11th Dec 2009- YearEnd Party, Bob's Farewell

IECC held its 2009 year-end party at Ashoka Ginza in traditional style, with Indian food and Japanese beer. This time the party had an added significance as this was also one of our key member Bobby Philips's farewell party.

After many bottoms-ups and onegos it was time for IECC president Biju to reflect upon our performance this year. President was justifiably bit disappointed with IECC's performance this year. Pointing specifically towards the losses against ITCC a relatively new team in Japan he urged the members to do some soul searching and to do everything in their power to bring the past glory back to IECC. He drew attention toards the aging core members of IECC and stressed upon the importance of infusion of new young blood into the team and asked support of every existing members to help out in the recruiting process.

Next was Captain Sanjeeb's turn. Taking responsibility for the poor show of IECC this year and sharing the same view as the president Captain pointed out towards some achievements which IECC can take pride on. One of them being beating YCAC 3 times in a row in their own backyard. He also drew attention towards unavailability of enough players when it comes to travelling out of Tokyo. Captain also proposed a solution to the problem by suggesting to have a IECC's own ground near by area and briefed the team about the progress in that direction.

Everyone including the president and captain expressed a deep sense of loss considering that we will miss one of our most dynamic member Bobby next year. Not only he will be missed in the cricket ground we all will miss a really great friend and one of our great motivators. And of course we will miss his speeches and the curve negotiating skills on the Tomei:)

Next it was Bobby's turn to light the party with his fiery speech. Bobby spoke for several hours and did not stop until the restaurant manager requested him to stop as it was time to close the restaurant:) This time for a change it was a fiery come rainy speech. It made some the members to cry. In fact even the sky cried that night:).Sensing danger and possibility of a typhoon our treasurer Bikash intervened and distributed the special achievement awards in a hurry.

Following is the list of winners....
-MVP 2009 : Dinesh Singh
-Best Batsman: Raju Sidde
-Best Bowler: Anurag Singh
-Best Fielder: Masood Khan
-New comer of the year: Vezly Gracis

Here is a picture from the party. More pictures are in Bob's camera. he has promised to send them to us from Australia.


p.s. Thanks to Yogesh and Biju for making the arrangements for the party and to Bikash for arranging for the presents and prizes.

Sep 6th 2009-- IECC Made it a Hat-trick over YCAC

Initially it looked like we can't play this match due to lack of players as the Kerla-Japan festival was also scheduled on the same day; But we somehow managed to get an 11 just before the match day. Even though this was not a full strength team and we were sure that YCAC will definitely field their best team following defeats in last two matches, the IECC captain was still hopeful of making it a hat-trick.

Winning the toss at YCAC is normally crucial as history shows team batting first normally wins, but IECC captain called it wrong this time.

Fielding first, IECC started the bowling with Ashok and Rahul. Ashok at his usual best produced a easy chance on his 4th delivery when YCAC opener Nick mistimed a pull. There was slight confusion between the shortleg and midon fielder and shortleg eventually dropped it.

Rahul bowling with the new ball for the first time for IECC, also bowled beautifully with accuracy and swing and scoring was difficult for both batsmen. Mostly the runs were coming via occasional extras.

There were many catching chances(at lest 5) that came our way but we managed to drop them all, and the openers survived until the 15th over when a direct through from Ashok caught Nick short of his crease.

IECC was on top at that stage as almost half the innings was gone and only 56 runs were on the board.

Next batsman Kamran, tried his luck and played some risky and some very good shots but eventually got out to a well judged catch at the fineleg boundary by Rahul.
Pramod being the bowler in this case. Prashant also did not last long as Pramod manged to swing a ball in the air to disturb his middle stump. Promod and rest of the bowlers Sanjeeb, Rahul and Ashok rapped up the YCAC innings by the 33rd over for the score of 151.

It should also be mentioned that Atul, keeping after a long time, did the job beautifully in Bobby's absence and saved some valuable runs and even managed one stumping.

Chasing a relatively easy target Masood and Atul opened the batting for IECC. Masood started promisingly hitting the first ball from Prashant for a boundary but got out LBW couple of deliveries later when he missed a flick. And when Atul also got out to a swinging delivery from David in the next over, the target suddenly started looking a competative one.

Next batsman Pramod playing for the first time for IECC displayed his cool head and sound technique when he negotiated the new ball with ease. On the other end Santosh batting at No 3 for a change was on his usual aggressive Viru(Shewag) mode when he hit Prshant for 3 magnificent boundaries on his 2nd over. However Santosh was the next to fall when he misjudged the bounce of a straight delivery that crashed into the stumps. By that time though he had made a brilliant 28 and has set IECC on course for a victory as IECC was crusing at 7 runs per over at that point.

IECC was needing another 71 runs to win the match on the 10th over. But some disciplined bowling from Kamran and Chatan reduced IECC to 113/6 by the 20th over and the possibility of a surprise IECC loss started to emerge. But Pramod's calm presence at the crease and knowing that the asking rate is not that great, gave strength to the batsmen at the other end.

YCAC was still in the money when Javed walked into bat at No8 while the score was reading 135. But some big hitting from Javed including a huge Six that almost crossed the net and landed on one of those houses, sealed the match for us on the 30th over.

In the end it was a interesting match with lots of ups and downs and a great team effort where everyone played their part to handover a record hattrick win to IECC agaist YCAC.

3 cheers for IECC.

Brief scorecard.....
YCAC 151/10 in 33 overs, Steve(31), Kamran(23), Pramod(4/31)

IECC 152/8 in 30 overs, Pramod (32*), Santosh (28), Javed(16*)

Detail scorecards below...

23rd Aug 2009 - IECC first ever lose to Indian Tigers in friendly match

As Sanjeeb and bobby had some preplanned commitment on sunday, vijender was given the responsibility to captain the side and to gather the players for the friendly match against Indian tigers. We only managed to have 9 confirmed players for the match due to Ganesh Festival on the same day.

Match started at 1:3o with IECC again lost the toss and asked to field first. As we were short to two players, we had to compromise in the fielding. Tigers openers started their innings confidently and had a partnership of 27 runs in 6 overs. Raju did some excellent fielding to get rid of their opener as they tried to steal a tight single. Raju covered a lot of distance in competiton with Rajeev (Tiger's opener) with ball in his hand to remove the bail at non-striker end to give IECC the first wicket. Pramod(50) came next to continue Tiger's innings with his fluent hitting all over the ground. IECC poor fielding also allowed him to score at a fast pace. At the end of their innings Pramod and Anil(29*) took the scorecard to 139/6. Bala,the new joinee in the IECC team and Rahul did a good job to restrict the scoring in the middle overs.

Massod and Sagar was asked to open the innings for IECC. Both was playing extremely well to keep the scoreboard ticking at the required rate. Sagar was out to a loose ball giving straight catch to square leg fielder. Vijender came next but was forced to retire hurt when he hurt himself while hitting a fulltoss ball on his face just near the left eye. It was the luckiest escape for me as there was no harm in my left eye. Vizley(19) came next and started hitting the big shot straight away but was given out LBW. Javed(14) and Raju(13) tried to control the damage but IECC could not cope with the required rate and got all out at 121 in 19.5 overs. That was a first ever loss to Indian Tigers.

Captaining the side is really tough and i got this bitter taste in this friendly match.
Hats off to sanjeeb who is handling IECC team so well from past 2 years.

Aug 16,2009 - IECC prevails over YCAC in a close encounter

By Vezly....

Driving along the bay bridge to Yokohama on Sunday mornings has become a way of life for IECC for past few months and so is winning!!! This time we were again playing our arch rivals YCAC at their fantastic facility for a record third time in a row.

IECC won the toss and elected to bat first. Santosh and Bobby opened the innings for us but the start wasn’t as solid as we would have wanted it to be , and we lost quick wickets in the first 2 overs and were 3 for 2 at the end of the 2nd over. While Santosh got out to a fine out swinger from David, Bobby once again ran himself out. Dinesh and Sanjeeb played cautiously and added 61 runs for the third wicket to stabilize the innings like last time.

Bad luck struck us again, when we lost 3 quick wickets for just 3 runs, in the middle of our innings, but Silvester and Vezly once again did the rebuilding act successfully. Valuable contributions from Vezly (49), Dinesh (42), Silvester (30), Kushal (16) carried us past the 230 mark. While Dinesh was looking good to score another century he got out to a superb caught and bold effort by Chetak. Vezly batted beautifully mixing aggression with caution but was unlucky again to miss out on his 50, this time getting out to a superb running catch by Farhan at long off. Silvester shouldering the responsibility remained not out and made sure we played out those 40 overs.

While our batsmen played well agaist the YCAC pace-men, it were the slow bowlers who did most of the damage. David was easily the pick of the YCAC bowlers, bowling with the new ball, for the first time in his carrier, he surprised everyone with his accuracy and variations.

In reply YCAC started promisingly scoring 12 in the first over for no loss. In fact they lost their first wicket only in the 14th over at the score 78, when Sanjeeb managed to swing a ball in, from outside off , to hit nick's pad in front of the middle stump. Immediately after, a brilliant fielding effort by Silvester got rid of the other opener Riaz (38) at the same score. But that didn't stop YCAC as the next batsmen Farhan(16),Richard (42) and Kamran (28) started scoring at a brisk pace and the game started slipping away from us.

By the 26th Over YCAC was 174/4 and it appeared that they will easily overhaul the target when captain decided to bring Dinesh back into the attack from the far end . Dinesh immediately obliged with two wickets in the same over, both crean-bold, to bring us back in the game. Bowling around the wicket in the next over Sanjeeb got rid of the dangerous Kamran, to put IECC back in the driver’s seat, thanks to a sharp reflex catch behind the stumps by Bob.

Other bowlers then wrapped up the innings in quick succession to hand over IECC a deserving victory. Mohan did an incredible job of bowling with the new ball and saved at least 10/15 valuable runs patrolling the whole fine-leg area, and who can forget the runout and difficult catch at short-square leg by Silvester which gave us crucial breakthroughs.

Even though 232 was not a very big and difficult target for our opponents to chase, our team came out with an all out effort to defend its position. Disciplined fielding, team work and focus were the key elements which kept the team going in an energy swapping hot day.

We then joined YCAC at the post match drinks session and thanked them for inviting us.Winning a consecutive second time against YCAC does give KAMPAI a different flavour doesn’t it!!! IECC guys lets make it a hat trick and do our best at the next occasion we play them.


Brief scorecard as mentioned below:
IECC
------
232/9 in 40 over , Vezly(49), Dinesh(42), Silvester (30*), Kamran(41/3), David (46/3)
YCAC
-------
205/10 in 35 over, Richard(42), Riaz(38), Kamran(28), Sanjeeb (41/3), Dinesh (22/2)

Few pictures and detailed scorecard below....

19th July 2009-IECC triumph at YCAC after 4 years

In a fantastic all round display we managed to beat YCAC in an exciting high scoring game.

IECC captain Sanjeeb called the toss right this time and elected to bat first. Bobby was promoted to open with Santosh in the absence of regular openers. YCAC got 2 quick break throughs via runouts, Santosh on the 2nd over misjudged a direct through which unfortunately hit the stump and then on the 6th over Bobby sacrificed his wicket for Dinesh in a terrible mix up. Bobby's sacrifice did not go waste though as Dinesh went on to score a fantastic century.

Sanjeeb and Dinesh steadied the innings on the 3rd wicket and added about 70 runs, Dinesh doing bulk of the scoring.Then Vezly and Dinesh on the 5th wicket added 115 runs to put IECC on top. Towards the end a blistering 51 not-out, including a last ball 6 from Anurag, took IECC total past 300.

Chasing a mammoth total YCAC started in a steady fashion.Good pace bowling by Ashok and Mohan meant that they had to take risks to meet the asking rate.Ashok got through Nick difference on his 3rd over to give IECC the much needed quick break through.Steve and Mark batted well and put up 50 runs for the 2nd wicket.

The game was on balance at that point.But a brilliant fielding at point by Santosh ran Mark out and the momentum started swinging towards IECC. Then a good catch at Cover by Ashok got rid of Dangerous looking Steve to put IECC on top, Anurag being the bowler in this case.

Prshant(59) and Farhan(26) batted well for some time and gave IECC some anxious moments but the growing asking rate got the better of both batsmen. Anurag took a superb catch at long-on to get rid of Farhan and Vezley bowled a beautiful yorker to knock Prashant's middle stump out of the ground. Once Prashant was out it was just a matter of time before IECC became victorious.

Vezly bowling his 7th over got rid of the 9 and 10th wicket in 2 consecutive deliveries to get YCAC all out within the 40 over. He is on a hat trick now.

It was a disciplined effort at the field by IECC, we took some fantastic catches, caused run outs. Even though we dropped some catches too, still it was a far better performance than the last match. I must mention that Anurag and Sagar took two outstanding catches while yours truly dropped a simple one ;)

In the end we had a drink with YCAC and thanked them for inviting us to play in their fantastic facility, and wished well to Neil who was playing his penultimate game in Japan and the last one with IECC.

We then marched home with the satisfaction of beating YCAC which had remained as a dream for few years now.

Brief scorecard....
IECC 302/6 in 40 overs, Dinesh 114(14x4, 3X6), Anurag 51 in 26 balls(7X4, 2X6), Vezly(Hit-wicket) 43(5X4, 1X6), Prashant 3/49

YCAC 237/10 in 37 overs, Prahsnat 59,Cmitha 40*, Vezly 4/35

5th July 2009- Dissapointing loss in the Pacific cup Semi-Final

Dropped catches and Batting collapse is always the story when we play YCAC. However this time we were hopping to do better as YCAC has a new pitch a Felix one, in fact they have a completely synthetic colorful outfield now.

YCAC own the toss and elected to bat first.

Ashok and Biju started the bowling well for IECC and given that we had fielders at the right areas the scoring was not easy for YCAC. Ashok bowled out one of the openers Horton on his 4th over and then got rid of Kamran on his 5th over to put IECC on top.

But then Prashant and the other opener Riaz batted well and put up 90 runs partnership to stabilize YCAC. Then Prashant stepped on the gas and went on to score 129 to take the score past 250 thanks to many dropped catches. Riaz had contributed with a patient 40.

Then our batting collapsed like a pack of cards and we got allout in the 24 overs managing only 112. Only 3 of our batsmen managing to get past 10. Raju did hit 3 huge Sixes during his short stay at the crease to entertain the crowd, one of those sixes almost landing in the swimming pool.

I might as well add that YCAC hold on to all the catches that came their way in sharp contrast to IECC.

brief scorecard.
YCAC 255/7 in 40 overs , Prashant Kale 129, Ashok 3/31, Raju 3/39
IECC 112/10 in 24 overs, Raju 24, Dinesh 24,Riaz 3/8

20th June 2009- IECC Bounces back in style beating Tigers by huge margin

IECC won the toss and elected to bat first.
Tigers opening bowlers bowled beautifully and some accurate swing bowling and athletic fielding quickly saw IECC top and middle order relaxing back in the tree-shade.

At 36/6 by the end of the 6th over, IECC was at real risk of getting all out(or eaten alive) without posting a challenge total to the Tigers, a situation which got IECC president Biju and Vice Captain Bobby really worried.There was more than a loss at stake. Had IECC lost the game and got allout scoring their lowest score of the season both of them would have lost their rights to visit Nishi-Kasai, known as the den of the Tigers.

But the young stars of IECC, Raju and Anurag, who have certainly matured a lot over these years, had a different plan in mind. The 151 run partnership in the 7th wicket nearly killed the Tigers.

Raju initially started with caution, contrary to his nature, but soon got going with a huge 6 over midwicket. His 66 included as many as 5 towering sixes and 4 boundaries.Anurag initially concentrated on feeding the strike to Raju and taking risks only to bad deliveries. But after the 100 run partnership Anurag also became agressive and started hitting boundaries almost at will. His 76 included 1 towering six over midwicket and as many as 12 boundaries. It was really a treat to watch both of them batting in tandem, neutralizing the Tigers attack and saving IECC the blues.

Tigers chasing 232 to win crumbled under pressure and the pace of Dinesh , Anurag and Raju proved too much for them. Dinesh was pick of the IECC bowlers taking 3 wickets for 29.

This win should go a long way boosting IECC's moral after suffering back to back losses in their last two KCL games.

Brief scorecard..
IECC 231/10 in 35.3 overs, Raju (66), Anurag (76), Anil 4/19
Tigers 119/10 in 26.5 overs, Udayraj (23), Dinesh(3/29)

18 Jun 2009- IECC lost one of their very bests

Vimal who played for IECC about 8 years had been a key member of the squad. Apart from being a rock solid opener he was a very good bowler and fielder. Also he was a very good friend and his gentle , friendly and selfless natures had made him really popular within the team. His 156* against Kytes is among one of the most memorable innings he has played for IECC.

He will be soon moving to Denmark on his new job assignment. IECC is hopeful that he will be back in Japan sometime in future and will be again playing for us.

Here are few pictures from the farewell party.

14th June - Photographs

14th June 2009- Depleted IECC Lost to Kytes

We won the toss and decided to bat first.

But we could only manage to score 124 before getting allout by the 30th over. Note here that we didn't have our full team and both our star openers were not playing this game.

Kytes bowled beautifully and took some acrobatic catches. On the other hand poor runing between the wickets didn't help IECC much, we again had couple of runouts.

At one stage we were 49/6.
But thanks to our VC Bobby , batting at no 3, he kept his calm and kept his wicket at one end and played almost 25 overs hitting some sublime boundaries in the process.

Atul played beautifully opening for IECC for the first time he scored 25 before getting out to a supurb low catch by one of the atheletic Srilankan fielders.

Silverster playing after a long layoff also batted beautifully and remained not out on 28 and some useful contributions from Jagan and Biju helped us go past 120.

While bowling we tried with everything we had, but the Kytes were not taking too many risks as we kept giving extras and the score was not a too chalenging one.

Dinesh took 2 wickets in 2 balls when the score was around 50 to give us some hope. But we could not manage any quick wickets after that and the game slowly drifted away from us.

Towards the end Biju bowled a gem of a delivery to get rid of inform Kytes batsman Mewan but it was too late by then.

Final score
IECC 124/9 in 32.3 Overs
Atul 25, Bobby 23, Silvi 26*, Arbab 3/31
Kytes 125/5 in 25.3 Overs
Chamberlain 29, Mewan 22, Neil 19*, Dinesh 3/19

31st May 2009- IECC winning streak broken by Sarendib

Sarendib won the toss and elected to bat first.
We opened the bowling with Ashok and Anurag and Vijender took care of the keeping in absence of our regular wicket keepers.
We bowled well but Sarendib capitalized on the occasional bad balls.We also dropped several simple catches to let them of the hook. The weather also played its part. We had 3 breaks due to rain and each time we came back to bowl after the rain, we had a hard time dealing with the slippery pitch and ball. Sarendib batted intelligently mixing caution with aggression and post a challenging total of 248.

We had a packed batting line up and we knew 6 runs per over at Shizouka is gettable. We started promisingly reaching 50 in just 5 overs. Fresh from a 150+ partnership in the last game, Vimal and Viswa were batting brilliantly but both got out to some brilliant fielding and accurate bowling. At that stage we were still sitting pretty, but then some poor running between the wickets and some bad luck with the decisions took the game out of our reach. Finally we got all out for just 188 on the 31st over.

Brief score card....
Dhanuka(73), Ashok 4/39
Dinesh(29),Vimal (26), Ashanka 2/35

19th May 2009-IECC Defeated Predators convicingly

Since the conditions were not good for KCL match the captains and the umpires agreed to reschedule the KCL match. IECC and Predators decided to play a friendly 20/20 instead in the rain.

IECC batting first scored 213/6 in 20 overs. Viswa(85) and Vimal(65) had a 150+ opening partnership.

Predators crumbeled under pressure of chasing such a high score and got allout for 113 in the 19th over. Predators captain Andrew(46) was the top scorer from their side.