Beyond the Test World
'What's the point of Associate cricket?'
Warren Deutrom, the chief executive of Cricket Ireland, has launched a stinging attack on the ICC and the way it handles cricket below Test level.
Martin Williamson
25-Feb-2013
Warren Deutrom, the chief executive of Cricket Ireland, has launched a stinging attack on the ICC and the way it handles cricket below Test level.
The ICC has sunk millions of pounds into Associate and Affiliate cricket, and established several global competitions, but speaking to the Wisden Cricketer, Deutrom was unimpressed.
“What is the point of Associate cricket?” he said. “Ireland has proved itself head and shoulders above the rest of the Associate nations, winning all the available titles in every form of the game – four-day, 50-over and Twenty20. Yet we are bumping up against a glass ceiling. What does the ICC want us to do? How do we get from high-performance programme to the higher echelons of the world game? There is no road map for us. The issue brings to question the whole mission statement of the ICC High Performance programme: what is it preparing teams for?”
Deutrom has made no secret of his ambition to see Ireland play Test cricket, but he admitted there was little prospect of that happening in the near future. And, without that goal, he concluded, what was the point of the Associate merry-go-round.
Full postIreland clinch Super Over thriller
If the rest of the ICC World Twenty20 is going to be as eventful as the warm-up game between Ireland and Netherlands it will be a thrilling tournament
Will Luke
25-Feb-2013
If the rest of the ICC World Twenty20 is going to be as eventful as the warm-up game between Ireland and Netherlands it will be a thrilling tournament. The handful of fans who turned up at Lord's, and there weren't many, were witness to a tie and then a one-over eliminator after which Ireland finally clinched victory by four runs.
Click here for the full report of Ireland and Netherlands' warm-up match.
Full postICC predictions out of this world
The ability of sporting bodies to hype their own products should never be underestimated
Martin Williamson
25-Feb-2013
The ability of sporting bodies to hype their own products should never be underestimated. Rarely does an event seem to pass without it being heralded as the “most watched” in history.
In 2007, the organisers of F1 claimed a global audience of several squillion before someone noted that appeared to assume that everyone in China watched the brief clips on the evening news rather than sat glued to the entire race.
Now Stephen Brenkley in the Independent has pulled up the ICC. Earlier this week it gushed that the World Twenty20 will be seen in 218 countries around the world. He noted that there are only 194 recognised countries on the planet.
Perhaps any readers in Burkina Faso or Tuvalu would let us know how they are enjoying the event?
Full postSennik to stand down as Canada chief
Ben Sennik has announced that he will stand down as president of Cricket Canada at the end of June after five years at the helm
Martin Williamson
25-Feb-2013
Ben Sennik has announced that he will stand down as president of Cricket Canada at the end of June after five years at the helm. His last role will be to attend the ICC's centenary celebrations in London.
"This was not an easy decision," said Sennick. "However, after reviewing what we have been able to jointly achieve, and recognizing what lies ahead for all of us on the cricket scene, I believe the time is now right for me to pass the responsibility as president to other hands."
"I believe Cricket Canada is now at an important crossroads. In the past five years we have revived the organization and we now stand on firm financial footing. We operate as a viable business and all financial undertakings are fully transparent. We have balanced our budget and creating a responsible economic environment to attract new partners and new opportunities."
"I fully appreciate the time and commitment that Ben Sennik has put into building the game in Canada," said Richard Done, the ICC's high performance manager. "Under his leadership Canada has developed from its voluntary base to start a new professional era both on and off the field. The national team has qualified for its third successive World Cup, the number of schools playing the game is growing, financially the sport is on a sound footing and Cricket Canada has again successfully hosted events involving a number of Full Members during 2008."
Full postKenya host Under-13 tournament
Cricket Kenya will be hosting the ACA/EA Under-13 cricket tournament in Nakuru between June 4 and 8
Martin Williamson
25-Feb-2013
Cricket Kenya will be hosting the ACA/EA Under-13 cricket tournament in Nakuru between June 4 and 8. The five-day event will consist of teams from Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda.
The Kenya team will be selected from both public and private schools at provincial level. Trial games took place in Nakuru on May 22 at Greensteds School and six boys were chosen to be considered in the National/Final selection.
Nairobi trials will be held at Aga Khan Sports Club on May 28 from 9am to 1pm, Saturday May 30 from 1pm to 4pm and on June 1 from 9am to 1pm. Those in the Coast region will take place at Burhani Sports Club on May 30 between 9am and 12:30pm.
Full postWe need young players in the system - Dassanayake
Pubudu Dassanayake, coach of the Canadian national cricket team sat down with Faraz Sarwat in Toronto recently to talk about Canada’s performance at the World Cup Qualifiers in South Africa, the controversial training trip to Sri Lanka that preceded
Cricinfo
25-Feb-2013
Pubudu Dassanayake, coach of the Canadian national cricket team sat down with Faraz Sarwat in Toronto recently to talk about Canada’s performance at the World Cup Qualifiers in South Africa, the controversial training trip to Sri Lanka that preceded the tournament and the 2011 World Cup itself. Excerpts:
Q: From your point of view what are the areas to focus on now that the team has qualified for the World Cup?
A: If you analyze Canadian cricket going back even a year and a half ago, the average age of the team was 30 or 31 years old and there’s a reason behind that. We have young, talented players but there’s no proper structure where we can develop them within the country to the required standard. So players need a lot of time, playing year after year to gain that experience. So we don’t have options and we need to pick older players. Now if you take the fitness levels and the fielding levels, even in this tournament (the World Cup Qualifiers) we were way below standard. That’s one area where we need to improve. We need to get young players into the system and if the local system is not helping us, then we need to identify who we can develop for the World Cup and the 2013 Qualifiers and get them into the squad. We can send them to academies and to other countries to play in their local cricket. That is the major plan from now on, but we can’t do it right away. We have a time period where we use the senior players and at the same time we get the youngsters ready for the squad. Before the World Cup Qualifiers we couldn’t do anything because we didn’t want to play around too much and we needed experience for the tournament.
Q: Are there any young players that you’ve already identified?
Full postSimmons targets Super Eights berth
Ireland coach Phil Simmons has big ambitions for his team at the ICC World Twenty20 and will be disappointed if the side don't make it through to the Super Eight stage of the tournament.
Andrew McGlashan
25-Feb-2013
Ireland coach Phil Simmons has big ambitions for his team at the ICC World Twenty20 and will be disappointed if the side don't make it through to the Super Eight stage of the tournament.
Simmons wants the squad to repeat their success from the 2007 World Cup in West Indies when they reached the last eight after beating Pakistan in the qualifying section and later in the event they also beat Bangladesh.
For the full story click here.
Full postSaeed leads Bahrain to victory
Qamer Saeed's five-wicket haul and well-paced half-century helped Bahrain defeat Guernsey by three wickets in the final of the ICC World Cricket League Division 7
Andrew McGlashan
25-Feb-2013
Qamer Saeed's five-wicket haul and well-paced half-century helped Bahrain defeat Guernsey by three wickets in the final of the ICC World Cricket League Division 7. Saeed's all-round display allowed Bahrain to finish the tournament unbeaten. Despite the loss, Guernsey also qualified for the Division 6 tournament by virtue of qualifying for the final.
For a full report click here.
Full postFrith powers Guernsey to promotion
A outstanding all-round performance from Jeremy Frith, who scored his second successive century and took five wickets, helped Guernsey secure promotion from the ICC World Cricket League Division 7 with a thumping 263-run victory against Suriname ,
Andrew McGlashan
25-Feb-2013
A outstanding all-round performance from Jeremy Frith, who scored his second successive century and took five wickets, helped Guernsey secure promotion from the ICC World Cricket League Division 7 with a thumping 263-run victory against Suriname, who relegated to Division 8
Frith, who has scored 364 runs in the tournament to date, won his third man-of-the-match award this week but he was happier to focus on his side’s promotion and Sunday’s final against Bahrain than his own individual success.
“As I said earlier in the week, the man-of-the-match award is incidental. The important thing was to win the game and book a place for Singapore which is what we set out to do,” Frith said. “Stuart [Le Prevost] and I have batted well on a few occasions. It was nice to get 300 on the board, as this week we have fielded first a lot.
For a full report from this and the other matches click here
Full postVictory reward for hard work
Japan coach Richard Laidler
Andrew McGlashan
25-Feb-2013
Japan coach Richard Laidler
We are all delighted to secure our status in the ICC World Cricket League Division 7 after today’s victory over Gibraltar.
The result is great reward for all the hard work put in by the team in the past few years, many of whom used all their annual leave just to play in the tournament.
You may be wondering how an Australian managed to become coach of the Japan cricket side. A few years ago I was living in Darwin doing some coaching and I was selling cars. One of my friends went to Japan to coach and then came back for personal reasons.
Full post