Royal Selangor wins its maiden Digital-1 Jakarta International Sixes 2005 title

The cibubur oval in east Jakarta was the venue for the recently concluded 10th Digital-1 Jakarta International Cricket sixes - 2005. Seven local and two overseas teams from Malaysia battled it out for top honors on 8th and the 9th of October.

The tournament went on despite the aftermath of the second Bali bombings, teams from Singapore and Hong Kong pulled out of the tournament on travel warnings by their respective governments. But the Bali bombings did not deter the local cricketers and the Malaysian visiting teams to put up a run feast at the Cibubur oval. The Indonesian club Udayana Cricket Club from Jimbaran Bali also pulled out at the last minute.

This year the Sixes tournament had two overseas teams, the Royal Selangor Sports Club from Malaysia, the regulars in the tournament Penang Sports Club from Penang, Malaysia and the Geckos from Bali. The others teams in the tournament were made up of the Jakarta Cricket Association clubs: Indorama Cricket Club, Rebels Cricket Club, Mad Dogs Cricket Club, Gandhi memorial International School, Perkasa Cricket club and the defending champions of the sixes for the last three years Senayan Cricket Club.

The competition was staged in two parts, on Saturday the teams were split into two groups, playing each team once within the group to determine the seedings for the knockout stages that were played on Sunday. The winners of the knockout stage played a semifinal for the sixes cup and the losers played for the plate competition.

Malaysia's Royal Selangor Club won this year's Digital-1 Jakarta International Sixes following a convincing victory over Jakarta's league champions Senayan Cricket Club in the final. The Plate competition was won by Rebels Cricket Club from Jakarta, captained by Simon Turnbull, in a tightly contested match against another local club Indorama Cricket Club.

The Royal Selangor Club reached the finals by beating the charged up Gandhi memorial International School team in the semifinal while Senayan cricket club ousted the Bali Geckos in the second semifinal.

Some 70 players from all over the world contributed to a run feast of 1724 runs, which included 80 sixes and 50 wickets taken, during the two days of the short version of the game. Senayan Cricket Club's Mustafa Rangwala was awarded the Player of the tournament for scoring a total of 116 runs and picking up 5 wickets ahead of his team mate Vibhu Prakash who scored 110 runs picking 3 wickets and Rohan from Royal Selangor scoring 97 runs.

The two day festival of cricket was organized by the Jakarta Cricket Association and sponsored by Digital-1 and co-sponsored by Bintang, Heineken, Kinara, Everest Café, Le-Meridien and the Mandarin Oriental, Jakarta.