Wow, what a week of cricket we had - full of upsets, some valiant efforts, and highly competitive cricket. United, an early season favorite are winless after 2 games. Last year's champion Challengers look like the team to beat in Div 1. The Eagles fought hard but were unable to surpass the brilliance of Sohail from St Louis. Phoenix pulled off a huge upset by beating Pak Gym, the Siddique brothers from the Chargers continue some their awesome form, and AAA have got off to a quick start in pursuit of their first Div 1 playoff appearance.
Meanwhile, in Div 2 Rogers Park took out a contender for the regular season Div 1 spot in the Titans. Jaguars, another contending team relied on their strong batting to take out a tough Hammond team, while Arena continued their dominance with a big win over the Giants. The rivalry game of the week, ICC vs Evanston ended up as a lop-sided affair with ICC smashing a mammoth total and skittling out Evanston quickly.
Div 30-30 has a few teams making bold statements such as the Nighthowlers making a big statement with their domination of the Rockers. Fenders also have got off to a quick start with a close win against Devonshire. Desi Tigers are also looking strong with a win against the Advancers. The biggest statement however was made by South Barrington with a huge win over MWCA.
This week there are some important games in each of the Divisions. Nighthowlers have a chance to continue their dominance with a win against a good Chicago Cricket Club team, as do the Desi Tigers vs MWCA, and DeePark XI. Meanwhile, the race to Div 1 continues with Illinois needing a win to stay within striking distance of the current table toppers as do the Titans against a very good Hammond team. Teams for two political heavy weights (the President and Vice President) the Challengers and Muslim Gymkhana square off this weekend. Another important game in Div 1 will be between two good, but winless teams - United and Eagles. This will be a good chance for one of them to get back on track while the other will have a bigger hole to climb out of.
However, the statement game of the week has to be between the Flames and Peoria. Both are pre-season favorites for many to make the playoffs and go deep. This should be a very competitive game and give some indication as to who could prove to be a tough challenge for the current champions.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
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forget all the fight about the new rules and all the other crap.....
lets talk about the week 3 predictions.........
DIV I
1. Challlengers Vs. Muslim (Challengers) way too strong of a team
2. Eagles Vs. United (United) United needs win very badly more than eagles.
3. peoria Vs. Flames (Flames) Flames looks strong this year.
4. Phoenix Vs. AAA (Phoenix) cause AAA will have over confident about their first two wins.....
5. wildcats Vs. Bears (Wildcats) don't have confidant in bears yet...
6. Rovers Vs. St. louis. (St.Louis) i respect previous vice president.
7. Milwaukee Vs. Chargers (Milwaukee) for some reason i felt like picking them
DIV 2
1. Springfield Vs. Rogers Park (Rogers Park) They look too strong.
2. Milwaukee Rangers Vs. Illinois (illinois) if Rup shows some perfomace as a captain....
3. Hammond Vs. Titans (Titans) Titans are angry cause the lose from rogers park from last week.
4. Madison Vs. Milwaukee Panthers (Madison) don't see anything in the milwaukee panthers.
DIV 30/30
1. CCC Vs. Nighthowlers (Nighthowlers) good team
2. Trailblazers Vs. CSK (Trailblazer) CSK is new team with no experinence in midwest grounds.
3. Devonshire Vs. Juggernauts (Juggernauts) devonshire doesn't look that strong.
4. Panthers Vs. Cougers (Panthers) they are still covering from last week loss.
5. MWCA Vs. Desi tigers ( Desi Tigers) Sorry MWCA, you will have to wait one more week till you win a game.
6. warriors Vs. Hustler XI (Warrior) they got good talent.
7. Dee Park XI Vs. Rockers (Dee Park) Dee Park wants revenge from last year
8. South Barrington Vs. Chicago Hawks (South Barrington) old folks looks good this year.
Yes, we-Titans are angry :-)
Just to lighten up the atmosphere, I believe that free-hit was the reason I got out early in the last match. I got to face 3 free-hit balls and scored 4 run in all of them ... Now I am a defensive batsman and because of these free-hits I had to be aggressive and hence, it changed my game a bit and started trying to hit balls which I generally leave and got out :-)
hahaha Appu, you were the biggest advocate for free hit..
moral of the story??
1. Challlengers Vs. Muslim (Challengers) - No choice - captain marega...
2. Eagles Vs. United (United) United - mark my words - the most dangerous team, and will end up as 7 or 8 with potential upsetting XI.
3. peoria Vs. Flames (Peoria ) Peoria - are you forgetting they are the best team on paper.
4. Phoenix Vs. AAA (AAA) this team is underrated...they have some young blood
5. wildcats Vs. Bears (Wildcats) bears need to show up...Faisal/ Adeel where art thou?
6. Rovers Vs. St. louis. (St.Louis) looks like sohail is back with a vengeance..
7. Milwaukee Vs. Chargers (Milwaukee)
DIV 2
1. Springfield Vs. Rogers Park (Springfield) an upset looming..
2. Milwaukee Rangers Vs. Illinois (illinois) Rup and Jack went up the hill...
3. Hammond Vs. Titans (Titans) Titans are angry and I'm glad they are not playing us...
4. Madison Vs. Milwaukee Panthers (Madison)
DIV 30/30
1. CCC Vs. Nighthowlers (Nighthowlers) BEST 30-30 team
2. Trailblazers Vs. CSK (Trailblazer)
3. Devonshire Vs. Juggernauts (Juggernauts)
4. Panthers Vs. Cougers (Panthers) Hustlers...
5. MWCA Vs. Desi tigers ( Desi Tigers) This team is good...
6. warriors Vs. Hustler XI (Warrior)
7. Dee Park XI Vs. Rockers (Dee Park) Bring it on Romeen..
8. South Barrington Vs. Chicago Hawks (South Barrington) yeah...they look good..
Btw .. did anybody notice the counter on our website's main page ?? Just in 1.5 days, we have got close to 1000 hits .. that is cool ...
Is Pakistan going to defend its title?? Superb batting display ...
awsome perfomance by umar akmal..... 56 of 35 includes 4 sixes
very good chance of going in finals
the younger akmal is a special talent...dont wanna discuss politics here but its a shame that palyers like him and aamir were kept out of IPL!
Moaz Sir .. Personally I feel that apart from Money .. IPL is not doing any good ... Its better to win the World Cup than a domestic tournament ..
Alpesh, you are right it is no substitute for international cricket. But having competitive dometsic leagues where local first class players play alongside international players is good for the game. I think there should be more leagues like IPL in other countries as well so that domestic players have the incentive (money) to try their hardest and excel... sadly, these leagues would have to be 20/20 becuase thats whats gonna fill the stadiums and generate the most interest. Imagine how much cricket would benefit if there were multiple professional cricket leagues having a high level of cricket similar to how Europe has multiple soccer leagues that are really competitive (English, Spanish, Italian leagues, etc)
damn...... what a game AUS VS PAK
34 needed for aus to win in 12 balls.
18 to go in 6 balls
damn freakin hussey......
wow wow wow..... What a game HUSSEY Rocks!!!!!!!!!!!!!
very good game
disheartened pakistani fans should not disgrace their team...they playd really well and lost a very close one at the end.
Are there players of MEK Hussey calibre in Midwest? Any games that have been won in such fashion? Maybe batsman going wild or even possibly bowlers wrecking the line up when you least expected it?
Now that is a heart-breaker. I really thought (and hoped) that Pakistan had the game in hand. Setup an awesome 191 total. Then picked up the openers early, and had Australia staring down the barrel at over 10 runs required per over.
Unbelievable win - kudos to the Aussies.
Hope England can prevail!!
str8bat...
He is called Nilesh Patel....when he clobbered Mehul and united in a similar situation 2 years ago to win the semi-final for challengers..
I think we need 25 of 2...when he hit Mehul for 3 sixes...
was that in the night tournament, shekhs???
Shekhs,
How about having a home run derby like day in MCC... Get the best batsmen in the league.. See who can hit most sixes in a given number of balls?
nice idea str8bat..
question is who would want to bowl.... against the likes of Imran, Kamran, Mahesh, Shahid, Irfan, Guddu, Nilesh, Faisal, Bhavesh, Darshan etc...
:-)
No, thats a cool idea....we should try that..
There is no sympathy for bowlers anywhere neither is it at international level nor is it at MCC level.
Why not just let bowlers get into a ring along with Mike Tyson.
IMO, imran bhai is the best six-hitter in the league...and I am not just saying that cuz i am from MG
hahaha Naren, true that...
bowling to Imran in a home run derby is like getting into a ring with Iron Mike.
without inhibitions....no outs..I cant even fathom..how hard he is gonna hit the ball..
why don't we do this, lets tie the batsman up and then let the bowlers bowl and that would ideally be a good face off, that will be a perfect Preakness derby 2010.
hahaha..nice one Naren...
thanks for the laugh...
IMO, imran bhai is the best six-hitter in the league...and I am not just saying that cuz i am from MG
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Although I don’t doubt this a bit, but seeing Irfan (Guddu) hit six sixes to us in the previous game made me wonder if we were bowling with a tennis ball and the boundary was only the 30yard circle. Incredible sixes! He made it look really easy, effortless as they say. Ball was just sailing off his bat to the cover boundary with ease. I believe, what matters is how many you can hit rather than how far. His sixes are not hoicks or anything flashy as Imran bhais or kamis but still very exciting to watch.
For us last week was embarrassing we lost the game with our fielding, approximately 15 catches were dropped. And to give so many chances to any player let alone good players as the siddiqui brothers you are bound to receive a hammering. We lost last week but hope to bounce back with are full team strength returning this week against the wildcats.
Good Luck to the Chargers in the season.
yes irfan is an amazing hitter as well..we have ben a victim of his hitting in a game in 08 season...he scored 97 off like 41 balls...thankfully saad got him out and we were able to pull a victory...
Btw .. The midwest website is being stormed today .. In the morning around 11 AM .. it had about 1000 hits and the # has reached about 6000 at this time ... WOW !!!
Check the counter at the bottom on the front page ..
I think there is something wrong with the counter:)
I refreshed the page the count went up by 40:|
Alpesh aka lalit modi of mcc,
He is setting up fake counters to increase count...hahaa..where are the after night mcc parties alpesh? Would miss world be joining us???
I demand to be invited..:)
Trust me Dinesh .. I did not do anything :-) You cannot charge me like this :-))
There is something fishy about the counter .. until yesterday it was working as expected .. but today it went crazy ...
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str8bat said...
Are there players of MEK Hussey calibre in Midwest? Any games that have been won in such fashion? Maybe batsman going wild or even possibly bowlers wrecking the line up when you least expected it?
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Ive umpired 2 of these, actually.
The last one, Shekhs mentioned - United vs Challengers, Night semifinal, 2007. When Challengers were down to needing 21 off 2 overs, and Mehul got a wicket and conceded 2 runs in 4 balls... so it was 19 runs off 8 balls with 2 wickets in hand. And Nilesh hit 2 consecutive sixes to end the over, and one more in the next (last) over to win it (3 sixes in the last 6 balls of the match from Nilesh).
The Match-Report can be found here:
http://midwestcricketer.blogspot.com/2007/09/sunday-fun-at-old-ballpark.html
(you have to scroll down the thread a bit)
The other such game I umpired was a long time ago... Bears vs Polo, huge rivalry game (with 4-5 former Bears usually playing for Polo, this was always a huge game).
http://midwestcricket.org/asp/Score88.asp?id=820
Polo got 190 (in those days 190 at WP was a good score). Bears chased, and with Doc getting 50 had it well under control. It was like 45 runs in 10 overs or something, with 6 wickets in hand. Fairly comfortable, with a fair bit of batting to come.
And then Polo had 2 spinners bowl in a stretch. And they were fantastic. Gunjan and Sameer - completely tied up the batsmen, they kept trying to hit and not getting runs. Couple wickets fell in suicidal shotmaking tries. Runs completely dried up. Gautam (Gunjan's brother) came on to partner Sameer, still no runs coming. Basically, in 9 overs, something like 28 runs or so were scored.. Tariq Usmani in particular kept trying to hit, and not able to get anything going.
Even now I remember yelling to get a proper score with one over left.. and getting not much response. So I jogged towards the batting side to get details (I was fitter back then, I could actually jog)... they said 17, I was asking 17 to tie, or 17 to win?.. and I remember the leg-umpire of the batting side, telling me "why are you trying to rub it in? 17, 18 what does it matter? Its not going to happen anyway.
And then suddenly everything clicked into place for Tariq Usmani (captain of the Bears at the time). He had quite literally not managed to put bat to ball against Sameer (who had conceded maybe 15 runs in 5 slog overs, and rightly IMHO been continued with in the last over). Tariq Usmani hit a huge 6 first ball, followed by a one-bounce 4. Third ball IIRC mistimed a big hit, got 2. Fourth ball, another huge hit(all in the direction of long-on/mid-wicket, with 2 fielders on the fence)..sailed over the boundary for six, and it was all over. 18 runs off 4 balls to end it. Amazing hitting. One of the most memorable games Ive umpired.
c8w
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Alpesh said...
There is something fishy about the counter .. until yesterday it was working as expected .. but today it went crazy ...
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Maybe there *is* something wrong with the counter.
But maybe there isnt. Friday is probably a pretty decent day for people checking into the website, esp late afternoon. To make final checks on who is umpiring their game (so they can complain to Marghoob-bhai and ask someone else be assigned), to check their exact ground at WP, all that sort of stuff :-)
Its a counter that just counts # of hits - not unique hits, I presume? If so,I think you'll be amazed at just how many pure hits you get. I remember last year when we did the Midwest Wrap, I asked Faisal a month or so into the show what sort of hits we were getting... remember this was a site not linked to the main-page, linked only from the blog (which was relatively inactive back then)... and it boggled my mind, the number of hits that show was getting, completely blew me away. As soon as our second show, we got 2000 hits in one day when it came out IIRC.. and those numbers got better as more shows came out and people found out about it. I remember thinking back then that the Midwest main-page must be getting enormous amounts of hits, that someone ought to really put in a counter etc.
I bet you'll be shocked next week, at the number you'll get - early in the week and late in the week is the main time Id guess. Its not just everyone who plays who checks it - many check it lots of times (I know I check in at various times, to see scorecards from different games etc). And people check in from all over the world - even our Midwest Wrap was getting hits from Dubai, India, Pakistan, Australia, South Africa etc! Relatives of players, former players in the league, people across the USA involved with cricket.. there will be hits from places youve never dreamt :-) The season hasnt even kicked off for all teams yet - Purdue, CCI etc have not played yet (college students means more hits, plus likely hits from extended family back home too :-) The 6000 number wont seem like such a big deal in a few weeks IMHO :-)
c8w
wow.. Good memory c8w... Couple of questions for you...
1)Have you ever had to explain yourself to a Judge? Did the prosecutor rest their case?Or maybe the defense walked out?
2) Is that how you normally talk outside? example "IIRC we had biryani yesterday. lets have Nihari tonight? IMHO last night food was the best
3) Did you ever have to give a 5 minute speech and have to be reminded in the middle of it that your time was up 10 mins ago?
Just messing with you BTW ;)
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str8bat said...
wow.. Good memory c8w...
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It wasnt all memory BTW - was intrigued by the question, remembered a couple games, and so looked up the scorecards and reminded myself of it :-)
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2) Is that how you normally talk outside? example "IIRC we had biryani yesterday. lets have Nihari tonight? IMHO last night food was the best
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I do, yes. Except IMHO it should be written "*the* best", FWIW. (Today I actually had a bahn-mi, and thought it was terrific.. YMMV).
c8w
one name that comes to mind is nirav amin of challengers and one game that comes to mind was 7-8 years ago, it was in the playoffs, eventhough it wasn't exactly team batting second, but rogers park had challengers 20 for 6 or somthing like that and all of us at washington park were shocked beyond anything. everyone kept calling to see what's going on and thinking that the game will be over before noo, only to find out in the end challengers scored only close to 250 and won the game. I tried cheking the scorecard unfortunately there is no scorecard for that game but if what i heard at the time is correct nirav scored century. and what an inning it was. maybe someone from challengers or rogerspark can give more details on that game.
Cool...
Yeah, that Mr. Cool Nirav amin...you guys are not the same person right..? hahaha
Nirav scored 99 n.o
dinesh,
You want to know about parties? Appu is the wrong guy....talk to me bud... :-)
Zamorin, u involved in shady stuff?
yo Fake...I'm the real slim shady...you forget that...
ssup..howya been?
enjoying the sunshine part, not the shady stuff :)
my performance last week.
Div I - 2-4
United ovr Challs
STL ovr Eagles
Pak ovr Phoenix
Bears ovr Chargers
Mil ovr WC
AAA over Rovers
Div II - 4-1
Titans ovr RP
Jags ovr Hammond
Madison over MR
Arena ovr Giants
QC ovr Springfield
30-30 - 3-3
Chicago super kings ovr Juggernauts
Cougars ovr Hawks
CCC ovr Trail blazers
Rockers ovr nighthowlers
Fenders ovr Devonshire
SBCC ovr MWCA
9-8 overall. above 50%.
predications 4 this week.
div 1
challs ovr mg - challs look strong.
eagles ovr united - united in trouble this year.
peoria ovr flams - peoria to strong at home
aaa ovr phoenix - aaa good and make playoffs.
bears ovr wc - bears come back strong
rovers ovr sl - rovers get in groov
chargers ovr mil - siddiqu bros look awesome.
div 2
rp ovr spi - rp to strong
icc ovr mil rgr - icc r compete this year.
titans ovr hammond - faraz has big game
madison ovr mil pan - madison do well this year.
div 3
nighthowlers ovr ccc - nighthowlers looking good.
trailblazers ovr csk - csk not ready for mwcc talent.
devonshire ovr juggs - close game.
panthers ovr cougars - panthers find mojo.
desi ovr mwca - desi look very strong
warriors ovr hustler - close game
deepark ovr rockers - rockers not so strong this year
sbcc ovr hawks - sbcc dominats
ps. me learn from confushus not nostrodahmus. hehehe
Nighthowlers/Wildcats had a practice session at Heritage Park today and the ground looks in bad shape.. There are pools of water near the pitch that will need to be covered with sand. Outfield hasn't drained well. There's no game tmrw so hope the sun does it work and it doesn't rain tonight or tmrw.
DIV1
1. Challengers
2. Eagles
3. Flames
4. Phoenix
5. Bears
6. Rovers
7. Chargers
DIV2
1. Rogers Park
2. Illinois
3. Hammond - This is an upset pick
4. Madison
DIV30/30
1. NightHowlers
2. Trailblazers
3. Devonshire
4. Panthers
5. Desi Tigers
6. Warriors
7. Rockers
8. South Barrington
Talking about sixes competition. going back to Nor Cal league, during the innings break for All Star Game they would put a bowling machine on the wicket and guys with big guns (not me) would pay $5 to face 6 balls. Dude with highest # of sixes would win $50. Simple but fun to watch. And nobody's bowling gets hammered.
Talking about bowling machines, is there any batting cages or a similar practice facility in the area?
Sikander
Shank,
You have not seen the worst yet, you should have been in this part of the world last year to really know what bad playing conditions mean :-).
What you saw yesterday IMHO (Aka Sadiq) is a playable condition in this league.
Talking about Big hitters and crunch games as far as i heard and seen Vikram and Satish are two such players in Wildcats, and the game i was talking about is the finals of 2005, WC chased 300+ against Pak, and Vikram and Satish played the game of their life.
They are not big hitters like Imran or Bakshi etc but they are clean hitters when they hit :-).
I noticed that not many have WC this week, so let's see how that prediction goes.. Good luck to all.
Thanks for your faith in us, Big Hitter, .... for the rest of you guys, we are ready to prove you wrong with a big win over Juggers ! We will win by 5 wickets or 40 runs.
NightHowlers Vs Chicago Cricket Club,
NH batted first, scored 210. CCC scored 172 all out.
Yes, our team looks pretty good.
Seems like Preetam & Co did what i expected them to do last week.
Good win, Adnan and co what is happening, bring your swagger back.
Preetam
Congratulations on your first win...... give us the details
Flames beat peoria by 7 wkts chasing 184, fahad hit 100 not out.
Flames ...congrats Fahad..A real accomplishment... by 7 wickets!!!!!
Challengers beat Muslim Gym at WP.
Challs lost the toss by not having the ground ready to go at 10am :-) They were put in - and proceeded to 64/0 in 8 overs, with Darshan and Sheks going great guns. Sheks fell, then Darshan soon after for a terrific 50.. Challengers 114/3 in 20 at break. Complete collapse after break - Nilesh, Afroze, Dax and Bhavesh all fell in 7 overs (2 to Hassan, 2 to Maaz), Challengers 135/7 after 27 overs. But they bat really deep this year - at 7-down they had Charlie and Nirav together, and they proceeded to put on 79 in 11 overs before Nirav fell for 41. Charlie was runout for 40, Challengers got 232 allout in the last over.
MuslimGym lost wickets fairly regularly, but kept hitting sixes in between :-) Moe 2 sixes in 14, Azhar 3 sixes in 29, Masood 2 sixes in 28, Pradeep 2 sixes in 20 (and *huge* sixes they all were too - one just sailed over the fence, the rest all cleared the boundaries by 15 yards and more)... MG were 25/2, 69/5.. 92/5 at break. They slid to 114/7... after 30 overs they were 147/7 (Challengers at this exact point had been 148/7!).. that told the story right there. MG was missing 3 batsmen from last years squad; Challengers have the depth to bat to #11. While Challs got to 232 from 148/7, MG from 147/7 were 154 allout. 3/32 for Nilesh, 2/30 Sanjay, 2/11 Ankur.
Meanwhile Nighthowlers beat CCC as Mitul mentioned - 210 scored in 30 overs there. In the next game, Trailblazers scored 203 in 30 overs.. CSK were 50/5 off 11 overs when I left.
c8w
Cool Said -
one name that comes to mind is nirav amin of challengers and one game that comes to mind was 7-8 years ago, it was in the playoffs, eventhough it wasn't exactly team batting second, but rogers park had challengers 20 for 6.....
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I still remember this game like it was yesterday! The feeling was horrible to be on the losing end that day. In fact, I actually remember walking off the field in tears at the end of that game.
Challengers bat first and were 20/6 thanks to Saqib and Mohammed Ali. Fantastic catching got us those 6 wkts. Horrible catching there after cost us the game. Nirav joined Tushar and the pair played a counter attacking innings. Tushar was dropped 3 times and Nirav was dropped off my first delivery, when he was on 0! In any case, they played fantastic and got a big total on the board - 250 i think.
We didnt give up after that. We put up a good chase as well and in the end i think we fell 15 or so runs short! Challengers went on to win the Championship too that year i think. We've had some nail biters with the Challengers over the years, this was one of the best.
All in all, it was painful! Much like last night was after watching the Aussies shockingly snatching the game away from Pakistan!
On another note, Rogers Park beat Springfield by 37 runs in a good game. Thanks to Springfield for hosting and the pizza! You guys played a tight game. Good luck to you guys for the remainder of the season.
wow... I got all my picks right so far!
DIV1
1. Challengers
2. Eagles
3. Flames
DIV2
1. Rogers Park
DIV30/30
1. NightHowlers
2. Trailblazers
Something has to be wrong with the counter on midwest web.....
its 24000+ at the moment.....
would like to hear the summary of the eagles game...im pretty impressed with eagles establishing themselves as a a good div 1 team... united=relegation?
Rovers vs stlouis update...
Rovers got stl all out for 158.. ravi got a 5 fer...
Rovers are 106 for 2 in 19 overs..I got out for 40..saran is batting on 35..
barring a collapse of monumental proportions ;) rovers should clinch their first ever division 1 win..
Eagles Vs United Summary
So here are the details about the upset yesterday.
Eagles won the toss and put United in to bat.
Faisal and the Dr opened on a cloudy day. At the 20 over mark United were 70+ for 1. This was an achievement in itself for us considering we had the Master Blaster Faisal tied down for most of the time. Lucky for us he seemed to be out of touch. Seshu's big inswinger finally brokew through to his stumps. We knew that the next 20 would be crucial as they had more wickets in hand and less runs. They would go for it. And they did. Scoring about 120 in the next 20. This again was an achievement because we again had Kamran the palm tree hitter bogged down. Adnan hit a few shots and was stumped. United have been very good with their cricket. Honest about it and ruling stumpings when they were there. Nice to play against honest teams.
we thought it was easy to get to 194 but United had a potent bowling attack and soon we were 6 for 3 in 3 overs. Kamran and Vijay doing the damage. Subbu and Karthik stabilised the innings. Karthik playing a stupendous innings for a well made 47. Subbu made 20+ and the rest chipped in. But eagles being eagles we took it to the wire. Last over 5 runs to win. Sahil who earlier made a quick fire 25 was at the crease and i was at the non-strikers end. the first three balls got us four runs. 3 balls 1 run 2 wickets in hand. Sahil is bowled. 2 balls 1 run 1 wicket in hand. Deepak and i discussed if we should make a run for the run. I decided aginst it. Play the 5th as he would normally play. if we didnt get the run then we would make a run for it. Deepak takes strike and blasts the first ball over the bowler. Single. game over.
Very blandly put it. But the tension was utmost. Especially when we were coming so close to beating a team like United.
Very good game. Hopefully United enjoyed playing us as much as we did playing them.
AAA beat Phoenix
AAA won the toss and elected to field first. Phoenix started of strong with the help of Naveen who scored 35 and Srijay who scored 62. Watch out for Srijay, he is a great under 21 player with great batting style. Phoenix were 109 for 3 in 20 over’s. AAA started to spin the ball effectively with the help of Hanif and Ibrahim and slowed the run total. Adi scored a quick 27 and Atriya scored 56. Phoenix scored 219 for 7 in 40 over’s. Phoenix played very sensible and AAA were in for a fight. AAA started strong with a quick 23 from Adam and Farhan playing great cricket scoring 33* with classic shots. Zaher came in at #3 and was bowled scoring 11. Ibrahim came it #4 and scored 19. AAA were 102 for 3 in 20 over’s. AAA started to push for runs and Ikram who came in at #5 saved the day again scoring a masterful 58*. Hanif Munaf, Ashif, and Sadik played well to help AAA achieve there 3rd win. AAA score card will be up shortly.
Good luck to Phoenix for the rest of the season and it will be a good game next week vs. Eagles.
Adnan I also read up on your comment last week towards Ikram. Thanks for the comment but what did you really mean by “I’m watching you brother.” Sorry Ikram is not a free agent or on the trade block.
Wildcats were chasing 183 or so against Bears. So Romeen please let us know what happend.
Wildcats won against Bears today at WP 3.
Bears scored 183 in their 40 overs with contributions from Salman 36 Adeel 40 odd, Shahid, Faisal and Hamad all scoring more than 20 runs.
WC started their chase and lost Romeen early, but Sadiq at the other end was playing well to keep the score moving.
WC was 55 in 10 overs, and 95 in 20 overs.
WC lost a couple of wickets in between, yours truly was sent 1 down but only score 10 and got run out.
Sadiq scored 23, and Javed scored an identical 23.
Nikhil was out for 3 and we had about 70 to score in about 17 overs.
Ajit played a patient innings scoring 67* and Satish at the other end was 23*.
Titans Vs Hammond
----------------------
Titans beat Hammond by 125 runs today. We were asked to bat first and scored 266/9 in 40 overs. Raj and Mughiz scored fifties for us. We were 95/3 in 20 overs, but in the last 20 overs managed 171 mainly due to Mughiz's knock and supporting knocks from the rest. Our captain Raj played a fighting knock scoring 52* with being retired hurt once for dehydration.
Hammond started the chase in great fashion and were at one point 63 for no loss in the 7th over. But then they lost Shehzad clean bowled to Ahsan and then suffered a huge collapse. Tafazzul picked up his first 5 wicket haul, while Ahsan picked up 3 wickets. Hammond were allout for 141 in the 25th over.
Flames beat Peoria by 7 wickets - A brilliant unbeaten effort from talented youth Fahad took the game away from us. He played a mature innings beyond his years and a chance less one too! He played a very mature innings and showed character in chasing a tough target. Flames team just flourished around him and earned a great win! Kudos to young Flames team.
Having said that toss played a crucial role in the game. Forecast said no rain the morning and but 40% chance or rain in the afternoon around 3 PM. Ground conditions were wet from a overnight rain. We won the toss and chose to bat assuming weather will get better through our innings. But it wouldn't be. It started to drizzle lightly through our innings and WORST BALL (Hattrick) didn't help either. Ball got soggy and had to be changed in the middle of the innings and ball wasn't traveling at all. Air was heavy and ball wasn't going any where. But weather exact opposite when second innings started. It was dry and ball was traveling a bit.
Coming to our batting everyone chipped with 20's and it was complete team effort to get to our target which we thought was great on this wet day. But weather and Fahad had other plans. Jason opened with Fahad and they played sensible with out taking any risks. They runs they were getting were in extras. Both Kiran, yousaf, Papi tied them. Run rate was going 3 an over or so. Jason got out trying to accelerate. Jack came in and played subdued knock. But his running between wickets with Fahad was excellent. 18 over mark they were around 47 or so and suddenly 2 loose overs 20 over mark they were 68/2. Fahad is playing excellent and only boundary they got was a bye that carried to boundary. They ran at everything and we missed half chances at run-outs but no luck for PCC on this day.
After the break Sikander joined the party with Fahad and they ran at everything. They played very smartly and ball seems to find gaps no matter what we did and how many field placements we changed. Ball was piercing the gaps. Slow and steadily they pulled the game close. 8 over they needed 44 runs and plenty of wickets in hand. We trying our bowling changes to get the break through but it didn't happen for us on this day. A great on hand low catch at point by Papi gave us a ray of hope by sending back dangerous Sikander. But veteran Kiran came it and just extinguished that spark completely. 5 overs they needed 23 runs. One loose over costed us 11 runs and Flames didn't allow us back in the game at all from that point. We played our best but this day it just Team Flames day. They chased in 38.4They came to party and they got the team WIN they very much deserve. We are back to the drawing board. But nothing to be ashamed of this loss at all. We gave it all in our arsenal and one man brilliance took the game away. Wishing Fahad very best and hope he plays for Team USA soon. He rare talent who matured beyond his years. He didn't, I add again, didn't play one single ball in the air except in the end when he needed a boundary for his century. We thoroughly enjoyed playing Flames and we got some WILDCATS to tame in our Mossville jungle next week! We will be playing them after span of 6 years. That's exciting enough for us!Congrats to all winners..Especially Eagles and Jolly Rovers. Eagles are dark horse this year to make to the playoffs. Great win there for them it will boost their morale and confidence leaps and bounds!
Nice win Alpesh! This year Hammond wicket is a lot different. They have a new AstroTurf. When is the last time a bowler had the privilege of 5 for in Hammond. Taffazul looks in good form.
South Barrington won a close game against Chicago Hawks. SB won toss and batted first. Opener Sid scored 45 and Arun and Aniruddha scored 32 each to reach 177/9 in 30 overs. Chicago Hawks lost wickets at regular intervals and were 71-3 in 15 then needed 51 in last 6 with 4 wkts I hand. Game went down to last over 8 to win with one wicket remaining. Aniruddha bowled very well getting wickets at regular intervals, getting 4 wkts total plus a great low diving catch at mid off to seal the game when they needed 5 off 5.
South barrington have started this season strong with all 3 wins. They play Devonshire next week.
Ibrahim and Ikram played brilliantly to ensure a win for AAA...... AAA is such a friendly team and they have lot of spirit..... everyone chipped in and they got their third victory in as many games....... best wishes for AAA for their continued success
Milwaukee beat Chargers in Milwaukee.
Chargers batted first with Sami and Kamran, Kabir and Wade opening for Milwaukee. Wade has lost weight from the last couple yrs, looked fit and cranked up good pace and bounce.. but, bowlnig from a new end, just couldnt get his footing. He ended up with 9 noballs in 4 overs, all resulting in freehits! (His 2nd spell of 4 overs in the slogs had 0 noballs, so he's apparently fixed the problem :-) Other than one four,though, Wade didnt give up much on the other freehits. Kabir meanwhile got terrific swing at the other end, v good spell. Chargers were 38/2 in 8 overs, but then slowed to 60/3 off 17.. and 68/5 off 20. Chargers once again held Guddu and Rafi back for the hitting (Guddu at #7, Rafi at #8). It sort of worked - Guddu another terrific innings, 47 off 54 with 3 sixes, very good batting. Rafi 35 off 26, 2 sixes. It was 123/6 off 30, 166/7 off 35 when Guddu fell (ie 98 off the previous 15, 5 overs left.. but Guddu lofted and was very well caught by Romesh), 177/8 in 37 when Rafi fell.. then Chargers ended up 180 allout with a couple overs to spare. 2/19 for Asif, 2/28 for Khawar.
Milwaukee once again played it very sensibly in the chase (just like against MG a couple weeks ago, saving wickets and keeping the scoreboard ticking). Despite some v good early bowling from Rafi and Irfan (2 catches dropped of Kabir), Milwaukee (opening with Kabir and Asif) kept going - Kabir fell for 42 only in the 17th over at 76.. Milwaukee were 91/1 at 20, exactly halfway there. It was 92/2 immediately after break, but Romesh came in and batted very solidly; Asif fell at 142/3 for an excellent 50, but by then Romesh was going well, striking it cleanly and running hard in partnership with Shakir. Romesh finally fell for 33, trying to hit a 6 to win it; Shakir then got the remaining runs to end up 37*; Milwaukee won by 6 wickets with 6 overs to spare.
c8w
Milwaukee Rangers got 170-odd against Madison in Madison, according to reports received in Milwaukee.
Milwaukee Rangers are apparently pretty good.. their batting might be ok, but their bowling is going to be good apparently.. they have Usman, Rizwan, Hassan, Hasnain and Zaman, who all played quite often for Milwaukee's Division One team over the last couple seasons, and were very useful backup bowlers to Asif/Kabir/Wade etc. WIll be interesting to see if Madison can chase that down, good early indicator for both teams in Div2.
c8w
Rovers registered their first Div 1 victory with a comfortable 5 wicket win chasing 159 in 30 overs. Congratulations to all the winners this weekend!!
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Rajiv said...
Nice win Alpesh! This year Hammond wicket is a lot different. They have a new AstroTurf. When is the last time a bowler had the privilege of 5 for in Hammond. Taffazul looks in good form.
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The privilage of a 5-for? I spit me of a 5-for! (Ptooie) How about a 6-for? Last year, in Hammond, by a Sanjay (if you want 2 Sanjays, it was actually a 10-for!)
http://midwestcricket.org/asp/Score88.asp?id=3709
Not so long ago at all - only 10 months since Sanjay Barretto's Michelle...(how fast is Hammond's outfield at the moment, is my big question.. surely not as quick as in midseason last year, yet?)
c8w
c8w
Something Interesting - last week quite a few teams won chasing and at 5 RPO...... Eagles, Flames, AAA, Wildcats, Rovers, Milwaukee ..... Nice ....
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SlickDreamer said...
Something Interesting - last week quite a few teams won chasing and at 5 RPO...... Eagles, Flames, AAA, Wildcats, Rovers, Milwaukee ..... Nice ....
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Lots of chase wins, its true.. but only one was an asking-rate of over 5.0 at the start of the game (AAA's 5.4 RRR to start the chase against Phoenix). Eagles chased 190s, Flames/Milwaukee/Wildcats 180s, Rovers 150s.
Back in the day, 180 used to be considered a winning score (especially at WP). Its changed a bit, the ball travels better at WP nowadays, probably. There were 2 scores over 200 at WP#2 on Saturday.. in 30-over games! Last week at WP, we had 297 and 250 scored on neighbouring grounds in the morning session. And its been raining, with grounds still a bit wet sometimes... later in summer, when the outfields start getting browned out, who knows how high it might go!
c8w
I will add to Madhu's (Madew) comments as I was umpiring the game: Fahad did not hit a 4 till he had reached 70s and the second 4 he hit was to get his 100 and win the match. Between those two he "hit" a 4 - which was an all run 4. He ran like a hare first with Jacques and then with Sikander, it was really very smart cricket for anyone let alone an 18 year old!
The boundaries at the PCC ground are like MCG, I would say 85 meters or so, you have to hit it like M Hussey or Pietersen or Pollard to clear it - IMHO of course ;). Madhu got caught on the midwicket boundary off a well timed shot which would have sailed over the fielder's head at Washington Park.
Ok, leaving the c8w/FoD mode ...
Happy Monday to everyone :).
hahaha..nice one Raheel...
Happy Monday...
Hats off to Fahad...we are so very proud of you bud...keep up the good work!!!
Congrats to everybody!!
I have to say I underestimated Team Eagles....they are a good team..
Good win Eagles!!
Its good to see some youngsters performing at such a high level..
Ikram, Fahad..etc...
Fahad has matured beyond his age, and that really shows the way he is playing this year, playing smart cricket.
Last year when i noticed he was keen on dominating from the word go, but now he seems like he is settling down before going for those big runs.
Also since he is young he is running teams ragged and that is a good sign for him.
Good luck and all the best to him, let's hope that he makes it all the way to the top.
From our game yesterday, I would have to bring one aspect of the game which to me normally does not happen in this league- Honesty.
Qaiser played an uppish drive while satish was bowling, and he took a return catch which was low to his left, the ump was obviously blind sighted with the angle, and he asked the Square leg ump who was Faisal(Bears) and he agreed it was a valid catch. I doubt how many other teams/players would do that in our league just a point of thought on a cloudy Monday!!
no bad i got 5 wrong out of my 19 picks and don't know about the madison game
DIV I
1. Challlengers
2. Eagles ****************got wrong
3. Flames
4. AAA *******************got wrong
5. wildcats
6. Rovers ****************got wrong
7. Milwaukee
DIV 2
1. Rogers Park
2. Illinois
3. Titans
4. Madison Vs. Milwaukee Panthers (Madison)
DIV 30/30
1. Nighthowlers
2. Trailblazers
3. Juggernauts
4. Panthers
5. MWCA ******************got wrong
6. Hustler XI ************got wrong
7. Dee Park XI
8. South Barrington
Good win Dinesh. Congratulations!
Alpesh. Good win as well. I am curious about how your keeper did ? Let me know.
We play AAA next. Big game for us. As is every game. AAA is a team we have never won against. Hopefully we can give them a fight.
congratulations to all the teams for another hard fought weekend of cricket.
Need to give a special thanks to Mushir, our umpire. Did an excellent job. Although we thought we had a doubtful decision going against our way during our batting. But things happen. Apart from that he was excellent. Very consistent and very alert. Great job Mushir.
Naren, United i must say has been very very good about calling the outs when they were. Even when the going was not going their way. I think good teams don't like winning through the back door.
Preetam Sir ..
Congratulations to you as well and so to all the other winning teams ...
Our new keeper did a decent job. Not sure about catching as no catches came to him .. But he was following your tips when standing up to the bowler ..
I may need some advice from you though ... A nerve connecting my elbow and fore-arm muscle was paining too much yesterday .. Is that tennis elbow?? I remember you had tennis elbow couple of years back ... Any tips here to treat it??
Alps: Temporary relief can be attained with Advil/ICE pack.
More than temporary relief can be attained using Vicodin, or Cortisone injection.
warning : Vicodin can give you a high if you get used to it :-)
alpesh.. here is an easy way to identify Tennis elbow: try to pick up a glass of water ( or other object of similar weight) from a table.. your palm should be facing downward.. If you have tennis elbow.. you will have significant pain..
guys,
if you have already register your team for the abid lahery night tournament than ignore this message.
today atif and i are declaring final teams for the night tournament so if anyone still interested putting up team in the night tournament please contact
Chirag @ 8472083838
Atif @ 3125199054
ASAP please.
incase if none of us pickup our phone than please leave brief message about the team name and team contact info so we could get back to you
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naren said...
warning : Vicodin can give you a high if you get used to it :-)
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Alps: while I dont wish to contradict Naren, let me say that IMHO Vicodin can give you a high even if youre *not* used to it ;-)
But as with most things in life (sex, drugs, rocknroll, cricket), the high might get less as you get used to it, but the addiction can get stronger ;-)
c8w
I dont think appu will have an issue with that Naren/ finger..
PS: Please dont tell Buchia about vicodin..
I have to say, I thought we had done a good job putting up 219 on the board. I knew AAA were dangerous, but we had enough runs to put pressure on them with the run-rate as well.
After a quick start, we picked up a few wickets and slowed them down. Then came the turning point of the match. Of 2 consecutive balls we dropped Ikram to relatively straightforward catches. They were travelling pretty quick, but straight to short cover and then the bowler and both were put down. After that, that was the only chance we got. It was an amazing display of truly clean hitting. By the time we got Ikram out, the match was pretty much wrapped up. The best part of this batting was there were no ugly hoicks and he played all over the ground.
Good luck to AAA. You guys played a really good game, were tough competitors, adapted to the game situations well, and definitely look like a 3-win team (in 3 games)! Well done, thanks for a good game, and congratulations. :)
Shekhs,
Buchia would rather prefer a Barley/Malt high as it also fills you up and down :-)
I agree that Alps might not mind the high..
Looks like this season more runs are being scored than before. And we've seen some very good batsman live up to their billing - Sohail, Fahad, Guddu, Ikram, Faisal, etc and a few unexpected faces do really well too - Gopi, Srijay, etc.
On a different note, the WP grounds looked really good this Sunday. The grass was cut real short, the boundaries well marked, and the weather really good. Looks like a new season of MwCC cricket! :)
Well Adi that is/was not the case with other WP grounds.
WP-3 the ground we played yesterday was very good, bumpy at most places, but i agree that the grass on your ground WP-2 was cut nicely.
I think Shekhs and team tried to rectify the slopes on WP-3 by filling in with soil, and it might take some time before the ground gets back the grass to hide the soil, and until then guys need to be careful as the uneven ground might hurt your knee.
yeah Naren, WP # 3 is not there yet..
I think it will get better as the summer progresses, as the seeds are already laid. so, its a matter of time before the grass grows on that soil and the ground sets in.
hopefully, in a month it will look better.
C8W/FOD,
Are we going to have any of the Webisodes or the weekly run down of all the games played important contributions etc..
Also Ikram from AAA is on a roll, good bowler, very good batsman and did not notice his fielding, if he is eligible and willing the Group aka FOD and others should take such guys into our CER roster rather than guys who have issue with their availability not only for the CER but for any further selections.
Fahad is another one depending on his visa status, not sure if he is a citizen.
Waiting to see selection which makes sense rather than selection based on unknown facts :-)and unknown reputations.
fahad babar was en route to be a pakistan prospect back when he went to the rashid latif cricket academy. he is the product of pakistans finest coaching institution.. fantastic to see this youngster blossom. what about the other youngsters? why are they not blossoming? we should help them they are the futur of MCC, CER. and even USA cricket. its all in your hands
We are beginning to see more youngsters stealing the limelight this year.... I can name Srijay of Phoenix and Pratik Jain of Nighthowlers.... these players can wallop in a hurry.... a sequence of sixers and boundaries seem to reel of their bats with hardly any effort at all..... I know Quentin and Jacques of Flames are two other exceptional talent.... Parth (15 year old !!), Jeet, Vaibhav are blossoming too.... such a good feeling when you realize how youngsters have taken up to the game earnestly..... Lets consolidate a list of prospective under 21 year olds..... this will help Sadiq select the respective teams (under 15, under 19, under 21etc.,) I guess
For everyones’ info., for the love of cricket, following are the distances that will be travelled by Div 2 teams over the length of the season. For Chicago based teams the distances are from wash park because that is where most of the games are played. This will also show the management which teams got a raw deal in travel games schedule.
Illinois CC ----- 564 miles
Rogers park CC ----- 564 miles
Milwaukee Rangers----- 666 miles
Madison CC------760 miles
Milwaukee Panthers---850 miles
Titans-------871 miles
Jaguars ----- 888 miles
Chicago Giants----- 888 miles
Q.C. Kings ---920 miles
Springfield ---- 934 miles
Hammond ----- 942 miles
Evanston ---- 942 miles
Arena ------- 1090 miles
Everbody drive carefully, avoid traffic tickets and Good Luck Travelling.
Swing King Said:
fahad babar was en route to be a pakistan prospect back when he went to the rashid latif cricket academy. he is the product of pakistans finest coaching institution.. fantastic to see this youngster blossom.
Just to remind you, it's true that Fahd went to Rashid Latif academy but for the people who didnt see him when he first came to play for Flames, even though he was full of talent the first time we saw, he didnt know how to properly tie pads and secure abdominal guard. He was run out first few times, and reason was his guard was reaching somewhere inside his pads and his uneasiness with pads. We had to make him focus on gear and just run with full gear in practice sessions instead of batting to make sure he was getting comfortable with pads and equipment. Now this goes way back, 3-4 years.
So I am not really too convinced to see what Rashid Latif Academy did in his case, if they failed to tell him how to get ready to go play? Forget about technique and skills. Also i am not sure how long Fahd attended that academy as he has been in Chicago for 3-4 years since the age of 13 or 14.
What he is today is all because of his natural talent and hard work. If you look back not so long ago, he was weaker against spinners, getting stump out, LBWs but he has learnt how to murder them now.Some teams used his weakness to play up in air in covers, but this year he has learnt how to keep it down on his own, perfect example Peoria game last weekend.(dont think he has been to Rashid Latif academy in last 3-4 yrs to fix that). Talk about mind set and maturing, last year he was scoring his 50 thinking his job is done and ending up throwing away his wicket, this year he is focussing on winning the game and scoring 100s instead of just settling for a 50. And not to mention that he has been always hungry for advice and improvement and is always listening to what the best batsmen in the league like Kiran, Ajit have to say to him. Also, credit goes to Krishna for his academy as that's where Fahd's coaching in chicago started.
I have nothing against Rashid Latif academy as I have heard a lot of good things about it. BUT I think we need to be fair, as Fahd's natural talent, extreme hard work, his parent's support and prayers over the last 3-4 yrs deserve more credit for his success than few sessions at the Rashid Latif many years ago.
very well said Nasir...he has put in a lot of hardwork during the off season and otherwise, as we can see a significant improvement in his batting.
Kudos to Krishna, Kiran, Ajit and others who have helped him and to fahad to keep his humility and keep improving....
Sky is the limit.!!!
Hopefully, we'll see him in the US team soon...
coolman, great data !! let me try to extend your analysis and find out which team loves the game more.. based on travel distance :)
If we assume that folks drive at 60mph then the data that you have is = time spent traveling to play cricket and the most unlucky team is Arena, who have to travel an avg of 4 hrs per away game. The most fortunate teams are ICC and RP, who travel on an avg 1.5Hrs per away game. So the dif between most fortunate and the team that got the raw deal is 2.5Hrs per away game. If you look at it from a per person driving reference this dif will be even smaller. Nevertheless, using this info we can infer that the team which got the raw deal loves the game ~170% more than the most fortunate team!!
But.. now wait a minute..
On an avg residents of Chatown have a 60mins commute perday.. indicating that they need to travel ~ 60mins to get to WP to each game. The away teams generally live in smaller towns, which have a shorter commute - lets be conservative and say ~30mins. For the whole season a Chicago resident would spend 10hrs traveling when compared to only 5hrs spent by the other teams.. if we look at it from the season perspective i.e. Home+Away then the Chatown teams are actually traveling more and so - love the game more !!
All this means is that.. I have too much time to spare at work.. and that I should use this time wisely now.. so that I can drive that extra mile this weekend :)
hahaha tatabybycu....looks like you would be the new phenom on the blog..
good one..
Nasir said:
If you look back not so long ago, he was weaker against spinners, getting stump out, LBWs but he has learnt how to murder them now.
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Absolutely agree with you. I think Fahad has improved tremendously over the last few years especially against spinners. I remember this being one of his weaknesses a couple years back but now you can tell he's worked on it. Really, credit goes to him and whoever has been coaching him because he's a complete batsmen and improves some aspect of his game every year...much like Kobe :-)
I had to throw in a Lakers reference in there for all the folks who are delusional enough to think LeBron is better than Kobe!
Nasir et al,
Let us not be in a hurry to give, assign or take credit. For cricket is a very punny game :)
Fahad and other Gen Y players,
Free advice: Dont let 50s,100s or for that matter kudos get to you.. they dont count.. only your happiness playing the game matters. BTW, if you are reading this blog.. please stop and go back to studying :)
you said it Asmar...Black Mamba is the man!!!
you know i completely agree with everyone and although I dont know firsthand how much time he puts into his game, whatever he does works. hats off to him. but lets also think about the kids who are trying to learn the basics in this country, as the basics are the most important in this game and atleast that fahad and co got from pakistan. I still think we should definitely do something to help groom the rest of the youngsters.
So what do you think guys who are the early favorites for relegation this year? Bears and United are my picks
United and Muslim Gymkhana
Swing, good thought and I think is important as well !! but here is the reality..
Let us consider this scenario: two equally good 13 year old cricketers, lets say clones of each other, are to be dropped from sky. One lands in Chicago the other lands in Dallas. In a few years the one who landed in Dallas would have likely improved his game more than his clone in Chicago.. why?.. we have this freaking 6 months of winter !! even in summer we are bound by playing on astroturf.. matting.. shoddy fields etc. This is ok for people who want to have fun (and dont mind driving 4 hrs) but def. not get you anywhere close to performing at the first div level (I mean the real 1st Div :) let alone at international level.
To illustrate this we only need to see how India struggled against all teams with the short pitch stuff.. its not that the cricketers were bad.. they would def. pelt us around on our ground.. just that they dont have enough exposure.. thats all.
The easiest think to do, if you are a casual batsman playing for fun, is to find an old sox, an old ball and play rope ball all day :) Dont know why its not popular.. but its really effective and helps, concentrate, fine tune technique and maybe even build muscle memory :)
I think the second easiest thing that can be done to remove this handicap is a state of the art indoor facility (I dont mean just a batting cage..) Now this sort of a facility demands $.. I think running this is beyond MWCC's reach and to get it fully functional, get pro coaches etc. is easily going to take a few years.
In the meantime.. my honest advice to someone young, dreaming big (and their parents :) is to look to move to calif/texas to play cricket all year round, utilize those facilities, groom themselves.
speed sensation=swing king ;)
Hey speed don't worry your secret is safe with me. I just think you owe your team mates a huge apology...;)
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naren said...
Waiting to see selection which makes sense rather than selection based on unknown facts :-)and unknown reputations.
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Well, one man's sense is another man's non-sense :-)
Me, I was one of those who felt last years selections were, in general, actually quite good. I agreed with quite a bit of it, so I didnt see too many unknown facts or unknown reputations there :-)
It was easy enough to criticise it.. but really, look back on it, and tell me 3 guys on that squad who didnt deserve to be there, and which 3 youd have picked instead? Cos I dont think Id be able to..remember, its a 50-over tournament that youre going to be selecting for (or were, when the squad was picked), there is much more of a premium on playing longer innings than on hitting ability in some ways. Batsmen like Sohail etc fit very well into that category (even if Sohail-bhai played only 1 game last year, IIRC).
The big problem, to me, is that we play only one tournament a year.. when thats the case, its always going to be very difficult to say "dont pick the best players, the ones who have actually performed" (which is basically being said, when people say "pick kids" - forget Fahad for the moment, he is the one obvious exception). Because, if there is only one tournament played and you dont pick your best, then its unfair.
Its when you play a few different tournaments that you can start making different cases for each tournament... and think that CER should be more younger guys who are aiming for the next level etc, even it means losing, and so on. Hopefully we can do those kinds of things in the future - plan out a few tournaments (finding room in the schedule for them and so on)..
c8w
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Shiva said...
Lets consolidate a list of prospective under 21 year olds..... this will help Sadiq select the respective teams (under 15, under 19, under 21etc.,) I guess
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There is actually no Under-21 tournament at all, or Under-21 squad. Not anywhere in the US, I dont think.
There are U-15 and U-19 squads... emails were sent out to all teams asking for names of people eligible.. there were not *that* many responses actually :-) The U-15 names have already been forwarded to the Regional guys.. there will likely not be enough U15 players even available to have much of a pool, the side will likely just be "selected" from the names.
The U-19s, there have been few responses so far despite the email request (Ive followed up with individual calls to the college-based teams too). There are thus be very few new guys, who will all be added to the "already known" guys from the Midwest Academy... and on Memorial Day Weekend there is a Selection Camp for Chicago, where all Chicago U19ers (ours and ACC's) will get together for a camp and some of the will be picked. There is actually no U19-CER at all.. because most leagues (Minnesota, MichCA, ICML etc) dont even have 11 U19 players to form a team that can compete in a tournament! Heck, in all of Chicago, we're trying to come up with enough names to get 22.. so we can maybe have a "game" with ACC and MCC U19ers, rather than just a "selection camp" :-) The fact is, there are just not *that* many kids out there.
Me, I think, in the big picture, the crying need for USA cricket as a whole is a national Under-25 tournament. We have a fine heirarchy for U15 and U19.. but most of our kids who come out of those age-groups end up vanishing, historically they have rarely developed further along, very few end up going on to play for the USA at the national level. The fact is, in the current USA national team, pretty much *everyone* is not just an immigrant, but an immigrant who learned most of his cricket abroad and came here already "developed"... the team that played the T20 World Cup qualifiers in January had 0 former USA U19 players on it, IIRC.
What we have a desperate need for, IMHO, is a U25 tournament.. an extra level, where hopefully those who "graduate" out of the U19 level can keep developing, keep growing, keep getting better as cricketers. Of course, USACA has done nothing to make this happen so far.
Our region is usually the last to do anything, at least in the past. Hopefully, next year, our region can take a lead - and become the first region to hold a regional U-25 CER.. at least thats what I hope (inveterate optimist that Iam :-) That may at least be a start of an actual system (otherwise we will just keep hoping for brilliant individual talents like Fahad to emerge.. and that doesnt happen very often!)
c8w
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tatabybycu said...
Let us consider this scenario: two equally good 13 year old cricketers, lets say clones of each other, are to be dropped from sky. One lands in Chicago the other lands in Dallas. In a few years the one who landed in Dallas would have likely improved his game more than his clone in Chicago.. why?.. we have this freaking 6 months of winter !! even in summer we are bound by playing on astroturf.. matting.. shoddy fields etc.
In the meantime.. my honest advice to someone young, dreaming big (and their parents :) is to look to move to calif/texas to play cricket all year round, utilize those facilities, groom themselves.
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And yet our teams from this area (at least our full-strenght ones) are a match for teams from Texas and California (beat em both last year, as we won the Western Conference, for example). And, 2 years ago, the CER U19 team also beat U19 teams from those areas, and went to the national U19 finals before losing to NY, IIRC.
I really dont agree with some of the things above. Bound by playing on astro, matting, shoddy fields? Its just as bad in Texas and California! Everyone in the US pretty much, plays on astroturf and matting. There are only 4 grounds of natural-turf in California IIRC, at Woodley (the rest of California, which is a *lot*, plays basically on matting and turf). To my knowledge there is *no* natural turf wicket anywhere in Texas - all their cricket is on astro and matting too. And there is now a natural-turf wicket in Florida too, the one single international-level ground in all of the USA.
The Midwest Academy, BTW, *is* a year-round academy - Krishna is there pretty much every weekend the entire year! The non-summer months are spent coaching indoors. Yes, we're badly hampered by the weather... but it still seems to work ok in the end (the TX and CA "real" seasons seem to be 5-6 months long too actually; they seem to play mostly like 20 or 25 over cricket in parts, the rest of the time).
One of the leagues in MI is loaded, money-wise.. there are rumours that they are actually thinking of building one natural-turf wicket there BTW (which, if it happens, would be one more than there is in TX!) The weather is apparently not as much of a problem as one might think.. Toronto has similar weather, and they have a couple of natural-turf pitches that work just fine (India/Pakistan played series there a few years ago, the Sahara Cup). What you need is maintainance, a groundsman year-round etc... ie money, basically. In the end, it all comes down to that :-)
c8w
sadiq, just curious. What is your day time job ?
c8w,
I have to say "That is a lucid, intelligent, well-thought out objection" :) and backed by facts.. you have *almost* ripped appart my entire argument. Only *almost* becasue of a couple of things:
1. The talent in our league may actually be better than the tallent in Dallas? again, I dont know.. you can comment better.
2. What if the other clone did not fall in Dallas but fell in Sydney?.. what if the kid had a choice in moving to Bangalore/Lahore/London?
general question: in your opinion where do you think the US-19 stands against - lets say India-U19? I know its unfair to blame coaching/tallent/facility as the sole reasons for the dif. i.e. other things contributing could be things vastness of talent pool, interst level, awareness and weather :).. but just asking to understand how long is that bridge - that has to built. BTW, do we have any colaborations with these facilities in other countries.. may be setup a framework (not scholarsips..) for exchange programs. I am sure you guys must have thought about this.. If not - do you think having such colaborations would benefit kids more than just playing here? is it also feasible from $s perspective?
Also, did not mean to question our facility or coaching calibre in Chicago, I was just commenting on a practical aspect. Just like you point out $ is important - i am saying weather and opportunity is an important factor, that there is nothing wrong for a kid to be selfish and look for greener pastures.. I would do it (if only I had the tallent:)
hahaha Preetam...nice one...
well, his job is cricket...be that day or night..
we're lucky to have him around...
tatabybycu...you pique my curiosity....
---------
tatabybycu said...
1. The talent in our league may actually be better than the tallent in Dallas? again, I dont know.. you can comment better.
--------
(First, to respond to Preetam.. the mail was written about midnight, as you'll notice, not daytime ;-)
Yes, we may well have as good or better talent than the Texas league, IMHO, which is probably one reason we can compete against them. I just looked up a couple of their better leagues.. one has a season 20-weeks long.. but the teams seem to be playing 12 games each. The Houston league also is long, starting basically early March.. but they seem to be taking Ramadan mostly off (and are playing on Sundays only, Saturdays left for a different tournament). They do seem to have more time for other "fun" events than we do.. intercity-cup (Houston vs Dallas) one weekend, a "world cup" another weekend and so on. Thats where we're missing out a fair bit I guess.
I was just trying to say.. yes, calif and TX have advantages over us in terms of weather, but theyre sort of marginal advantages I think, can be overcome-able. (In England you cant play all winter either, but England still competes at the international level.. even won the World Cup this week ;-)
---------
2. What if the other clone did not fall in Dallas but fell in Sydney?.. what if the kid had a choice in moving to Bangalore/Lahore/London?
--------
Well, sheesh, thats a whole different story :-) If he fell in any other actual cricket-playing country, his prospects in cricket would be much much better. No question about that. You have a familiarity with cricket there from a young age. You play gully-cricket growing up every day. You can play "pickup games" every day too.. 22 guys to play a cricket game can be found in your building at 4pm, not just at Hanover Park on a weekend. Whole different story. Cricket is part of the DNA there for most people, unlike here.. makes a huge difference (Far fewer NBA players emerge from China than the US, for not entirely dissimilar reasons, probably).
----------
general question: in your opinion where do you think the US-19 stands against - lets say India-U19? I know its unfair to blame coaching/tallent/facility as the sole reasons for the dif. i.e. other things contributing could be things vastness of talent pool, interst level, awareness and weather :).. but just asking to understand how long is that bridge - that has to built.
---------
Its very very far away - huge difference in standards IMHO. Note, the USA U19 team qualified to play the U-19 World Cup earlier this year - which was a very big achievement. In that U19 WC, we finished 15th out of 16 I think it was. (India was knocked out in the quarters, which was a huge disappointment to most Indians; usually India is a semifinalist and above in U19 WCs).
The talent pool is not even comparable, honestly. Its not even close. In all of Chicago, like I said, we dont quite yet have 22 players for the U19 selections at the moment! (ie good guys between 15 and 19). In India? I follow domestic cricket in Bombay a bit.. you have to perform brilliantly and fight tooth and nail to make it close to the "Bombay U19 probable" list (which is the Sporstar Trophy, where 5 U19 teams are put together and play against each other, to help pick the final Bombay U19 squad; thats the top 50-60 U19 players in Bombay). At the national U19 levels, its not a comparison at all - IMHO most of the U19 teams would beat most of our senior squads.
What we are, is an "associate country" for cricket (slightly lower on the totem pole than Ireland, Canada, Holland). Kind of where USA was in terms of soccer 15-20 years ago. If we can achieve half the success USA soccer has done in 15-20 years, we will have done very well indeed.
c8w
-----------
tatabybycu said...
BTW, do we have any colaborations with these facilities in other countries.. may be setup a framework (not scholarsips..) for exchange programs. I am sure you guys must have thought about this.. If not - do you think having such colaborations would benefit kids more than just playing here? is it also feasible from $s perspective?
Also, did not mean to question our facility or coaching calibre in Chicago, I was just commenting on a practical aspect. Just like you point out $ is important - i am saying weather and opportunity is an important factor, that there is nothing wrong for a kid to be selfish and look for greener pastures.. I would do it (if only I had the tallent:)
------
If youre 15 years old and have the talent.. yes, you could give it a go. But there wouldnt be that much point aiming for Texas or California IMHO - you ought to go to India (or, actually, Australia - where your talent is more likely to be developed, and not as hampered by politics ;-)
In terms of collaborations.. there is no money anywhere, a very poor job has been done in that regard for years on end across the USA. But there is some hope maybe.. USACA is rumoured to be in the pipeline for an injection of ICC funds; there are some ties with the NZ cricket board already (last December, for eg, Dipak Patel, now a qualified coach in NZ, was one of 2-3 coaches to come to the USA to train the "USA probables" over a couple of weekends in Florida, before the probables headed to the T20 World Cup qualifiers. Ashhar Mehdi from our league was one of the probables who received tips from him). The "good" regions of the USA (ie the well-administered ones, ie the West coast) are beginning to have the odd professional coaches coming in and helping out on occasion. (Of course, nothing of that sort has happened yet in our Central-East :-)
BTW, if you have some time on your hands and are really interested in USA youth cricket, where it stands, some good ideas of what need to be done (and isnt being) etc... let me very strongly recommend to you an article written by an old buddy of mine (written after the USA U19 World Cup debacle earlier this year). You can find it at:
http://4thumpire.blogspot.com/2010/02/usa-cricket-where-to-from-here.html
It nails a lot of very very good ideas of what should be done with USA cricket (but, be warned, just like me, my buddy has a tendency to be write too much :-)
c8w
Hmm. This post seems to have vanished.. here it is again (long tho it is)..
---------
tatabybycu said...
1. The talent in our league may actually be better than the tallent in Dallas? again, I dont know.. you can comment better.
--------
(First, to respond to Preetam.. the mail was written about midnight, as you'll notice, not daytime ;-)
Yes, we may well have as good or better talent than the Texas league, IMHO, which is probably one reason we can compete against them. I just looked up a couple of their better leagues.. one has a season 20-weeks long.. but the teams seem to be playing 12 games each. The Houston league also is long, starting basically early March.. but they seem to be taking Ramadan mostly off (and are playing on Sundays only, Saturdays left for a different tournament). They do seem to have more time for other "fun" events than we do.. intercity-cup (Houston vs Dallas) one weekend, a "world cup" another weekend and so on. Thats where we're missing out a fair bit I guess.
I was just trying to say.. yes, calif and TX have advantages over us in terms of weather, but theyre sort of marginal advantages I think, can be overcome-able. (In England you cant play all winter either, but England still competes at the international level.. even won the World Cup this week ;-)
---------
2. What if the other clone did not fall in Dallas but fell in Sydney?.. what if the kid had a choice in moving to Bangalore/Lahore/London?
--------
Well, sheesh, thats a whole different story :-) If he fell in any other actual cricket-playing country, his prospects in cricket would be much much better. No question about that. You have a familiarity with cricket there from a young age. You play gully-cricket growing up every day. You can play "pickup games" every day too.. 22 guys to play a cricket game can be found in your building at 4pm, not just at Hanover Park on a weekend. Whole different story. Cricket is part of the DNA there for most people, unlike here.. makes a huge difference (Far fewer NBA players emerge from China than the US, for not entirely dissimilar reasons, probably).
----------
general question: in your opinion where do you think the US-19 stands against - lets say India-U19? I know its unfair to blame coaching/tallent/facility as the sole reasons for the dif. i.e. other things contributing could be things vastness of talent pool, interst level, awareness and weather :).. but just asking to understand how long is that bridge - that has to built.
---------
Its very very far away - huge difference in standards IMHO. Note, the USA U19 team qualified to play the U-19 World Cup earlier this year - which was a very big achievement. In that U19 WC, we finished 15th out of 16 I think it was. (India was knocked out in the quarters, which was a huge disappointment to most Indians; usually India is a semifinalist and above in U19 WCs).
The talent pool is not even comparable, honestly. Its not even close. In all of Chicago, like I said, we dont quite yet have 22 players for the U19 selections at the moment! (ie good guys between 15 and 19). In India? I follow domestic cricket in Bombay a bit.. you have to perform brilliantly and fight tooth and nail to make it close to the "Bombay U19 probable" list (which is the Sporstar Trophy, where 5 U19 teams are put together and play against each other, to help pick the final Bombay U19 squad; thats the top 50-60 U19 players in Bombay). At the national U19 levels, its not a comparison at all - IMHO most of the U19 teams would beat most of our senior squads.
What we are, is an "associate country" for cricket (slightly lower on the totem pole than Ireland, Canada, Holland). Kind of where USA was in terms of soccer 15-20 years ago. If we can achieve half the success USA soccer has done in 15-20 years, we will have done very well indeed.
c8w
Hey speedSensation aka swingking, got any predictions for this weekend?
Based on the first few weeks, Seems like this year going to be Batsmen's year.
Since this year we got
>>>> "THE WORSE BALLS EVER" <<<<<
In this situation, there is nothing much for bowlers.
I am still not sure why they cancelled or didnt get the Grays Ball Order and got these cheap quality balls.
On the cost of quality of cricket someone really must have made some good money.
------
point_blank_2009 said...
Based on the first few weeks, Seems like this year going to be Batsmen's year.
Since this year we got
>>>> "THE WORSE BALLS EVER" <<<<<
In this situation, there is nothing much for bowlers.
I am still not sure why they cancelled or didnt get the Grays Ball Order and got these cheap quality balls
------
The "worst balls ever" quote is, IMHO, taken quite a bit out of context :-) I think it was Madhu who said it.. but he said it about the Hat-trick ball (which nobody should be using in the league anymore..it was, remember, an emergency ball for the first week, in case the Volcanic Ash didnt allow the real balls to be delivered.. the real balls *were* delivered, those are the Grade-A balls, and everyone in the league now has them and IMHO should be using them).
As for the Grade-A's... there havent been any complaints about them, have there? Most comments about them have actually been quite positive. I know theyve lasted very well in the 4 or 5 games Ive umpired in which Grade-A's were used. And there was plenty of swing on offer early in the innings for the Grade-A's.. most games Ive umpired at least, the pacers have swung it early on very nicely. (Rup had 6 guys clean-bowled in 7 overs vs Evanston using Grade-A's a couple weeks ago, all thru swing, basically).
We probably have a few more weeks of Grade-A's.. after which people can decide if they are as good as Grey's or not.. and then I presume those that are preferred can be ordered next year. As of the moment, at least some teams Ive talked to seem to think Grade-A's are as good... I dont know if there is a difference in cost either way.
(As for high scores.. I dont like high scores much either :-) But they havent really been *that* high IMHO.. the scores this week in Div1 were 219, 224/7, 183, 184/5, 158, 159/5, 180, 181/4, 232, 154, 193, 194/9, 183, 185/3. Not crazily high in some ways. Only one game with 2 scores over 200... and that was at the very-well-cut Ground #2 at WP, which saw high 30/30 scores the previous day on the same ground too. Plus one factor all season is going to be the change in character of the Milwaukee ground - where 150 was often a winning score on rolled earth under matting, its now a small ground with astroturf over concrete, where IMHO we're going to see big scores all year long).
c8w
Wow...IMHO IIRC :) this blog was very exciting... and then the big partnership between C8W and tatabybycu (who is just too fascinated about having clones dropped from the sky) just killed it... wow i usually cannot sleep early but after reading the last 9 posts which seemed to be equal to or as scary as the 15000 page Lalit Modi reply I'm even falling asleep at work....
Anyways looks like there are some exciting matchups this weekend.. Will Muslim , United and Bears be able to win a game finally?
Whats up with Illinois this year.. RUP is on fire....or has it been easy match-ups so far?
MURGHA...FAKE... Where are you!!!!Make this blog exciting
Butcher.. thanks for breaking the partnership.
I tried to take on c8w but, in my heart I knew that it was only a question of time before c8w beats me. You can clearly see he won -even stamped his victory by positing the same post twice :)
My predictions for the weekend : Muslim, AAA, Chargers, Wildcats, Milwaukee, Pak, United, Challengers, Madison, Arena, Illionis, Hammond, QC get +4
Hey Finger.....still waiting on the picks for the upcoming games. Its thursday already!!!!!
Prediction for week 4:
1 Muslim Gymkhana-Phoenix:Phoenix
2 AAA-Eagles:AAA
3 CCI-Chargers:Chargers
4 Peoria-Wildcats:Peoria
5 Bears-Milwaukee:Milwaukee
6 St. Louis-Pak Gymkhana:Pak
7 Rovers-United:United
8 Purdue-Challengers:Challegers
9 Madison-Springfield:Madison
10 Arena PRI-Jaguars:Jaguars
11 Rogers Park-Evanston:Rogers Park
12 Titans-Illinois:Illinios
13 Hammond-Milwaukee Panthers:Hammond
14 Q.C. Kings-Chicago Giants:Q.C.Kings
15 Advancers-Fenders:Fenders
16 Panthers-Rockers:Panthers
17 Cougars-Hustler XI:Hustler XI
18 ChicagoHawks-CSK:Chicagohawks
19 DeePark XI-Trail Blazers:Dee Park XI
20 South Barrington-Devonshire:South Barrington
21 Juggernauts-CCC:Juggernauts
22 Warriors-MWCA:MWCA
wow..that was a quiet friday...not even a single comment?
Where's everybody...?
calm before the storm ;)
Good luck to all the teams. We (NH) are not playing this week :(
you are right Mitul....hahaha
Good Luck to all the teams!!!
Update from wp Muslim gym has scored 254, masood hit a 100 with a lot of straight 6s. Good comeback after they were 66/4 in 20 overs.
Update from Peoria Vs Wildcats: PCC are 228/8 in 40 overs. Wildcats are just getting ready to chase the stiff target. It will be a great game!
Madew
AAA beat Eagles
Eagles batted first 169 for 10 in 39.2 overs
AAA chased it down for 172 in 31.2 overs
Adam 68* Farhan 32 Ikram 29 Not out
Phonenix 60 for 6 in 20 overs
Peoria defeated Wildcats by 142 runs.
Yousaf - Peoria
Arena beats Jaguars
Arena 262/6 in 30 overs.
Jaguars all out for 161
In the meanwhile, Ashar Mehdi has played nice cameos in both the matches against Jamaica so far. Check on cricinfo ...
CCI knocked off Chargers in Urbana today, to register a win in their first-ever Divsion One game.
Chargers were put in, in conditions very alien to them - a pitch (limestone base) still a bit soft from the rain, and thus very slow and sometimes uneven under the matting. They lost opener Sami clean bowled 2nd ball. They recovered to 66/3 at break (Lax claiming 2), but slid again post-break to veteran Dr Khan's spin, down to 109/7. Eventually to 139 allout, with Lax running thru the tail and ending with a well-deserved 5/21 for a very good spell with the ball. Only Javed with 46 got much for the Chargers, and Hilal with 28.
CCI started their chase badly, with opener Manu lbw 2nd ball. When the other opener Chris fell lbw as well, it was 23/2 and CCI was in trouble. But Jagdish and Hari batted very sensibly, with Jag hitting a couple big sixes before break, and CCI were comfortably placed at 64/2 in 20. They progressed to 75/2, before it changed a bit - Hari cramped up and went off, and Jags fell immediately after for a v good 40, leaving 2 new bats at the crease. CCI consolidated, getting to 91/3 after 30 (49 in 10 with 7 wickets in hand). It was 120/4 in 35 overs (19 in 5) when Guddu got skipper Praveen, and the returning Hari immediately - 2 wickets in the over. There was then a huge caught behind appeal off Lax, which was turned down by the umpire :-) It was 123/6 at the end of the over, 17 off 4, and the game again alive..but then 2 catches were dropped in the next over. Dr Khan then hit a couple of big blows, and Lax hit a huge six over cover off Rafi, and that pretty much was that. CCI won by 4 wickets with 7 balls to spare.
Good start in Div1 by CCI. They were enthusiastic in the field, played a solid heady game sticking to the basics and to their gameplan, competed hard, and used their knowledge of the conditions to the fullest, to come up with an opening result that will have surprised many in our league (I must say, it surprised me a bit :-)
c8w
Wildcats was walloped yesterday by Peoria was a very good host that was on only consolation we got from yesterday's game.
Congrats yousuf and team Peoria and all the best for the rest of the season.
Muslim Gymkhana gave us the run around yesterday.... Masood Raoof scored an amazing hundred with 11 sixers.... We were beaten square
Bears defeated Milwaukee today... Salman Nafasat played a heroic innings to take them home
Challengers beat Purdue in a closely contested contested game.
Will compile a report tomorrow, but in brief - Challengers posted 227 in 40 overs with Mahesh 61, Darshan 27, Bhavesh 31, Nilesh, Afroze and Vishal chipping in some valuable runs.
Purdue came close, but Vishal, Nilesh and rest of Challengers made sure they got 4-0.
Thanks
Shekhs
Check out the dreamcricket report about Ashhar Mehdi playing for US.
http://www.dreamcricket.com/dreamcricket/news.hspl?nid=14340&ntid=4
Titans Vs Illinois
---------------------
It was a nail-biting game with Titans managed to beat Illinois in the penultimate over by 2 wickets.
Illinois were asked to bat on the hottest day of the 2010 so far. Illinois were allout for 142 in 27.3 overs with cameos of 43 by Ron and 22 by Rup. Raghu for us was the pick of bowlers getting 3 wickets including Jack lbw for duck. Mughiz and our spinners - Mukunthan and Schon picked up 2 wickets each.
Titans chase started disastrously with Tafazzul bowled by Rup. Then Rup and Jack managed to keep our run-rate in check. We were 66/3 in 20 overs with Naveen playing an anchor with Faraz. Post break, we lost Naveen and Mughiz quickly, but then Salman joined Faraz-who was fighting out in the middle to regain his last year form. The equation came down to 31 runs in 6 overs when Rup came in bowl his final over. Rup clean bowled Salman and Schon and just gave 1 run in that over. Our captain Raj too perished soon. The equation was then 3 overs 21 runs 2 wickets. Faraz hit a boundary and ran hard with Mukunthan to bring down the equation to 11 runs in 2 overs. Faraz then hit a six over deep fine leg of the first ball of Jack's last over to release the pressure. Faraz and Mukunthan ensured that we score the remaining runs and gave us a hard fought victory. Faraz remained unbeaten on 49 in 68 balls with 2 sixes and 1 four. (I made a mistake while entering the score :-))
Though our batting collapsed, Faraz's return to form was the brightest thing to happen for us.
Also not to forget was Rup's consistency and control even at his age - just about 13 runs in 8 overs for 3 wickets.
Asmar
Congratulations on your hat-trick .... such a rare achievement in our league..... and your team's 4th successive victory
Shekhs, we should embed that video interview of Ashhar at the end of the article on MCC main page. It's confirmation of the talent we have in this league and I'm sure its only a matter of time before Fahad is a U.S. opener.
In other news a 10 man Pak Gym lost a close game against St. Louis. The ground was water logged so the match was delayed and reduced to 35 overs a side. St. Louis batted first and posted 161, with bulk of the scoring being done by their openers Rasesh (44) and Sohail bhai (36) - who had to retire hurt due to dehydration and came back in the last few overs. Maqsood bhai took 4 wickets
Pak started well with Bakhshi hitting a few boundaries early on, but then started losing wickets at regular intervals and were reduced to 55/5 in 12. Shahid got a harsh lbw decision (IMO) when he was looking in excellent form and had just hit 4 boundaries. As in last match vs Phoenix, Najami once again played a very mature and patient inns (50*) when everyone else was falling around him, he got good support from Mazhar Rana. A few run outs towards the end and good tight bowling by St. Louis ensured that they won by 19 runs. Nishant bowled well for his 4 wickets.
We go back to the drawing board and need to work on getting a fit XI on the park!
Thanks Shiva! Used the tips you gave me :-)
Looks like a good weekend with many games fought hard. AAA and Challengers are on a roll.. great start guys 4/4 so far ( ~ half way there in booking a playoff berth in Div 1).. Chargers have hit a rough patch.. Bears have found the winning formula.. but will face red hot Peoria and Flames next up. kudos to RP for not breaking up but working as a team in to get back to Div 1 in 2011 (also 4/4 so far)
Touchwood.. so far the rain gods have been kind to all little John-ies :)
why was ashar mehdi benched in the 2nd 20/20 against jamaica when he had been so good in the only ODI and the 1st 20/20? looks like there is politics even at the top level!
here are the scorecards frm cricinfo page:
http://www.cricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/458436.html
http://www.cricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/458437.html
On Behalf of the Chicago Giants and myself, i would like to thank Q.C. Kings for being amazing hosts. We all really appreciate it and hopefully can return the favor.
On a side note, I think Ali Shaw is a very good umpire.
you can get the code from this link http://vimeo.com/11953018
to embed on mwcc website regarding asher mehdi interview.
That sucks...that they benched Ashhar for the second game. he's the only one who played like it was a 20-20 game.
Thats right Shekhs, they benched him cause he was doing something different from the team...He was not playing like the others were..it seems they thought he was too aggressive for the team :)
Shekhs said...
That sucks...that they benched Ashhar for the second game. he's the only one who played like it was a 20-20 game.
str8bat,
According to the dream cricket report, Ashhar was hitting the ball clean and played some great shots.
Unfortunately it's the USACA's president + Masood Chik politics that has made USA Cricket Team a joke.
How long will they be selecting players based on favoritism and taking money under the table?
Hopefully we can gather some momentum of change from our league and in next few years take it all the way up to USACA!!
ice_cold said...
Unfortunately it's the USACA's president + Masood Chik politics that has made USA Cricket Team a joke.
How long will they be selecting players based on favoritism and taking money under the table?
Hopefully we can gather some momentum of change from our league and in next few years take it all the way up to USACA!!
==================================
Ice_cold I like your idea.. But would that mean that If our momentum changes and we take it all the way to USACA...League exclusivety will become a nationwide issue.. Thats the only thing working good in MCC this year..
-------
Moaz said...
why was ashar mehdi benched in the 2nd 20/20 against jamaica when he had been so good in the only ODI and the 1st 20/20? looks like there is politics even at the top level!
ice_cold said...
Unfortunately it's the USACA's president + Masood Chik politics that has made USA Cricket Team a joke.
How long will they be selecting players based on favoritism and taking money under the table?
------
Maaz..there is much more politics at the top-level than there is here, even :-)
It *is* changing, however. I dont think the current USA team is picked on favoritism etc very much.. most of the players deserved to be there, really. Ever since the new CEO (Don Lockerbie) has come in, things have been pretty decently organized etc.. last year there was a weekend camp of 40 probables along with the nationals, then the probables were cut down to 23, then another weekend camp was held before the probables were finally cut down to the 14-man final squad (with 4 reserves). These were good hard camps.. the 40-man was a 3-day camp in Florida, where there were physical training sessions (where players were measured for their physical fitness etc), and there were also 5 games played over those 3 days (40 overs, 20 overs, even a night-game), where all 40 players competed against each other on the field before the selections finally took place. (It was after this camp that Ashhar was named in the 18-man list for the T20 World Cup BTW.. he was among the 4 "reserves" to the 14-man squad, with Carl Wright, first-class player for Jamaica, the main WK in the squad). This is all very different for USA cricket (in the past, there were basically no camps, and 2 years ago IIRC even the "nationals" ended up not being held!)
As for this weekend.. Ashhar was brilliant, IMHO one of USA's top perfomers in both games. But who knows why he wasnt in the final game XI? These games against Jamaica were seen by the USA as a way to prepare for the Berumda tour basically.. and everyone in the 14-man-squad got a game with the rotation policy, for one. (Thus young Mohd Ghous was the best bowler on Game1, 10-1-42-2, but was left out for Game2, for example). Young Steven Taylor (17 years old!) opened the batting for USA in the 3rd game... and was part of a 49-run opening partnership in 8.3 overs (chasing 142 to win in 20 overs), as Carl Wright took over keeping duties for the game. There was quite a bit of rotation.
Finally, the impression I had gotten from Ashhar a week or so ago was that he was heading to Florida for 2 days - Friday and Saturday.. I dont know if that schedule changed? (USACA ended up finally playing on Friday, Saturday *and* Sunday, the final 2020 being on Sunday)..not sure, we'll have to check with Ashhar on that :-)
Mostly, though, the big thing is in Bermuda starting next weekend - the Americas Cup, where the USA is defending champs (having won it on home soil a year ago). Hopefully Ashhar will play all *those* games!
c8w
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hey shekhs a couple of quick questions for you. maybe this will get the blog going again.
1. When is the AL tourney going to start and what teams are registered?
2. When are we doing the blogger's game? Are we going to have like a best out of three like we thought about at last years game?
yo Masta.........
Howya been bud?
Yeah, we need to lighten this thing up...been awfully quiet..
1. AL tourney starts on June 7th with the Mayor throwing the first pitch. Everybody is invited. There's gonna be food and beverages.
19 teams. Check with Atif on the teams.
2. Blogger's game will definitely be there. When? probably in July. We can have best of 3. We have $100.00 leftover from last time.
ive been good. i texted u the situation earlier. frustrated thats all. Atif i know you check the blog as well so can you please put the teams that are registered up?
Shekhs, lets try to do it sooner then july if possible. if we have the first game in july that means that the third game could possibly be in ramadan and that means a couple of the regulars will not show up due to ramadan.
We can do that Masta....
We'l figure out some off nights in june for ALNT and try to play the bloggers' game...
Well I heard news that Fahad and Moin are off to England to play cricket there this summer .. Is this true ??
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Alpesh said...
Well I heard news that Fahad and Moin are off to England to play cricket there this summer .. Is this true ??
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Wow! I hadnt heard this - would be great news if it was true (tho not neccesarily so great for MCC teams or Flames I guess :-) At least a day or so ago the further we were talking of Fahad/Moin going was possibly to Detroit this weekend for a tournament... but I hadnt heard anything about England :-)
BTW, I did hear yesterday that Abhijit Joshi has definitely gone to England - for both cricket and education apparently. He is already there, from a few days ago. I heard that he was going to be with Gloucester, one of their 2nd or 3rd XIs to start IIRC (tho, geographically, that didnt make much sense to me.. I'll try and track down exactly who he's with).
This is in general a good move - and something thats been done the past few years by good players. One of the California young guys (Abhishek Pawar IIRC) had done this 3-4 years ago anyway. A year ago Akeem Dodson did it - USA's best wk prospect, was in USA U19 team 2 years ago and is a USA probable now, from NY.. Akeem spent last summer in England too I hear. Iam presuming Abhi will probably spend the next 3-4 yrs in England, studying and playing. It should help their cricket enormously.
c8w
I think that Mohin and Fahad lie alot and make up stupid stories and they are not gonna go to England.
be realistic! cricket doesn't have that bright future in next 10yrs in US. may be our Adnan can make some difference, if CER let him do some thing:)Abhi is smart he went for education and kept cricket as 2nd hobby.
C8W - you're not practical at all. you are too theoretical, nothing personal - be practical. what cricket is going to give you if you're US player or probable? is US team is getting paid? how many have signed contracts? so, don't be optimistic about US cricket, be realistic. i would have agreed with you if i see good leadership in ranks (Danty, Nabeel, Masood, Charlie, etc. ?????). what happened to kids who got trained in UK? Are they in US team? If they are that good, they should be because they are future – how many home grown kids in US team?
on different subject, who you’ve in selection committee? i hope you’re not the only one, that scares me. i heard Ajith is there, that will help. atleast we will have a person who have played cricket and understand cricket. you’re good at writing long meaning less articles, that doesn’t meant you know cricket. please share selection panel with us. i hope your team will pick a decent cer team.
Shuaib,
No disrespect towards Ikram or anybody, but there is no voting system to select the players for CER. Teams have been asked to provide their best players available. Then the Selection team headed by Sadiq Yusuf will select the CER team.
I saw that you were asking teams to vote for Ikram, hence clarifying this.
You are right Alpesh. I completely misunderstood. Thanks for the heads up but. Sadik I emailed the selection@midwestcricket.org earlier so if you receive any other emails from AAA players please disregard. We love to have the Midwest Cricket Conference select Ikram Isa. He is a great person and phenomenal athlete from his batting, fielding, and bowling. His bowling has been shaky this year but he is improving and looking like the bowler who entered the league a few years ago.
Best
Shuaib Menk
this blog is dead someone start a new topic
How about discussing our Midwest cricket team's performance at the U-19 tournament in Michigan over the weekend?
Srijay Kumar of Phoenix played superbly at Michigan and earned an unanimous MVP award..... he agreed to let go of the award upon request which was later given to the second ranked player..... We are so proud of Srijay's achievement and wish him the best in all of his cricketing endeavors
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Blogger said...
C8W - you're not practical at all. you are too theoretical, nothing personal - be practical.
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No problem, this has long been a weakness.. comes with general nerdiness as a package deal :-) But IMHO there is hope for change in US cricket in the future (even if its only hope).. there is talk of lots of money coming into USA cricket from next year or so from ICC.. lets see. We should prepare and be ready for it, if it happens - then USA players might get paid, leagues might get some help/coaching, etc.
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blogger said:
on different subject, who you’ve in selection committee? i hope you’re not the only one, that scares me.
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Sheesh. If it was only me in the Selection Committee, I think it would scare me more than it scares you :-) The very idea would scare the bejeesus out of me, I think.
While Iam here, let me please urge anyone reading.. please get your captains to send an email to selection@midwestcricket.org telling us of the availability of your best players for July 4th weekend in Detroit for CER. Note, you dont have to recommend who we pick :-).. just tell us who from your team is *available* to play, if selected, over July 4th weekend (and hopefully Sept 17th weekend too).
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blogger said:
i heard Ajith is there, that will help. atleast we will have a person who have played cricket and understand cricket. you’re good at writing long meaning less articles, that doesn’t meant you know cricket. please share selection panel with us. i hope your team will pick a decent cer team.
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We have a Selection Committee in place, Five Guys (as good as the burger joint by the same name, hopefully :-) When you send emails to "selection@midwestcricket.org", it goes to all 5 guys.
The Selection Committee is as follows: Ajit, Mehul, Madhew, Doc Naveed and me. Everyone of the above will have an equal say in the selections - if there is an issue on any one candidate's selection, there will be a straight vote, with majority ruling. (Thats why we made sure it was 5 members, not 4 - so there are no ties, no possibility of Chairman vote breaking tie etc).
I think we will do the best job we can, as fairly as we can...I think all the guys on the committee are those kinds of guys, fair people who arent biased towards their own teammates, who see cricketers on merit in general rather than thru a team-prism. And Iam also sure that, in the end, nobody will be happy with the final team (just like last year :-) But thats not the goal, the goal is to just do as good and honest job as we can, and leave it at that.
Anyway. Once again - please urge your captains to send availability of your players for July 4th weekend in Detroit to selection@midwestcricket.org (and please urge your best players to make themselves available!)
c8w
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