Japan: Expatriate cricket 2000 review

Cricket in Japan has a strong expatriate base. Biju Paul provides this account.

Kanto Cup
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What an anti-climax to this wonderful tournament! The most important match of this year-long tournament turned out to be a non-event as one of the finalists and last year's champion, Friend XI, refused to turn up for the match on the scheduled day, Sunday, Nov. 26. On a bright and sunny day - a beautiful day for cricket, the Edogawa Falcons, the other finalist, waited on the ground for the their opponent for about an hour before they decided to have practice match among themselves.

In fact, the problem has been brewing for about a month, much before the semi-final stage as the Friends had indicated their inability to play any match after Nov. 16 until Dec. 3 as their players would be travelling during this period and hence requested a postponement. However, KCOC (the Kanto Cup Organising Committee), having burnt its fingers once two years ago, refused to entertain their plea on the grounds that the rules permitted a match to be postponed only due to bad weather and nothing else. Acceding to this request would certainly have led to similar such requests in the following years.

The championship has, thus, gone to Edogawa Falcons by default, who were not very impressive during the league matches during which they won only one match. They were a touch lucky this season and incidentally, this was the second walkover awarded to them. The quarter-final against YC&AC didn't take place as YC&AC couldn't produce a team on the scheduled day and the Falcons won by default. But in the semi-final, they surprised their rival, Lalazar Sports, another strong contender for the Cup and last year's finalist with a 3 run victory in a cliffhanger.

Semi-final results:
Semi-final 1
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Tokyo Giants C.C.: 75 (Aamir Ali, 3/18; Azad Ali, 3/18) Friends XI C.C.: 76/4 (Munir Ahmad, 37*) Match report by the winning captain Amir Ali is available at: http://www.fortunecity.co.uk/olympia/tennis/146/NOVEMBER16th19thRESULTS.html

Semi-final 2
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Edogawa Falcons C.C.: 98 (Aqeel Ur Rehman 3/14) Lalazar Sports C.C. : 95 (Ashok Kumar 3/18; Shafiq Virani 3/9) Match report by the winning captain Nissar Sheikh is available at: http://www.fortunecity.co.uk/olympia/tennis/146/NOVEMBER12thRESULTS.html

The annual All Star match, a match between two teams with players picked up from every team in each group was conducted on Dec. 3. This used to be followed by a prize distribution-cum-dinner ceremony where the trophies were distributed but since the peculiar way in which the championship has ended this year, no trophies related to the Kanto Cup were awarded to anybody. The only trophies that were distributed were the Best Batsman, Best Bowler and MVP of the All Star match. And of course, there was dinner!

With this, the Tokyo cricket season has ended.

Kanto Cup - An Overview
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The Japanese cricket season ends in November with the onset of winter. Although Kanto Cup is not the only tournament played in Japan, it is the only one that everyone looks forward to every year, in Tokyo and the surrounding Chiba, Kanagawa and Tokai regions.

Although this is an expat oriented tournament there are always honest attempts to make as many Japanese teams participate as possible. However, their skill and firepower still do not match that of the expats who come from cricket playing nations and who have played different level of cricket back home.

As a result of the Japanese clubs losing pathetically to the expat teams in the previous years, this year they decided to participate as one single team, i.e, leading players from different clubs formed a team called "Japan Selection" for the purpose of Kanto Cup. This is by and large their national team. This strategy produced immediate results. In a shocker, they defeated the Indian Engineers and they repeated the same over the Shizuoka Kytes. Whether they can keep this going or not, only time will tell.

Ground is another problem. There is only one ground in Tokyo where most of these clubs are based.

Scoring has remained the bane of this tournament over the years, where inconsistent and inaccurate scorecards have been the rule, not the exception. More often than not, the scores in the scorebook do not tally. However, since the margin of victory has always been large, they have not posed any serious problem so far, although it remains a cause of worry. To bring this error level to the minimum possible, the Kanto Cup Organising Committee(KCOC) has introduced a "Point and Penalty" system beginning this season, but it failed to keep things at bay. A full text of this innovative system is available at http://www3.ewebcity.com/iecc/kantocup.htm.

The errors are not intentional at all, it is usually a case of a number of different people taking on the duty of scoring during the game, which inevitably results in confusion. In the type of cricket we play in Japan, it is not always possible (and is usually impossible) to bring along a separate person to score. Usually it is the batting team who take responsibility for scoring, and the scorebook is passed between a number of different people as wickets fall, and the person who has been scoring is required to bat. Again, it is not always possible to guarantee that whoever is updating the scorebook at a particular time fully understands what they are doing.

However, as one cricketer rightly pointed out, it is surely not beyond the realms of possibility that cricketers should be able to count!

Pacific Cup
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The Indian Engineers won the three match series Pacific Cup between them and the Shizuoka Kytes 2-1. The Kytes had won the first match that was played in May this year. But the Engineers squared the series in a thrilling match in which the Kytes threatened to take the match and the Cup until the last five overs and then convincingly outplayed the Kytes by 116 runs in the final. Brief scores(35 overs):

IECC 208 all out in 33.4 overs(Sriram Sampath 73) Kytes 92 all out in 21.1 overs(Biju Paul 4/16, Shankar Subramanyam 4/9)

Match report is available at www3.ewebcity.com/iecc/. Follow the link "Reports". Pictures of this match can be viewed by following the link "In Action" on the revolving links.

Saga tours Tokyo successfully
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The Saga C.C has won both their tour matches. The club from Kyushu, the southern island of Japan, toured Tokyo on 2nd and 3rd of September. On Saturday, 2nd, they defeated Indian Engineers and on the following day they repeated the feat over the Far East C.C., the Tokyo Japanese League Champions. Brief scores:
Saga C.C.: 179/6, Indian Engineers C.C.: 72
Saga C.C.: 104, Far East C.C.: 98 (Saga C.C. won by 6 runs )
Tour report is available at:
http://www.fortunecity.co.uk/olympia/tennis/146/SEPTEMBER2nd-3rdRESULTS.html

YC & AC lifts the Air Lanka Cup
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In an almost one-sided match, YC & AC defeated the Sri Lankan Lions by 131 runs to lift the Air Lanka Cup on Sept. 3. Brief scores:
Yokohama C. & A. C.: 242
Sri Lankan Lions C.C.: 113
Yokohama C. & A. C. won by 131 runs
Match report is available at:
http://www.fortunecity.co.uk/olympia/tennis/146/SEPTEMBER2nd-3rdRESULTS.html

ACC Trophy
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Although there were signs of remarkable improvement in their games, Japan's opponents had a cakewalk in the ACC Trophy held in UAE, recently. Brief scores:

Nov. 16
Japan : 59 all out in 26 overs (Extras 19)
Maldives: 60 for 2 in 11.3 overs (Extras 11)
Nov. 17
Japan: 133 all out in 49.5 overs (Extras 23)
Nepal: 137 for 3 wickets in 20.4 overs (Extras 20)
Nov. 19
Japan: 95 all out in 38.1 overs (Extras 24)
UAE : 98/4 in 21 overs (Extras 18)