Beyond the Test World
Scotland's Twenty20 preparations underway
Scotland’s preparations for the Twenty20 World Championships get underway with two matches in the coming week.
Martin Williamson
25-Feb-2013
Scotland’s preparations for the Twenty20 World Championships get underway with two matches in the coming week.
On Wednesday (July 18), they meet a Cricket Contacts XI at Falkland CC. The Contacts XI consists of Australians currently playing as professionals or amateurs in the Scottish leagues. The match is a charity one, in aid of the Cystic Fibrosis Trust and starts at 4pm at Scroggie Park ground in Falkland.
On Friday (July 20) they play the Grange in a match to help celebrate the clubs 175th anniversary. The match starts at 5pm and entrance is free.
Full postCanada cricket under fire
Canada cricket comes under fire in the Toronto Star
ESPNcricinfo staff
25-Feb-2013
Canada cricket comes under fire in the Toronto Star. Faraz Sawat considers the way forward for the board, which is at a crossroads, and turns his attentions to the CEO, Ben Sennik.
Sennik aims high – maybe too high. The CCA president has invited scepticism by among other things, his oft-repeated objective of Canada acquiring Test status in 10 years. Leaving aside matters of inadequate infrastructure, this is quite rich coming from a governing body that is dirt poor and struggles to pay its players or secure sponsorship.
Ghai on the comeback trail
Last week, in a twist that few predicted, Sharad Ghai, the former chairman of the Kenyan Cricket Association who left office in 2005, started on the comeback trail
Martin Williamson
25-Feb-2013
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The meeting followed an acrimonious Annual General Meeting of the NPCA held on June 20 at which it transpired that the NPCA executive had, in breach of its existing constitution, failed to convene any general meetings involving its member clubs for over two years. Both the NPCA acting chairman's report and the treasurer's report were rejected by the members. Following this meeting, 10 of the 14 member clubs of the NPCA who attended signed a petition of no confidence in the NPCA executive. The three delegates representing Nairobi Gymkhana subscribed to the petition.
The Nairobi Gymkhana chairman, Bharat Shah, disapproved of his own club delegates' stance and promptly replaced them, drafting himself, Ravindra Patel (the club secretary) and Ghai to represent the club in their place at the July 7 meeting.
Cricinfo had heard that Ghai had been in contact with several clubs, but given what happened when he was involved in the old Kenyan Cricket Association, few believed the rumours were anything more than that.
Full postPlayer smashes 304 in domestic 50-over match
By Eddie Norfolk
ESPNcricinfo staff
25-Feb-2013
By Eddie Norfolk
Irfan Rabbani scored 304 from a 50-over total of 438 for 5 to help his Appolo team romped to a 227-run win over United XI in Toronto's First Division last weekend. This is the highest individual score in Canadian domestic cricket, overhauling the 280 scored by Canadian international player Don Maxwell when with York University.
Rabbani hit 48 boundaries and six sixes. He took part in stands of 120 for the second wicket, 155 for the third and 118 for the fourth. Naveed Tariq was next highest scorer with 57 runs. Rabbani was eventually bowled by Khayan Raja.
This feat is timely, as the fallen record comes on the eve of the second Canadian Colleges and Universities cricket tournament. This year's event has a 20/20 format and includes ten teams, who will be playing at Maple Leaf CC, King City, Ontario between Monday July 16 and Friday July 20.
Full postNairobi dispute echoes back to the dark days
Cricket Kenya has postponed the board elections for a second time following a decision by the Nairobi Provincial Cricket Association on Saturday to appoint a nine-man committee to look into a new constitution.
Martin Williamson
25-Feb-2013
Cricket Kenya has postponed the board elections for a second time following a decision by the Nairobi Provincial Cricket Association on Saturday to appoint a nine-man committee to look into a new constitution.
In a situation more akin the dark days of the old KCA, on June 20 the NPCA's member clubs refused to approve acting chairman Sukhbans Singh's report or to pass accounts for the last three years. Members were angry that no public meeting had been held since 2004 and that the existing NPCA board had failed to amend its constitution in accordance with an agreement made by all Kenya's stakeholders more than two years ago.
Matters came to a head because under Cricket Kenya's constitution, the NPCA, which is the country's most influential province containing most of the major clubs, could not participate in the elections for the CK board, due on July 22, while its old constitution remained in place.
At a heated meeting ten of the 17 clubs that make up the NPCA - of which 14 were present - refused to adopt the accounts and made it clear that they were deeply unhappy with the activities of the current board. The NPCA has not held any AGM or presented accounts since 2004 and its chairman, Salim Dhanji, has been in Australia since January.
Full postHong Kong seek new coach
Hong Kong are seeking a new national coach
ESPNcricinfo staff
25-Feb-2013
Hong Kong are seeking a new national coach. This is a three-year appointment, subject to satisfactory performance.
Sameer Dighe is the current temporary coach, who took over from Robin Singh before the World Cricket League Division Three tournament in Darwin. His appointment was just for that competition and the preparatory tour to Chennai.
The HKCA has also tossed in the requirement that the coach must be Hong Kong based which would rule out the previous arrangement offered to Robin Singh, and may well count out Dighe this time.
More details on the HKCA website.
Full postDrinnen steps down: from farce to fudge
Leave your thoughts about the latest crisis to hit Scottish cricket in the comments below
Will Luke
25-Feb-2013
Leave your thoughts about the latest crisis to hit Scottish cricket in the comments below
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Cricket Scotland yesterday took the widely-anticipated step of removing Peter Drinnen from his role as national coach, ensuring a fresh victory for player-power, as sparked by some of Scotland's senior internationalists.
Drinnen, the 39 year-old Australian who had only been in the post since the start of 2006 after replacing Englishman, Andy Moles - another victim of a behind-the-scenes putsch - told The Herald last week that he would battle to save his job and confirmed he was aware that a "small group" of his players had provoked dressing-room unrest, principally because they believed Drinnen was spending too much time with the Scotland "A" squad. Yet, remarkably in the circumstances, Cricket Scotland issued a statement yesterday, announcing that "caretaker coaches" - namely Andy Tennant and Peter Steindl - would be in charge of the national side until the end of the Twenty20 World Championship in September, whilst Drinnen would continue to "deliver his remit" with the A team and the Under-23s.
Full postCuba's cricket uprising
It was over a year ago that we reported a cricket resurgence in Cuba and, according to yesterday’s Guardian , the movement continues unabated following the news that Cuba would join 19 other teams for the month-long Stanford 20/20 tournament to
Will Luke
25-Feb-2013
It was over a year ago that we reported a cricket resurgence in Cuba and, according to yesterday’s Guardian, the movement continues unabated following the news that Cuba would join 19 other teams for the month-long Stanford 20/20 tournament to be held in January 2008.
Leona Ford was born in 1943, in Guantanamo. She is a second-generation Cuban; her father Leonard Ford came to the Cuban sugar plantations from Barbados. Leonard was the founder of the Guantanamo Cricket Club.
"The club meetings were held at my home, and when I was little I used to hear about it a lot. There were cricket photographs all over the house," Leona remembers now. After a lifetime spent working as an English professor, she decided to write a history of Cuban cricket in her retirement. The details above are only widely available because of her work. She was increasingly drawn towards the idea of re-establishing the game.
In 1998 she presented a paper on the subject at the annual meeting of the West Indian Welfare Association. In the crowd was a man named Sir Howard Cooke. Cooke was Governor General of Jamaica. What was more, he had captained one of the Jamaican teams that had visited Guantanamo CC in 1955, and remembered playing against Leona's father.
Full postImport soil or lose your ODI status
Andy Atkinson, the ICC's pitch consultant, has slammed those who argue against importing soil to try to improve the poor quality of the pitches at the National Sports Centre.
Martin Williamson
25-Feb-2013
Andy Atkinson, the ICC's pitch consultant, has slammed those who argue against importing soil to try to improve the poor quality of the pitches at the National Sports Centre.
Atkinson is of the opinion that the only way the surface can be raised to a standard to allow full ODIs to be played is for soil to be brought in from overseas, but that idea has been attacked by the United Bermuda Party and local farmers, who maintain the government would be recklessly endangering the environment if they allowed such a plan.
"If you want pitches that last longer than a day and are capable of hosting international games in the future, then importing high-quality soil is the only answer and all the controversy being stirred up at the moment seems like a bunch of political claptrap to me," Atkinson, who has been reviewing the square at the venue since 2004, told The Royal Gazette.
"The square at the Sports Centre is good enough for club cricket, but when you're talking about ODIs or longer games then I'm afraid it's a no-go."
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