Round Up from around Europe (19 Nov 1999)

19 November 1999

Round Up from around Europe

The thermals may have replaced the flannels across Europe, but 'Cricket Around The World' will not pull up stumps over the European winter.

Here is a collection of cricketing news from Europe since the last edition of CATW.

The Belgian 1999 international season is looking like a busy one with indoor matches against France in January, the ECC Indoor Championships in Spain in February, two one-day 'internationals' against France in June, an MCC tour (four matches in August) and two other possible matches against other countries.

Martin O'Connor fills you in on the latest domestic news from Belgium:

"Pakistan Greens won the Belgian Cricket Federation's 10th Anniversary Sixes competition, with Khan CC in second place. It was Khan's first year in existence and the club will join the League next season. The Sixes, involving all but one of the clubs in the Federation, were held at Antwerp's Rumst ground and were so successful that the Federation will probably make them a permanent annual fixture.

BCF Chairman Ken Farmiloe presented the annual League awards at the Sixes event. Pakistan Greens won the League Trophy for the fourth year running, with the Royal Brussels second team taking the Second Division Trophy. Mechelen CC had the distinction of coming second in their first year in the First Division.

Another initiative this year got off the ground on November 6. For the first time, the BCF is running a winter indoor series. Six clubs have signed up for what are basically regarded as "fun days". These are taking place at the Axion sports centre in Geel and the first outing was won by Ostend over 12 Stars and Bel Geel. The Belgian indoor squad for the ECC Indoor Trophy in Spain next February will be taking part in January. Once again, the national squad is supported by sponsorship from VIJAYDIMON, a leading Antwerp diamond company.

On November 7, David Jukes, the National Coach, along with Roland Lefevre and Jim Cotterill, put a first group through the rigours of an ECB/ECC Level One Coaching Course. The enthusiasm of all participants following the two-day session was immense. The tests follow this coming weekend. Interest in the course has been very high and the number of people wanting to do it means another will probably be held later in the winter.

The season in Luxembourg has ended with Optimists CC champions of the Luxembourg League in its inaugural season. Although Communities CC beat Optimists in the last match, additional bonus points gained in the match just allowed Optimists to get ahead.

Optimists came fifth in the Belgian League and will therefore be in the new Belgian first division next season.

Indoor cricket will be taking place in Luxembourg on Monday evenings after Christmas.

On the weekend of September 18-19, the Estonian Cricket Club and the Stockholm Academic Cricket Society competed for the Hennessy Trans-Baltic Trophy.

Kristian Garancis provides the details:

"Saturday, 18th September: 6-a-side - 15 overs match. Teams: ECC - Gavin Hill, Anil Puri(capt.), Sanjeev Anand, Risto Koovit, Jason Barry, Adrian Barrett; SACS - Jason Beer, Fredrik Carlsson, John Graham-Clarke, Peter Berg, Mark Plunkett (capt.), Vuyo Jama SACS won the toss and elected to bat first. SACS all out for 59 runs (14 overs) (Mark Plunkett, [21], John Graham [13]. Excellent bowling by Anil Purri and Risto Koovit, both two wickets). ECC 2/60 (10 overs) (Anil Puri 25 ret. & Sanjeev Anand 26 runs ret.) ECC won by three wickets. We decided that Trans-Baltic Trophy will be an annual event. The match was followed by dinner at Elevant and exploration of Tallinn night life. Sunday 19th September: 12-a-side - 30 overs match SACS won the toss and elected to bat first. SACS all out for 167 (29 overs) (John Graham 68, Jason Barry 41; Kapil Kathpalia 4 wickets). ECC all out for 104 (28 overs) (Sanjeev Anand 22; Mark Plunkett & Nazrul Pathan both took 2 wickets). SACS won by 63 runs. It was fantastic weekend, good cricket and good fun."

Brad Eve has kindly provided this summation of the Ljubljana Dragons season:

"We have played 16 games this year against teams from Italy,Austria,Croatia,Czech Republic, Switzerland,France and the UK. We have won 9 of our 16 games so far. We recently hosted a visit from the BBC Bushmen who won 2 exciting contests. The highlight of our year so far was in retaining our annual Ambassador's cup match where we play as the British Ambassador's XI vs the Sri Lankan Ambassador's XI from Vienna.

Recent highlights by individual members of the club have been our season high score by Greg Davies of 75 (3 balls short ofbatting the innings undefeated) against the Lodi cricket club (from Central Northern Italy near Milan), a man of the match performance of 47 not out and 5 for 15 by club founder and President Roger Metcalfe in the following match. Leading our batting aggregates is Mark Oman who also leads the bowling averages followed by Dan Ryan in both fields."

The Austrian Cup match (a semi-final) was won by Prague in the first meeting between the two clubs. Ljubljana C.C (now also the Green Dragons) named after the local symbol of Ljubljana (apparently Jason and the Argonauts slaughtered a green dragon in these environs!). We battedfirst and scored a disappointing 115 in a 40 over match. 40 of these came from the bat of captain Mark Oman.

Prague scored the runs with three overs to spare for the loss of six or seven wickets. Prague went on to lose the final against Lords cricket club from Vienna.

After making initial contact earlier this year - e-mail being the main way of discovering fellow teams to play against we hosted Prague for a weekend in September for two matches with the highlight being Sunday's inaugural trophy match.

The trophy was provided by none other than club patron, President of Slovenia - Milan Kucan. We were soundly thrashed by Prague in rapid time on the Saturday but I'm happy to say we had our revenge in a thriller to win the trophy. The Sunday match we batted first and were in trouble early having lost captain Mark Oman for 40 with the score at 6-80. Very clever late order batting from club president Roger Metcalfe and Matt Ainsworth nudged us up to a more respectable 145.

Although having conceded 50 wides in our most inaccurate performance ever we managed to bowl well in the final overs with yours truly Brad Eve taking 2-12 off eight overs and completing a run out.

One quick item of interest must be the inclusion in the Prague side of a lovely young lady called Martina who suffered no compliments from our bowlers while batting and could only be dismissed by a run out at the non-strikers end. She is a Czech girl who decided that she didn't just want to watch the boys play and is a blessing to the game!"

Great news from the Czech Republic where there is interest from someone in Brno in getting cricket started. In addition a trainer will be visiting Prague to do coaching clinics for children.

A brief review of the Prague CC season:

Winter Cup in Vienna (6-a-side tournament in February) 2 games at home v. Warsaw 1W 1L 2 games at home v. Saumur Strays (of France) 2L

Away v. Sri Lanka C.C. and UN C.C. (Vienna) 2W

Away v. Ljubljana C.C. and Lord's C.C. (Vienna)1W 1L Away v. Ljubljana C.C. (twice)1W 1L

Away, 2-day 'Test Match' v. Vienna CC at the start of October. Lost (1L)

Indoor training is now underway and hope to join Vienna for an indoor friendly before the next Winter Cup.