defecting to bengal/baroda....
the point being, he did deserve a definite chance more than a number of people in the group listed above, his misfortune was as a #3/#4 batsmen he was stuck in the oblivion with Manjrekar in the XI for a while later taken over by Dravid, Laxman and Kambli....and he was never ever considered and I guess never will be.....dude may be max 30 by now...
sharath
Thats another problem in subcontinent, someone hits 30 and he's automatically discarded. Aus gave debuts to Mike Hussey and Brad Hodge at 32-33 after their consistent performances in domestic circuit and they've done so well, esp. Hussey!
"Thats another problem in subcontinent, someone hits 30 and he's automatically discarded."
Thats because they are constantly building for the 'future' ;)
Maybe our aging Wildcats can knock some sense into these selectors.
Tango,
Thats why I enjoy reading what you write. You can call somebody 'aging' and still make it sound like a compliment :)
That takes talent.
I'm really curious who you are, I know you are from bombay, care to give us some clues?
Romeen,
You have a knack of busting people's nicks.. :-)
Lets do this today..
Play the guessing game..
Lets find out who Tango is..??
sounds like fun Shekhs. I cant think of a better way of spending my day off (i'm such a loser).
Lets see, we know Tango is from bombay, cant claim to know everybody from bombay in our league,but we can try. He also seems like somebody from Div 1, he seems to be in sync with all the goings on of div-1. Is tango a reference to the dance form or a variation of something he is or he likes, a drink, for instance?
So, what do we have here:
bombay
div-1
likes to dance?
shekhs, help me out here..
Whoa!
Romeen,
No clues my man. I've rubbed a lot of people the wrong way on this blog. Especially Adnan....not that I'm afraid of Adnan...maybe his brother, Faisal Schwarzenegger Jr, YAAA! (now I mean that as a complement)
I'll stop by and say 'hello' the next time I see you.
hmm...
good clues Romeen..
Tango definitely can talk...so we got to filter accordingly...this man is a conversationalist....
OK Tango, its a deal. I'll stop this if you promise to stop by. Just come and say something in code (like they do it in the movies), maybe you can say 'it takes two to....' :)
BTW, do you know who n_w is?
Shekhs,
Maybe I could be one of your teammates, maybe I could be you, using a fake nickname ;)
Ahh, the possibilities are endless.
No idea who N_W is. Think he's from AAA.
Shekhs, not only is he a conversationalist, he's got a sick sense of humor.
Tango, I know you are not Shekhs,(Shekhs had no clue about Shivaji Park). Also, Shekhs is not very good at hiding his nick, I busted him last year :)
Tango..
Now you really intrigue me..
I got your back..if you are my teammate..
Romeen busted me the last time I used a nick.. :-)
I like the code word - 'it takes two to...."
That;ll work with me too..just come and say that...and I'll know who you are..
you are off the hook my friend..
You've really piqued my interest now, its a pity my next two games are away games. Do I have to wait that long to find out? :)
he does have a wild sense of humor..I concur with that..
maybe he should be a stand up..
"Tango, I know you are not Shekhs,(Shekhs had no clue about Shivaji Park)."
Maybe the whole Shivaji Park thing was a 'cover-up'. Maybe I've become smarter this year :)
Tango,
how can I type with 2 different names...I'm crazy...but I aint that crazy..
OK , there's no way in heck Shekhs knows the term limbu timbu.
You know I got you tango, dont try to run :)
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