Hong Kong defeat China in first under-15 encounter

The Development Team from Hong Kong traveled to Shenzhen on the early morning of Nov 19th 2006 to play against the China U15s.

China is due to take part in the ACC Plate Division U15 competition in December in Bangkok and have asked to play against HK teams to give them match practice.

A series of games have been organized for the China U15s which will include 2 games in Shenzhen and 2-3 games in Hong Kong.

China U15 Team has been training for last few months 5-6 hrs a day with their new coach Rashid Khan, the former Pakistan International.

The first of these games took place at Shenzhen University on Nov 19th. It was a football ground and a flicx wicket was laid to play the game. The match was 40 overs a side and China won the toss and decided to field.

HKCA XL started of with an unfortunate run out of opener Dhananjay. But the second wicket pair of M Nazabat and skipper Mark Chapmen got used to the uneven bounce of the flicx wicket and put on a 48 run partnership. Nazabat carried on building partnerships with Miten Khatri and Bobby Chan Ka Ming (58 runs and 60 runs). The rest of the batsmen were not able to get many runs. However Nazabat stayed in and kept smashing the bowlers and went on to get to his 100 and finally got out in the last over with 105 runs taking HKCA's total to 224.

China bowlers bowled well in spells. With good bowling action and by sticking to the basics, they were able to trouble the Hong Kong Batsman. This is the first occasion they were bowling in a 40 over match against proper opponents and they proved up to the task. Xu Jia Bin took 4 wickets for 25 runs in his 5 overs while Zhang Yu Fei and Di Jin Long picked up two wickets each.

The same cannot be said of China's batting who struggled to play their shots. They seem undecided to hang in the middle or to hit the ball. They were bowled out for a mere 39 runs. Sagar Chandra took 4 wickets for 8 runs while Calvin Leung and Nazabat also picked up two wickets each.

[Scorecard]

Nerves seemed to have gotten better of the China batsman in their first ever innings. In the practice session following the match they all seemed to play their shots more freely. I am confident they will be able to put on a much better performance with their batting in remaining matches.

HKCA would like to thank China Cricket International for their wonderful hospitality and hosting us in Shenzhen. The team was taken to a wonderful post match dinner which was enjoyed by all.

We look forward to hosting them in one week's time.