USA Cricketer

The Tenth MCC Tour of USA - March of 2010

2010-03-07T17:12:00Z

A brief history of MCC Tours

In 1859, a team led by George Parr toured America, playing two matches at Hoboken, two in Philadelphia and one match at Rochester. This was the first overseas tour by any English side. The team, a composite English side that drew from several first class teams before the dawn of international cricket, featured several members of the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC - the custodian of the laws of cricket). The MCC members that took part in that first tour including Alfred Diver, William Caffyn, Thomas Lockyer, James Grundy, and John Lillywhite. George Parr subsequently joined MCC in 1863. Thus began MCC’s long love affair with USA.

The 1859 tour was also instrumental in triggering a tradition of visits by international teams to USA including the first such tours by Australia (1878) and West Indies (1886). Matches versus Gentlemen of Philadelphia (GOP) formed the backbone of many of these tours, and in time, the GOP began to improve and sometimes defeat the visiting teams. This emboldened the Gentlemen of Philadelphia to undertake overseas tours themselves in 1884. On the 1884 tour, the GOP played seventeen games on their first tour of England, winning nine, losing four and drawing four.

The Harvard Crimson noted with satisfaction: “Barring a crushing defeat at the hands of the celebrated Marylebone Club, generally known as the "MCC," which numbers amongst its three thousand and more members, (almost every amateur cricketer of note in England), the record of the team was very creditable.” This was a USA team's first overseas match against the MCC.

In 1905, an exclusively MCC side toured USA - a forerunner for many such MCC tours. In 1959, MCC marked the 100th anniversary of the historic tour of 1859 by traveling to USA, playing matches against Philadelphia and Washington DC. To date, MCC toured USA nine times, including most recently in 2004 when they played seven matches at four venues including New York.

The 2010 tour of MCC (March 14th - 31st, 2010)

Fast forward to 2009, when a tour to North America was planned to coincide with the 150th anniversary of the 1859 tour of George Parr XI. That much anticipated tenth tour of MCC to USA was postponed and will now take place in March of 2010 (March 14-31). For the first time ever, this MCC side will not play any matches in Philadelphia, opting to play all its matches in California and Florida, endowed with better March weather and turf wickets.

Pic (Right): John Stephenson, MCC Head of Cricket (Coutesy: MCC)

Without referring to the historic nature of the tour, John Stephenson, MCC Head of Cricket said: "MCC’s 2010 touring schedule whets the appetite. More MCC Members are applying for tours than ever before, and our tours continue to prove themselves beneficial to both our players and, most importantly, cricket in the countries we visit."

MCC Tour of March 2010 - Tour Program

The visitors will land in Los Angeles on March 15th. After a day of rest on March 16, the MCC side will play an exhibition match against the Southern California Cricket Association (SCCA) on March 17th.

On March 19th, the USA Western Region team captained by Aditya Thyagarajan will play a 40-over match, to be played at Woodley Field. Reginald Benjamin will coach the Western Region side, Imran Khan, the Manager of Team USA will assist as manager and Ganesh Sanap of NCCA will be the scorer/statistician for the match. Following the match, the Hollywood Cricket Club will host a banquet honoring the MCC.

After playing a Twenty20 match against Hollywood CC on March 20th, the action will shift to the Bay Area where on Sunday, March 21st, a North West side captained by Vijay Beniwal will play a 50-over match against the visitors at the Santa Clara cricket ground on Benton Street. The region has also planned a banquet honoring the visitors that evening.

From the San Francisco Bay Area, the visitors will proceed to Sacramento where they will play a 30-over match against the home side on March 22nd. On March 24th, the MCC will offer coaching to the Western Region’s U-19 and U-15 probables at the Collins Elementary nets in Cupertino.

From California, MCC will travel to Florida, where they will play a Twenty20 match against a West Indian XI on Friday, March 26th. The tour will end with back to back 50-over matches against USA on Saturday (March 27) and a West Indian XI (March 28th). All three matches will be played at the Lauderhill Stadium, Central Broward. The composition of the Western Region, the North West team, Team USA and West Indian squads for the matches against MCC are not yet known and will be published on DreamCricket.com when they become available.

The MCC Squad

Name	Role	Represented
Frank Russell	Manager	Buckinghamshire CCC; Gerrards Cross CC
Michael Foster	Captain & batsman	Victoria; Reigate Priory CC
Rupert Swetman	Batsman	Old Brisotlians; Westbury CC
Shani Kamalia	Batsman	Shepherds Bush CC
Paul Bryson	Batsman	ECB XI; Cheshire CCC; Highfield CC
Torquil Deacon	Batsman	Romany CC
Karl Pearson	All-rounder	Herefordshire CCC; Gore Court CC
Paul Davidge	Wicketkeeper	Huntingdonshire CC; Godmanchester Town CC
Matt Friedlander	All-rounder	Boland; Northamptonshire CCC; Cambdridge MCCU; Cambridge Granta CC
Tom Bartram	All-rounder	Durham MCCU; York CC
Simon Montgomery	All-rounder	Prestbury CC
Paul Terry	Bowler	Chicester Priory Park CC
Will Hodson	Bowler	Durham MCCU; Castleford CC
Ajaz Akhtar	Bowler	Cambridgeshire CCC; Peterborough Town CC
Sid Poole	Umpire	Middlesex League umpire
Don Shelley	Scorer	Middlesex CCC scorer

Courtesy: MCC

MCC Tour Itinerary - Sunday 14 March - Wednesday 31 March 2010

Date(s)	Info/Match	Venue
Sun 14 March	Team meeting at Lord's	Lord's
Mon 15 March	Depart for LA, USA	Heathrow
Tue 16 March	Accliamatisation & nets
Wed 17 March	Coaching session MCC v SCCA (40 overs)	Woodley CC
Thu 18 March	Rest day
Fri 19 March	MCC v Western Region (40 overs) followed by banquet hosted by Hollywood CC	Woodley CC
Sat 20 March	MCC v Hollywood All Stars (20 overs) & transfer to San Jose	Woodley CC
Sun 21 March	MCC v North West Region (50 overs)	Santa Clara Cricket Ground, Benton Street
Mon 22 March	MCC v Sacramento (30 overs)	Sacramento
Tue 23 March	Rest day
Wed 24 March	Coaching in California	Collins Elementary, Cupertino
Thu 25 March	Transfer to San Francisco Fly to Miami
Fri 26 March	Coaching & MCC v West Indian XI (20 overs)	Central Broward
Sat 27 March	MCC v USA (50 overs)	Central Broward
Sun 28 March	USA v West Indian XI (50 overs)	Central Broward
Mon 29 March	Rest day
Tue 30 March	Depart for UK
Wed 31 March	Arrive back in UK

Past MCC Tours - Statistics (Courtesy of our stats partner - Cricket Archive)

G Parr's XI in North America 1859 (not officially an MCC tour - comprised of several MCC members)

Marylebone Cricket Club in North America 1905

Marylebone Cricket Club in North America 1907

Marylebone Cricket Club in North America 1959

Marylebone Cricket Club in North America 1967

Marylebone Cricket Club in United States of America 1990/91

Marylebone Cricket Club in United States of America 1992/93

Marylebone Cricket Club in United States of America 1999

Marylebone Cricket Club in United States of America 2000

Marylebone Cricket Club in United States of America 2004

DreamCricket's Winter Cricket Tournament a Big Hit

2010-03-02T17:44:00Z

DreamCricket.com, USA's cricket destination, is now on Facebook. Please help us popularize cricket in USA by becoming a fan of our Facebook page.

After the 1st weekend of DreamCricket’s inaugural Winter Cricket Tournament 2010, the teams assembled again at the Hillsborough, NJ indoor facility for what became affectionately referred to as cricket’s version of “Super Saturday”.

The events of the evening got underway at 6:45PM when Derby (the top team to emerge out of Group “A”) faced off against the Dream Runners (The 2nd place team from “Group B”, who barely scraped through to the Semi Finals with one win after ending their first match with a negative score. Derby won the toss and bowled first. Dream Runners’ first batting pair of Rushi Amin and Lalit got their team off to a good start and the next pairs also chipped in with useful contributions to muster 23 runs in 6 overs. This is a score that, in the 6-over Indoor cricket world, would be considered ‘something that the bowlers could bowl at’.

Derby started cautiously, but once they lost their first wicket, the burden of a negative score started weighing each of their pairs down progressively and the proverbial floodgates blasted open. Dream Runners added to their misery with some brilliant fielding and tight bowling that ensured that they were the first entrants into the Final.

The next match started as scheduled at 7:30PM. This one, between the favorites, Woodlot from Group “B”, and the Desi Warriors from Group “A”, started with Desi Warriors scoring their highest total, the 2nd defendable total of the day, 26. They must have started that defense with one eye firmly set on the Final. But one over where a Desi Warrior was no-balled for a back foot ‘No Ball’ 4 times and gave away few more 2s saw Woodlot miraculously pull of a victory and entered the Finals against Dream Runners. This is probably why they say ‘champion teams find a way to win’ or ‘winning is a habit’.

Photo (Left): Winners of the DreamCricket Winter Tournament, Woodlot

Woodlot proved that once more when they lost the toss to Dream Runners in the Finals and, with a meager total of just 14, still took crucial wickets at the right time and added pressure of the Dream Runners batting combinations. Dream Runners still entered the last over with 10 runs to go, but another wicket in that over pretty much sealed the tournament in Woodlot’s favor.

DreamCricket's Winter Tournament from Rushi Amin on Vimeo.

At the ensuing awards ceremony, Kranthi Bayya, CEO of DreamCricket, welcomed and thanked all gathered for making this tournament a success and announced that a few Winter Tournaments were in the works. Venu Myneni, CEO of Radiant Systems and a partner and advisor at DreamCricket presented the Winner’s trophy to Woodlot. The Winners also received a certificate for free practice hours at the vast 6000 sq. ft. facility at DreamCricket’s Hillsborough, NJ location. Ms. Bayya also awarded free practice hours to ALL the teams that participated in this inaugural tournament.

The captains of the teams assembled expressed their gratitude to DreamCricket for an opportunity to “…play some sport and get some exercise during the winter …” as Sriram from Woodlot put it. Dream Runners awarded their Runner Up trophy to Derby as a gesture of goodwill, gratitude and upheld the spirit of this sport that has been instrumental in its longevity.

For indoor cricket practice, go to
DreamCricket, 5 Jill Court, Bldg 14, Door 16, Hillsborough, NJ.

If you or someone you know would like to participate in future DreamCricket tournaments or events,

please contact:
frontfoot@dreamcricket.com for more information or
keep checking this page for updates on ore winter leagues and tournaments at DreamCricket.

Interview: Don Lockerbie sits down to talk about the latest announcements in USA cricket (Part 1)

2010-03-01T19:34:00Z

A few days before the start of the ICC World Cricket League Division Five Tournament in Kathmandu, Nepal, Peter Della Penna of DreamCricket.com had the opportunity to sit down with USA Cricket Association CEO Don Lockerbie to ask him about recent developments that have been making headlines for USACA. In particular, the biggest news announced ahead of the tournament was that New Zealand and Sri Lanka will be coming to the US in May to play a series of Twenty20 matches in Florida.

Over the course of the interview, Lockerbie revealed several other pieces of new information. Among these are that Pakistan might possibly join Sri Lanka and New Zealand to play in May’s Twenty20 series, an MCC team will be coming to Florida to play a USA development squad in March, his potential plan to bid for the 2013 Champions Trophy and a more in-depth look at how he plans to professionalize cricket in America.

Pic (Right): USA Cricket CEO Don Lockerbie with IPL Chairman Lalit Modi. [Courtesy: Daniela Zaharia/USACA]

Here is part 1 of the interview.

Peter Della Penna: The partnership with New Zealand, these matches that are announced with Sri Lanka, obviously everybody’s known about New Zealand for a while now, the partnership that’s been established with them, but how did Sri Lanka become involved in this in trying to arrange these matches?

Don Lockerbie: Back in November, we met with the Sri Lankan secretary at the ICC meetings and it was made expressly by them that they wanted to follow in the footsteps of other Full Members, particularly like New Zealand, and come sooner than later to the United States. Nishantha Ranatunga is the secretary general for the Sri Lanka Cricket Board and funny enough, his brother was formerly the secretary and now lives in Washington, D.C. So he knows USA well, he’s followed USA cricket. They want to help and there’s a good feeling about Sri Lankan cricket around the world.

Sri Lanka are a fun team to watch, they’re very energetic. They were World Cup finalists in the 2007 World Cup. I’ve seen them play a lot and I just think it’s a great brand of cricket so absolutely wanted to honor their desire to come play and with our partnership, Justin Vaughan has been doing a great job from New Zealand making the case to come to the United States. With the West Indies hosts of the 2010 World T20, all the teams are coming to the neighborhood so a lot of them are knocking on the door and looking to find a chance to play with us.

Peter Della Penna: Obviously these are matches between Sri Lanka and New Zealand, but what kind of money, what are the potential earning opportunities in terms of possible television rights and other sources of revenue that would go to USACA from this kind of event?

Don Lockerbie: It’s hard to say right now what the final tally like that could be estimated at, but I can tell you that in this day and age in cricket, the way that you’re going to make some commercial rights stick are to create some long-term partnerships and relationships. So in the coming weeks, with our partners New Zealand, we’ll be looking to create some long-term match opportunities and series where we can sit down with some of the top broadcasters of the world and look for something that they can count on.

Doing one-off events is never going to be profitable. What we need to do is start creating a consistency of matches that are probably best played in the United States between, let’s just say April to September, something like that, where it’s a good time of year for the

Full Members who are looking for places to play and we think that trying to establish some long-term value to our broadcasters, our sponsors, having good paydays for the teams that come and play in the United States are all very very important in commercial consideration. So right now what we’re doing is we’re developing the strategic plan that we can bring to sponsors and broadcasters and it also has a lot to do with who is playing.

So one of the things that we’re also looking to do is at the same time we announced the Sri Lanka-New Zealand opportunity, which we’re still finalizing all the nuts and bolts on that from dates, to the competition schedule, to again working with any potential broadcasters, there’s an opportunity for a third Full Member to come in as well and it’s no secret that we’ve been in discussions with Pakistan. So obviously I think the value of the television rights or long-term rights for the United States Cricket have to do with the high level of competition that’s coming to the country and if we can bring in two or three Full Members in May this year after the World T20, that will be a great start for us.

It’ll be the first time that we really have two or three Full Members playing and that’s what we want our stakeholders to realize, that this will be annual, this will be several times a year and your question about how commercially viable it is will have to do with the ability that we start off well. If we play to empty stadiums and nobody’s all that interested, then the whole business of the commercial viability of the United States is nothing more than a rumor. So what we really need is for people who’ve been wanting to see cricket, who are hungry for cricket, support what we’re doing. Get out there, watch it, support it and let broadcasters know and let sponsors know that this is exactly what fans of US cricket have been wanting or fans of world cricket have been wanting.

Peter Della Penna: Obviously the dates haven’t been finalized yet, but potentially what would be the kind of price range that fans would be expecting to pay? There’s no real precedent that’s been set for a kind of US cricket event obviously in terms of ticket-selling but has there been any discussion in terms of what the price range would be for fans who might want to come and fly to Florida or fans in Florida who would want to buy tickets to this kind of thing?

Don Lockerbie: No. It’s a little premature to say what our ticket prices are going to be. But I can say that we want them to be reasonable. We’re essentially a new business and like any new business, you want to set up price points that are going to get people to the stadium and to enjoy it and come back. So I think that we are absolutely looking at the opportunity to develop the kind of matches that people will find affordable.

I know that our Full Members will be generous with us and see their own coming to the United States as a way to help USACA and the way to do that is not to be too terribly expensive for them and that’s why we’re looking at generous partners.

The whole thing with the New Zealand partnership, this is a long-term deal we’re putting together with them. We’re looking at New Zealand actually investing in United States Cricket and by doing that, they’re not out to do anything but make the game more popular and we all agree that the way to do that is to fill up the stands as best we can. So we’ll be reasonable with our ticket prices, with our concessions, with our merchandise.

Peter Della Penna: What else are these teams doing besides obviously playing matches? Is there anything that’s going to be set up in terms of running a local youth coaching clinic or running a local community thing, anything like that?

Don Lockerbie: Without a doubt, we’d be looking always to set up coaching clinics and youth camps and opportunities maybe for local VIPs and celebrities to try hitting the ball and trying to make it fun for all. Without a doubt the sport, particularly in the Twenty20 game, is one of family entertainment and fun and it’s a fast paced experience and I’m sure that we’ll be looking to address some of the entertainment around the grandstands.

Perhaps concerts, perhaps going as far as the IPL with cheerleaders, we want to make sure that cricket is the exciting fast paced game that it’s now become in Twenty20 and I know that part of what we want to do is become the place to come play. United States is going to be a place that will have full stadiums and lots of fun and entertainment and great atmosphere. That’s what everyone thinks cricket should be for the United States and that’s what we’ll be planning to do.

Peter Della Penna: You mentioned with Pakistan obviously could be a team that comes in May, along with Sri Lanka and New Zealand. But they played, in the past year, series in Abu Dhabi, one day series, and they obviously don’t have a permanent home right now to host matches. What is the likelihood of them playing 50-over matches in 2010 in the US against other teams?

Don Lockerbie: Right now, I don’t think there’s any plan for them to play one-day internationals. The invitation that has been made has been to come to the United States in April where they could be creating a training camp and perhaps some warm-up matches before they go defend their world championship in the West Indies at the T20 World Cup and then the other option is to see if they’re interested to come play in May.

I need to be clear, the current negotiation between New Zealand and Sri Lanka is moving forward. The invitation is being made to Pakistan, but their interest is very very high and it has a lot to do with their own scheduling, with the players who would be available, and we made it clear to all three teams that we’re looking for their powerhouse teams. We’re looking for them to come and make history in the United States.

To be clear, the announcement that we made about New Zealand and Sri Lanka is significant. It’s one where we are very very excited that they are now finalizing negotiations with us to make it real. There’s no doubt in my mind that it’s going to take place and with Pakistan we’ve just made the invitation for them to study very quickly whether April and or May would be something that they want to do. So that puts them in a Twenty20 mindset. We made it very clear to [Pakistan Cricket Board] Chairman [Ijaz] Butt that we again want a long-term relationship with them.

We want to be helpful and useful to their situation and current condition of having difficulty finding places to play and there’s millions of Pakistan fans in the United States. We’ve got I’m sure for them a very loyal following that would be very eager to support that team. Therefore, the idea that there could be 50-over cricket from a Pakistan side soon is very reasonable to expect.

Pic (Left) - L to R: Nabeel Ahmed (USACA - First VP), IS Bindra (ICC Principal Advisor), Don Lockerbie (USA Cricket CEO) and Ahmed Jeddy (Central West Regional Representative to USACA Board) [Courtesy: Daniela Zaharia/USACA]

Peter Della Penna: In terms of getting the US team playing in these Twenty20 matches in Florida, would these be actual matches or would it just be warm-up matches? Would they be listed as warm-up matches or would they be classed as full?

Don Lockerbie: The matches in April would be to help benefit the teams who are going on to the World T20 in the Caribbean. We would have liked to been one of those teams, but we finished essentially in a tie for fifth with Kenya. We had to finish in the top two to have that shot.

So now it’s really a matter of being good members of the ICC and fulfilling an opportunity to help the guys that are going to the World T20, those teams.

In May, it’s a different matter. In May, with Sri Lanka and New Zealand coming in, we would be in a position to be one of the competing teams and that’s exciting for us because that truly will be full-on cricket with the United States being the third or fourth team in a series of double-headers.

Peter Della Penna: There’s this letter (press release) that was made at the end of January in regards to professional coaching being one of your intentions for the future. How close is that or how far away is that from happening? Also part of that statement was professional contracts for players. How close are those things to happening?

Don Lockerbie: They should happen in 2010. The expectation is that we’re professionalizing cricket in the United States. It started with my hiring in April of a year ago. We’re fast approaching the end of the first year and we’re fast approaching the ability to feel comfortable with some of the initiatives that we’ve put in place and some of the financial planning that we’re putting in place and can soon announce.

We’re adding staff to my office which would include hiring a national director of coaching, an assistant coaching staff, kind of retooling the way we select players throughout the country.

We’d be looking at a regional coaching staff around the country that we’d want to incentivize with paid positions. So in other words, I think that a lot of people know that my strategy all along has been to start at the national team level and work our way down because I believe that club cricket and regional cricket is healthy. Certainly, they can always use more funding and more facilities and more initiatives and we’ll get that to them in the near future, but the first thing to do in my opinion is to meet the mandate of the ICC and the mandate of the ICC is to make sure that we’re developing professional cricket teams that can make it to World Cups.

So we’re going to start that way, but I think that the stakeholders of US cricket will soon find that there will be funding for all areas of US cricket and that the goal is to make noise and noteworthy headlines at the national and international level so that the funding can come in so that there are broadcasters and sponsors and investors who want to be part of US cricket and so that it then makes its way throughout all specters and spectrums of US cricket.

Pic (Right): USA Cricket CEO observes a team meeting before USA vs Nepal (which USA won) [Courtesy: Daniela Zaharia/USACA]

Peter Della Penna: (Moving on to professionalization of cricket). How many contracts do you foresee initially being handed out? Is it going to be 15 for the full national team squad or is it just 5 or 10 or incrementally over the course of the next year or so? How many initially are there going to be?

Don Lockerbie: I can’t say that now. I haven’t finalized that plan. A lot of it has to do with how fast we also move towards development of a professional T20 domestic league in the United States, which is also very much on the table. We are currently very far along with a group that we’ve been talking to since the summer of 2009 who are putting together a very impressive proposal for us regarding the development of a league by 2012.

Now, we’d be looking for an American summer of international cricket at the domestic T20 league which would professionalize many of our players and would contract many of our players. What we have to look at is following kind of the professional soccer model which is you professionalize your players because they’re part of franchise teams and then you incentivize them for the national teams with a secondary contract when they’re playing at the international level and that’s kind of the model that we’re following.

Obviously we want to professionalize as many players as possible and the league will do that. If you figure that in a few years, we might have six to eight professional teams in the United States with say seven or eight Americans on each team, we could soon have whatever that math is, 50-60 players with professional contracts and that also would mean that there would be administrators and coaches with professional contracts and then our selection process would be completely different as to how we then devise and create national teams.

We really see that part of our strategy to professionalize cricket is also to create this domestic league and that’s very high on our radar and we’ve not been talking about it a lot but we can announce that in 2010, we’re making very serious progress and look forward to some announcements about that later in the year.”

Peter Della Penna: How many and which cities are being targeted to host these teams and where would the matches be played? Obviously there’s only the one major stadium in Florida at the moment. Where would these matches be played?

Don Lockerbie: These stadiums are going to have to come online in the next few years in the cities that want and so again I’m not at liberty to share the business model right now. I just wanted to be able to share the fact that we’ve made more progress than most people think and I’m talking about a domestic league right now. I’m not talking about the IPL coming to the United States. That’s another matter. To be clear, this is something we’ve been working on since really June of last year.

You’ll recall there was an international tender that took place. Well, it’s been making progress. So to say how many teams are gonna be or how many cities would be premature because the business model’s still being worked on. But what I can say is at the right time, there’ll be an opportunity for franchises. There’ll be an opportunity for cities to bid. Part of that will have to be the development of stadiums and we’ll get more information out about that probably by the summer.

Peter Della Penna: Where are you expecting the fans to come from to support this kind of thing? Obviously over the past year that I’ve seen anyway, nobody’s really shown up to the USACA tournaments and nobody really shows up to club cricket in the US. Where are you anticipating or how are you going to try and get fans to come out to start supporting domestic cricket?

Don Lockerbie: Domestic cricket doesn’t mean it doesn’t have international players. Domestic cricket means that it is American city based. It’ll be owned and operated by a USACA joint venture and it will be ICC approved and it will be the kind of league that deals in a very significant and friendly manner with the Full Member boards from around the world.

We will absolutely be a team where fans will see some of their favorite players and maybe some other players that are up and coming from various boards and clubs around the world. Again, the business model isn’t finalized, but I know that everybody we’re talking to is pretty excited about it and the important piece of it right now is that we’re making the necessary progress. It’s not stagnant, it’s not static.

Pic (Left): Don Lockerbie addresses a gathering of students at Lincoln School in Nepal [Courtesy: Daniela Zaharia/USACA]

Peter Della Penna: You talked about players, new selection process, a whole lot of new things coming in with hopefully the new professional structure, etc. Why should players who are currently in the domestic system who have been overlooked continuously in the past, why should they feel that a new system, why should they feel convinced that things are going to change when in the past they’ve been frustrated at having not been selected?

Don Lockerbie: Well, unfortunately US has played such little international cricket over the last five years that when there’s only 14 men selected to a team, it’s difficult to either break in or it’s just not that much cricket. So for even the men who’ve been on the 14 and who’ve been here for years like Steve Massiah, Lennox Cush, Orlando Baker, all these guys who’ve been playing for years, that they’re still around is a testament to their dedication and commitment to cricket so it’s exciting to see these guys.

In the same vein, we now have professional management. We’re not just a board anymore with volunteers who give up their time and dedication and when there’s an opportunity to play cricket, they put a team together. Now, we’ve got a 24/7, 365-day management that is looking to try and find a way for our teams to play more cricket.

If some of the current players can be patient and some of the younger players can stay dedicated, there’s no reason why again, with a professional league coming, you couldn’t be a professional cricketer. 50-60 players can be professional cricketers. That’s something you’re going to be able to see in the next two to five years.

The US national team is going to play more frequently, I mean even this year in 2010. Let’s look at 2009. There was not one single international match for the US national team in 2009. In fact, when we played in Dubai in February, it would have been November ‘08 since the last match so maybe we were a little rusty. We hadn’t played in, what would that be, 15 months. So here we are. But now, we (played) a month of cricket in February in Dubai and Nepal.

In March, we’re gonna play the MCC in Fort Lauderdale. In April, we’ll play warm-up matches for the T20 World Cup. In May, we’re gonna be part of the Sri Lanka-New Zealand series. Then we have the Americas Championships in May-June and WCL Division Four in Italy in August. I mean that’s an amazing amount of cricket in comparison to what this team has done.

Some of the guys are gonna be able to play all of it, some are not. We’ll be able to move players in and that doesn’t even count the other ideas we have right now – series with Canada, series with other countries that all want to come and play in the United States. So honestly, if you’re a cricketer, the next few years could be the beginning of the dream to play as much professional cricket as people ever hoped. For the guys that we’re watching today and are currently playing, I hope that they still have a lot of good years left in them to play. Now, I’m not sleeping at night until what I’ve promised, which is professionalization of cricket in the United States, is alive and well.

Pic (Right): Don Lockerbie believes that the fans will come if we do it right. A picture of the spectators that came to watch USA vs Nepal. [Courtesy: Daniela Zaharia/USACA]

Peter Della Penna: What else is new or what are some of the other things on tap for the United States in the next nine months, ten months through the end of 2010?

Don Lockerbie: Well, we’ve made the announcement that we’ve met with Lalit Modi, Sundar Raman, and we’ve definitely got a working group that will be starting in May with the IPL. Lalit has agreed to meet with us again in May, right around the T20, and we will be setting up a working group that will study how the IPL does come to the United States, when does it come, how does it come. Right now, the concepts are on the table, everything from just individual teams or several of them coming and touring the United States and playing matches to the potential of maybe a shorter version, smaller version of the IPL in the American summer. Those are all concepts that are no secret because other people are talking about them.

So we’ll start talking seriously. The IPL has made the announcement that they’d like to be in the United States in 2011. So that sounds like a pretty serious commitment. The good part about it is that when people are reading headlines about what the IPL is saying about America, Americans should understand that we’re very much part of the picture. We know what’s going on, we’ve been quiet about it until now, but it’s exciting to state that things are moving in the right direction.

Peter Della Penna: You talked with David Morgan and Haroon Lorgat in Dubai?

Don Lockerbie: Absolutely. In fact, I was summoned to a meeting by them which was a great opportunity for me to update them while I was in Dubai as to all the plans that we’re working on and kind of give them more first-hand information on the details from the press releases they were reading.

I think they’re very very pleased with the direction we’re headed. They were very very complimentary of our relationship with New Zealand Cricket and we seem to be handling things correctly. I think as an Associate, we might be an anomaly. We’re trying to be an Associate team that’s going to act and behave like a Full Member until someday that we have the kind of teams that can beat Full Members and maybe become a Full Member. It would certainly be our goal following what Ireland is trying to do.

Peter Della Penna: Did you talk to them at all about the possibility of trying to bring an ICC event to the US?

Don Lockerbie: Well, there’s one ICC event that is available, open and unscheduled and unlocated and that’s the Champions Trophy of 2013. It’s our understanding that the ICC will inform all members that there will be a tender process probably in the next month and I learned that while I was in Dubai.

I will put this before the board of USACA, but it would be my own personal goal to bid for the 2013 Champions Trophy. We understand that we would need essentially two stadiums and several training grounds that would all be within an hour or two of one another, maybe an hour or two or three of one another. I already know that there would be tremendous interest in Florida. I know that there would be tremendous interest in New York and I would be happy to know if there were other cities in the United States that would be interested.

Nepal takes tournament title after magnificent seven wicket haul by Vishvakarma

2010-02-27T21:55:00Z

By Peter Della Penna

In a rematch of Friday's showdown at Tribhuvan University Cricket Ground, Nepal exacted revenge on USA as the host team won Saturday's World Cricket League Division Five championship match by five wickets in Kathmandu, Nepal. Rahul Vishvakarma was named Man of the Match after turning in a stunning performance with the ball, taking 7 for 15 bowling left arm orthodox spin.

Pic to the left: Rahul Vishvakarma pics up his Man of the Match award after taking 7 for 15. Courtesy Daniela Zaharia/USACA.

"We would have loved to win this today, but full credit to Nepal," said USA captain Steve Massiah. "I thought they took the game away from us. 150 for 3 and then Rahul came in and got seven wickets. They deserve it."

USA won the toss and elected to bat first on a cool morning. For the third game in a row, USA used a different opening combination as Orlando Baker came out to bat with Lennox Cush. Cush tried to be his usual aggressive self and struck a six over point off his second ball to get off the mark but was out for 10 after only 11 balls and USA was 19 for 1 in the 4^th over.

Steve Massiah came in and continued his solid form by constructing a methodical partnership with Baker. The two kept the Nepal pacemen at bay as they added 81 runs for the second wicket. Baker was starting to look stronger as his innings went on, but was run out for 49 on a piece of lazy cricket. Massiah was on strike facing Vishvakarma in the 27^th over and slogged a full ball wide of long on. He didn't run thinking it was going for four. Gyanendra Malla chased after it hard and swatted it back inside the rope when Massiah and Baker decided to get moving. Off the bat, it should have been a comfortable two, but because neither man started running hard at first, Baker came back for what become a very risky second. Malla scooped up the ball after knocking it down, fired an accurate throw from the boundary to Vishvakarma over the stumps and the bails came off with Baker well short.

However, Massiah did well to shake off the blunder and steeled himself for another long stay at the crease. Sushil Nadkarni came out and joined him to put on 41 runs for the third wicket before he was out stumped for 17 trying to slog off-spinner Sanjam Regmi to make it 141 for 3 in 36 overs.

With the batting power play still in hand and Massiah well set, it appeared USA would motor on to score between 220 and 240. Massiah brought up his 50 with an impressive six over midwicket off left arm spinner Shakti Gauchan in the 39^th over. In the next over though, USA would have no answer for Vishvakarma's plan to bowl over the wicket. Previously, the spinner had bowled only around the wicket, but after the first ball of the 40^th over, decided to change his angle and it paid immediate dividends. Massiah tried to slog him and top edged one high over the keeper's head to Gauchan who made a great catch diving forward running in from short third man to send Massiah on his way for 55 as USA had fallen to 152 for 4.

Pic above: Lennox Cush bowls to Anil Mandal with Rashard Marshall (left) and Orlando Baker (right) fielding close in as the crowd looks on. Courtesy Daniela Zaharia/USACA.

From there, things unraveled for USA at an alarming rate. Aditya Thyagarajan was out two balls later edging a drive to the captain Paras Khadka at point for 4. Carl Wright and Timroy Allen fell in identical fashion, driving him in the air to be well caught on the long off boundary by Mahaboob Alam. Usman Shuja's foot dragged slightly out of his crease going for a slog to be stumped while Rashard Marshall and Imran Awan got out when they top edged attempted slogs. USA's last 7 wickets fell for 20 runs. In Vishvakarma's second spell of bowling, he bowled 5.2 overs, had 2 maidens and took 7 wickets for 3 runs as he just about singlehandedly bowled out USA for 172 in 47.2 overs.

The crowd in excess of 10,000 had even more reason to cheer when Mahesh Chhetri and Anil Mandal got Nepal off to a strong start, putting on 85 for the first wicket before Mandal slammed one to midwicket facing the off-spin of Allen and was caught on the boundary by Shuja for 37. Cush then had Chhetri caught behind for 28 to make it 88 for 2 in 24 and followed it up by nabbing the captain Khadka for 5 to make it 104 for 3 in the 30^th.

USA tried to keep making breakthroughs, but more terrible fielding, a chronic problem on tour, held them back as dropped chances, misfields and overthrows gave Nepal room to breathe. The pressure was relieved and Nepal managed to get closer and closer until they had passed the target with 19 balls to spare. Usman Shuja took two wickets to try and give USA a chance, but Malla and Alam put the pressure straight back on USA's bowlers with an aggressive 35-run partnership to end the match. Malla, who is only 19-years-old, finished 28 not out a day after top-scoring with 52 against USA while Alam was unbeaten on 17. The crowd erupted when the winning four was hit by Alam as Malla immediately grabbed a souvenir stump out of the ground.

While USA finished in second place as a team, they had some impressive individual distinctions. Massiah finished as the tournament's leading run scorer with 289 runs in six games. He had the most 50s in the tournament with four, including a high score of 74 against Fiji. Kevin Darlington was the leading wicket-taker in the event with 14 in six games. His best return was 4 for 65 versus Singapore.

Official Scorecard
ICC WCL Division Five
Nepal vs. USA
Nepal won by 5 wickets
USA won the toss and elected to bat
Man of the Match: Rahul Vishvakarma

USA Batting	
Batsman		Runs	Balls	4s	6s	Dismissal
OM Baker		49	105	3	2	runout (Malla/Vishvakarma)
LJ Cush		10	11	1	1	b Das
SJ Massiah*		55	114	4	1	ct Gauchan b Vishvakarma
SS Nadkarni		17	29	2	1	st Chhetri+ b S Regmi
A Thyagarajan		4	12	1	0	ct Khadka b Vishvakarma
CD Wright+		1	2	0	0	ct Alam b Vishvakarma
RA Marshall		4	9	1	0	ct B Regmi b Vishvakarma
TP Allen		2	12	0	0	ct Alam b Vishvakarma
KU Shuja		3	9	0	0	st Chhetri+ b Vishvakarma
I Awan			7	8	0	1	ct Gauchan b Vishvakarma
KG Darlington	0	6	0	0	not out
Total Extras		20 (0 no balls, 0 byes, 7 leg byes, 13 wides)
Team Total 		172 all out in 47.2 overs

Fall of wicket: 19/1 (Cush), 100/2 (Baker), 141/3 (Nadkarni), 152/4 (Massiah),
152/5 (Thyagarajan), 157/6 (Wright), 158/7 (Marshall), 162/8 (Allen), 
164/9 (Shuja), 172/10 (Awan). 

Nepal Bowling	Overs-Maidens-Runs-Wickets
M Alam		3-0-16-0
BK Das			7-1-27-1
P Khadka		5-0-19-0
SP Gauchan		9-1-31-1
B Regmi		9-0-37-0
RK Vishvakarma	8.2-2-15-7
S Regmi		6-1-20-1

Nepal Batting
Batsman		Runs	Balls	4s	6s	Dismissal
MK Chhetri+		28	73	3	0	ct Wright+ b Cush
AK Mandal		37	66	5	1	ct Shuja b Allen
SP Gauchan		23	58	0	0	LBW Shuja
P Khadka*		5	9	1	0	ct Marshall b Cush
S Vesawkar		11	26	0	0	ct Wright+ b Shuja
G Malla		28	31	3	0	not out
M Alam		17	18	1	1	not out
Total Extras		26 (0 no balls, 2 byes, 4 leg byes, 20 wides)
Team Total 		175 for 5 in 46.5 overs

Did not bat: B Regmi, S Regmi, RK Vishvakarma, BK Das

Fall of wicket: 85/1 (Mandal), 88/2 (Chhetri), 104/3 (Khadka), 127/4 (Vesawkar), 
140/5 (Gauchan). 

USA Bowling 		Overs-Maidens-Runs-Wickets
KG Darlington	8-3-25-0
KU Shuja		10-0-46-2
I Awan			2-0-13-0
LJ Cush		10-1-27-2
TP Allen		10-0-26-1

ICC WCL Division 5 Cricket: USA advances to Division Four with dramatic five-wicket win over Nepal

2010-02-26T20:47:00Z

By Peter Della Penna

Sushil Nadkarni delivered in a big way for USA, scoring 57 not out in a match-winning performance to lift USA past Nepal by five wickets on Friday at the Tribhuvan University International Cricket Ground in Kirtipur, just outside of Kathamandu, Nepal on day five of the ICC World Cricket League Division Five tournament. USA's chase was interrupted after the 32nd over in controversial circumstances as a riot broke out in the hill stand when USA needed 13 runs to win.

Pic (Right): Nadkarni smashed 57 not out. [Courtesy: Daniela Zaharia/USACA]

In front of a crowd of about 1000 fans at the start, which would grow to over 12,000 by the start of the second innings, Nepal won the toss and elected to bat first on another good batting track. However USA’s pace attack was too much for Nepal’s young lineup. Crucially, Usman Shuja was included in place of Sudesh Dhaniram, who was left out due to injury according to USA captain Steve Massiah.

“I was definitely on the boundary for quite some time and the crowd was really loud,” said Aditya Thyagarajan, who hit the winning runs for USA. “It was I think it was a great experience to play in that crowd and to see the passion of the Nepalis. They were really loud, but I think what really happened is that it motivated everybody else to go out there and give your best. I think this game, we played really motivated and we were on the ball. From the first ball, we all were right there and I think the crowd played a part in it.”

Shuja teamed up with Kevin Darlington to blitz the Nepal top order. Darlington continued his excellent form as he took three more wickets to remain USA’s leading wicket-taker in Nepal with 14 in five games. Dipendra Chaudhary was the first to go, trapped on the crease by Darlington for 7 to make it 14/1 in the 5th over. Shuja then struck five balls later, clean bowling Anil Mandal with a full and straight delivery for 4 before Darlington came back in the next over to knock Shakti Gauchan’s off stump out of the ground for a duck to make it 16 for 3.

“It was great to bowl with Usman today,” said Darlington. “Actually, Usman is my roommate. So we had a chat about this last night, basically going over our strategies after our team meetings. So we basically tried to hit the deck really hard today, try to hit the top of off stump, make it kind of difficult for the Nepalis today.”

Shuja should have had another wicket when Nepal’s captain and leading run-scorer in the tournament, Paras Khadka, edged one to first slip a short time later on 6, but was put down by Lennox Cush. However, it wound up not costing USA much as Khadka dragged a pull onto his stumps to be bowled for 12 by Orlando Baker as Nepal sunk to 39 for 4 in the 17th over. Baker then accounted for Nepal’s other danger man Sharad Vesawkar, dismissing him for 15 caught behind by Carl Wright.

Tight bowling by the USA pacemen combined with aggressive field settings by Massiah heaped more pressure on Nepal. A runout was the result when Mahesh Chhetri was indecisive on a single and couldn’t beat Rashard Marshall’s throw to the bowler, Saurabh Verma, over the stumps and when the bails came off, Chhetri had to go for 3 to make it 80 for 6 in the 32nd.

Nepal staged a solid fightback with Gyanendra Malla and Mahaboob Alam putting on a 64-run partnership for the 7th wicket. While Malla grinded out his runs, Alam had a more adventurous stay at the crease, swinging with reckless abandon and offering several edges that always fell safely out of reach from the fielders.

Nepal could have scored even more runs had they not made a crucial tactical blunder. Malla and Alam had each got their eyes in and were well set by the 40th over, but opted not to use the batting power play until the last five overs of the innings. This backfired spectacularly on them in the 45th over when Alam was run out for 38 by Wright darting out from behind the stumps to field a ball hit by Malla in front of point and fired a direct hit at his own end. Four balls later, Cush speared one full on the stumps to hit Malla in front and he was gone LBW for 52 to make it 143 for 8.

Instead of making a charge with two set batsmen, the power play was wasted on two tailenders fresh at the crease. Darlington came on again and gave away only seven runs in three overs of the power play to go along with the wicket of Basanta Regmi for 12. As a team, Nepal only managed 19 runs from the final five overs, even with fielding restrictions, and as a result only finished with 162 for 9 in their 50.

Pic (Left): Riot police were brought in after crowd turned violent! [Courtesy: Daniela Zaharia/USACA]

USA came out and made a decent start in the first few overs with Wright and Baker opening before Baker was given out caught behind for 7, gloving a short ball outside off to the keeper Chhetri off the left arm pace of Alam. Massiah then came out and consolidated with Wright as the two inched their way towards the target. Wright was uncharacteristically defensive and finally was out for 14 in the 14th over, LBW to left arm spinner Gauchan, to make it 43 for 2.

At around the same time Singapore was racing to their target of 193 against Jersey and met it in only 26 overs to boost their net run rate dramatically to +1.347. If USA reached their target of 163 in 37.4 overs or less, both they and Singapore would move on to Division Four in Italy this August and Nepal would be stuck in Division Five.

Nadkarni came out and at first struggled to middle the ball. Massiah took the reins and looked to up the ante with a couple of sixes over the bowler’s head. After eight dots in his first nine balls, Nadkarni started to become slightly more comfortable looking for singles to get Massiah back on strike. The two put on 45 runs when Massiah tried for another six against off spin bowler Sanjam Regmi but was well caught for 42 at long on by the sub fielder Amrit Bhatterai. Marshall got out four balls later to Basanta Regmi for a duck and the double-strike balanced the scales to make it 88 for 4 in 25.

Cush came out and as he has all tournament long in Nepal, tried to hit runs quickly. But after a two half-centuries to start the series, got out cheaply again, chopping a short ball from left arm spinner Rahul Vishvakarma onto his stumps for 9 to make it 112 for 5 in the 29th over.

Thyagarajan then came to the crease in yet another pressure situation. Yet again, he came through for USA and teamed up with Nadkarni to get USA over the line. However, the two men accomplished it the midst of frightening scenes.

The crowd had been unruly for much of the afternoon. During the lunch break, several USA players mentioned feeling uncomfortable fielding on the boundary and one player reported having a rock thrown in his direction. Fights and disturbances had been happening in the crowd on and off throughout the second innings depending on the fortunes of the home team.

The 32nd over started with the score on 131 for 5 with Basanta Regmi on to bowl. After two dot balls, Thyagarajan belted a six over extra cover and then notched a single to get Nadkarni on strike, who was on 43. Nadkarni belted back-to-back sixes over midwicket to bring up his 50 and take the score to 150 and help cement his eventual status as Man of the Match.

“Frankly speaking, I’m actually coming back after six months,” said Nadkarni. “I had a major injury and I was out of cricket period for six months so for me to come back, I was at a point where I’m probably 90-95% really feeling good. The initial two games, I didn’t get going so the confidence levels were low. Going into today’s game against spinners, the one thing I did back myself was that if I can get in and really get my eyesight and my rhythm going, then I should have no problems against these spinners because I back myself. I’m a natural player of spin bowling so that really helped.”

The crowd then became violent at the conclusion of the over, throwing rocks as well as bottles and other objects over the fences and onto the field. Nadkarni and Thyagarajan recognized there might be a delay and initially only asked for drinks to be brought out to them. However, the situation deteriorated rapidly and moments later, both men were rushing off the field into the USA locker room. Nepal’s players soon followed as riot police, who had been stationed on the boundary throughout the match, finally went into action. Within minutes, more than half the crowd fled out of the ground. The field was flooded with rocks and large stones. Wheelbarrows were brought out by the ground staff to help carry the mess away.

“The crowd was brilliant up until the 18 runs,” said Massiah. “It happens. They’re emotional, they love their cricket. I guess it was just disappointing to see a Nepal loss.”

Post Match Interview vs. Nepal with Darlington from Peter Della Penna on Vimeo.

After a 45-minute delay, play resumed with the Duckworth-Lewis formula coming into effect. Four overs were taken off the innings which had a massive effect on the final standings. The target was reduced from 163 to 157 as well. If USA scored seven runs in seven balls, USA and Singapore would advance. If it took slightly longer, USA would move on with Nepal. In the end, Thyagarajan hit a four to finish the match nine balls after play resumed. Had the match not been stopped, USA would have had to score 13 runs in 34 balls out of the 18 overs remaining for Singapore to finish second. Instead, Nepal finished as the second place team with a net run rate of +1.351, just four thousandths of a point better than Singapore.

The celebrations for USA were marred as well when more stones and rocks were thrown from behind the pavilion onto the field as Nadkarni and Thyagarajan were about to come off to be greeted by their teammates. USA’s squad was rushed back into the locker room again while the two batsmen, along with Nepal’s entire team in the field, were forced to wait out in the middle until it was safe enough to sprint for the locker rooms.

USA will return to the same field against the same team for the right to be called WCL Division Five tournament champions on Saturday morning at 9 a.m. in Nepal, Friday night at 10:15 p.m. EST in America. Live coverage will once again be available on Dreamcricket.com.

Official Scorecard
ICC WCL Division Five
Nepal vs. USA
USA won by five wickets (D/L Method)
Nepal won the toss and elected to bat
Man of the Match: Sushil Nadkarni

Nepal Batting	
Batsman			Runs	Balls	4s	6s	Dismissal
D Chaudhary		7	17	0	0	LBW Darlington
AK Mandal		4	14	1	0	b Shuja
SP Gauchan		0	6	0	0	b Darlington
P Khadka*		12	45	1	0	b Baker
S Vesawkar		15	39	2	0	ct Wright+ b Baker
G Malla			52	81	5	0	LBW Cush
MK Chhetri+		3	21	0	0	runout (Marshall/Verma)
M Alam			38	44	2	1	runout (Wright+)
B Regmi			12	17	1	0	b Darlington
S Regmi			4	14	0	0	not out
RVishvakarma		1	2	0	0	not out
Total Extras		14 (0 no balls, 2 byes, 2 leg byes, 10 wides)
Team Total		162 for 9 in 50 overs

Fall of wicket: 14/1 (Chaudhary), 14/2 (Mandal), 16/3 (Gauchan), 39/4 (Khadka), 
53/5 (Vesawkar), 80/6 (Chhetri), 142/7 (Alam), 143/8 (Malla), 161/9 (S Regmi).

USA Bowling		Overs-Maidens-Runs-Wickets
KG Darlington		10-4-23-3
KU Shuja		8-1-19-1
TP Allen		10-1-17-0
OM Baker		6-1-20-2
S Verma			8-0-44-0
LJ Cush			8-0-35-1

USA Batting
Batsman			Runs	Balls	4s	6s	Dismissal
CD Wright+		14	44	1	0	LBW Gauchan
OM Baker		7	5	1	0	ct Chhetri+ b Alam
SJ Massiah*		42	58	3	2	ct sub (Bhatterai) b S Regmi
SS Nadkarni		57	59	3	4	not out
RA Marshall		0	4	0	0	ct Gauchan b B Regmi
LJ Cush			9	15	1	0	b Vishvakarma
A Thyagarajan		18	16	1	1	not out
Total Extras		12 (0 no balls, 1 bye, 4 leg byes, 7 wides)
Team Total		159 for 5 in 33.3 overs (Target 157 in 46 overs for D/L Method)

Nepal Bowling		Overs-Maidens-Runs-Wickets
M Alam			2-0-12-1
P Khadka		6-0-23-0
B Regmi			9-3-33-1
S Gauchan		6-0-18-1
R Vishvakarma		5-0-25-1
S Regmi			5.3-0-43-1

Wayward performance in the field costs USA in loss to Singapore

2010-02-24T20:05:00Z

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By Peter Della Penna

Narender Reddy Bongarum top-scored with 51 at number three for Singapore and took 2 for 23 to help lead his team to a 99-run victory over USA at Pul Chowk Engineering College on day four of the ICC World Cricket League Division Five Tournament in Kathmandu, Nepal. Bongarum was named Man of the Match for his efforts to pull level with USA at second place on the tournament table. Both teams are now 3-1 with USA marginally ahead on net run rate behind Nepal, who is undefeated at 4-0. USA will play Nepal on Friday in a high stakes match at Tribhuvan University and desperately need to win if they want to give themselves the best chance of advancing to Division Four in Italy this August.

USA had a golden chance to clinch a spot in Division Four by beating Singapore, but the Division Six champion from Asia proved they have what it takes to move up one more level by putting in a virtually mistake-free performance against USA. Singapore won the toss and elected to bat first on one of the better batting tracks seen in this tournament. Another string of dropped chances as well as a tournament-high 23 wides and 34 extras by USA’s bowling unit opened the door for Singapore to post 245 in their 50 overs.

Photo (Left): Narender Reddy Bongarum receives his Man of the Match award in Singapore's victory over USA; Courtesy Daniela Zaharia/USACA.

“The bowlers seemed to stray at the wrong time,” said USA head coach Clayton Lambert. “Unfortunately then we go for wides, going for five wides. We ended up giving too many extras.”

Chetan Suryanwanshi and Buddhika Mendis got Singapore off to a crisp start with a 64-run opening stand as the two batsmen played with superb confidence against the pace bowling of Kevin Darlington, Timroy Allen and Orlando Baker. Sudesh Dhaniram was then brought on to slow things down with his off-spin and built pressure until it resulted in a run out. On the last ball of his fourth over, Dhaniram bowled his 16th straight dot ball as Mendis tried to get off strike guiding a ball to third man in the circle, but confusion resulted with his partner and he was stranded as Steve Massiah calmly threw to Carl Wright behind the stumps and the bails were dislodged to send Mendis back for 27. Suryawanshi then pulled a short ball from Lennox Cush to Massiah at midwicket and USA had two wickets in four balls as Suryawanshi walked back for 34 to make it 64 for 2 in the 16th over.

However, Singapore regrouped with the biggest partnership of the match put on by Bongarum and Anish Param to build a platform for a late innings charge. The two combined to add 83 runs for the third wicket. USA had their chances though as Bongarum was put down twice, first on 25 as Dhaniram put down a diving chance at deep midwicket with the score at 99 for 2 in the 26th over off the bowling of Saurabh Verma and then again on 40 off a sharp caught and bowled chance when Allen returned to bowl off-spin with the score at 125 for 2 in the 33rd. He was finally given out backing away to slog Darlington in the batting power play and edged a ball that got lodged in Wright’s pads as he was standing up to the stumps.

Another two wickets fell in the power play to give USA some energy as Param was out for 24, stumped after Cush bowled a wide down leg side with Param coming down the pitch to make it 153 for 4. Saad Khan Janjua then fell for 3, clean bowled by Darlington to make it 164 for 5 in 39 overs.

The power play ended in the 40th over with the score at 166 and it seemed as though USA was in the clear. But Pramodh Raja was undeterred by the wickets that had just fallen and came in at number six to bash Darlington, Dhaniram and Cush around the ground for an electric 45 in 29 balls with five fours and two sixes. He put on 57 runs with Manish Arora, the third half-century partnership of the innings, to suddenly give Singapore the upper hand.

Darlington then came back in the 46th over and dismissed Raja to make it 221 for 6. Three more wickets fell in the space of 16 runs as Darlington claimed two more and Dhaniram one, but Singapore managed to bat all 50 overs to finish 245 for 9. In addition to the drops and some poor ground fielding by USA, the bowlers conceded 23 wides against Singapore when they had given up a combined 24 over the first three matches.

“Yesterday’s game certainly put a lot of strain on us and maybe the guys were a bit too relaxed after we had to fight so hard yesterday,” said Lambert. “They came out today and all around we played really really bad cricket.”

USA’s chase was always going to be hard and they stumbled out of the gate when Sushil Nadkarni continued his poor return from injury to be caught behind on the first ball of the second innings off the fast pace of Janjua. Baker was LBW to Janjua for 6 in the 5th over as USA were preparing for another top order collapse at 16 for 2.

Jackie Manoj-Kumar came on and the left arm orthodox spinner was unlucky not to be named Man of the Match as he bowled a devastating spell beginning in the 9th over. On his first ball, Cush came out of his crease and was beaten in flight to be stumped for 14. Sudesh Dhaniram then failed again and has yet to cross double-digits in an official match in either Dubai or Nepal. He went to defend a ball well outside off stump and gave a simple catch behind the stumps to Suryawanshi for Manoj-Kumar’s second wicket, out for 5 to make it 49 for 4 in 15 overs.

Aditya Thyagarajan then came out and did his best to rebuild with the captain, but after the two put on 40 runs together, Thyagarajan could not keep a sweep to ground and middled one straight to Riaz Hussien on the square leg boundary to give off-spinner Param a wicket, out for 22 as USA sunk to 89 for 5.

Wickets then fell at regular intervals as Singapore kept the spinners coming. All but the four overs bowled by opening paceman Janjua were spin. Dharmichand Mulewa induced a mistake from Carl Wright, who lofted one to Bongarum on the long on boundary for 10. Massiah brought up his 50 in 97 balls, but then was out on his next ball to Manoj-Kumar, bowled around his legs trying to sweep and USA’s hopes were dashed as the score became 127 for 7 in 33 overs.

Bongarum then returned for a second spell of off-spin bowling after he opened the match with Janjua. He finished off the match, taking the wickets of Rashard Marshall and Verma with Manoj-Kumar nabbing Allen in between, and USA was all out for 146 in 37.5 overs.

Nepal beat Fiji on Wednesday to remain undefeated and Bahrain topped Jersey to eliminate them from contention for the top two spots. Nepal is 4-0 with a +1.919 net run rate. USA is placed second with a 3-1 record and +1.355 net run rate. Singapore is third at 3-1 and a +1.114 net run rate. If USA beats Nepal and Singapore beats Jersey on Friday, there will be a three-way tie at 4-1 atop the table and net run rate will decide the two teams to move on to Division Four. Nepal is the only team that controls their own destiny and will clinch a spot in Division Four with a win over USA. If USA wins and Singapore loses, USA and Nepal will advance. If Singapore wins and USA loses, USA will finish third with the other two teams advancing. If USA and Singapore both lose, second place will be decided on net run rate. Live coverage of the tense final day will begin at 10 p.m. EST Thursday night on Dreamcricket.com as USA looks to knock off the host team at Tribhuvan University.

USA vs. Jersey, Post Match Interview with Coach Lambert from Peter Della Penna on Vimeo.

Official Scorecard
ICC WCL Division Five
Singapore vs. USA
Singapore won by 99 runs
Singapore won the toss and elected to bat
Man of the Match: Narender Reddy Bongarum
Singapore Batting
Batsman               Runs    Balls    4s    6s    Dismissal
C Suryawanshi+    34    38    4    0    ct Massiah b Cush
B Mendis              27    55    2    0    runout (Massiah/Wright+)
NR Bongarum        51    72    4    2    ct Wright+ b Darlington
A Param               24    59    2    0    st Wright+ b Cush
SK Janjua               3    5    0    0    b Darlington
PVSS Raja           45    29    5    2    ct Dhaniram b Darlington
M Arora*               12    20    1    0    ct Wright+ b Dhaniram
RA Hussien            2    6    0    0    b Darlington
D Mulewa               2    3    0    0    not out
M Shoib                 5    5    0    0    LBW Dhaniram
J Manoj-Kumar       6    8    0    0    not out
Total Extras          34 (0 no balls, 1 bye, 10 leg byes, 23 wides)
Team Total           245 for 9 in 50 overs

Fall of wicket: 64/1 (Mendis), 64/2 (Suryawanshi), 147/3 (Bongarum), 153/4 (Param), 164/5 (Janjua), 221/6 (Raja), 230/7 (Arora), 230/8 (Hussien), 237/9 (Shoib).

USA Bowling     Overs-Maidens-Runs-Wickets
KG Darlington    10-0-65-4
TP Allen             7-1-35-0
OM Baker          6-1-28-0
S Dhaniram       10-3-30-2
LJ Cush             9-0-52-2
S Verma            8-0-24-0

USA Batting
Batsman           Runs    Balls    4s    6s    Dismissal
SS Nadkarni      0    1    0    0    ct Suryawanshi+ b Janjua
OM Baker         6    10    1    0    LBW Janjua
SJ Massiah*     50    98    3    0    b Manoj-Kumar
LJ Cush           14    12    3    0    st Suryawanshi+ b Manoj-Kumar
S Dhaniram       5    17    0    0    ct Suryawanshi+ b Manoj-Kumar
A Thyagarajan 22    26    2    1    ct Hussien b Param
CD Wright        10    23    0    0    ct Bongarum b Mulewa
RA Marshall     13    12    1    1    b Bongarum
TP Allen            2    7    0    0    st Suryawanshi+ b Manoj-Kumar
S Verma          14    17    3    0    LBW Bongarum
KG Darlington    0    4    0    0    not out
Total Extras     10 (0 no balls, 0 byes, 0 leg byes, 10 wides)
Team Total      146 all out in 37.5 overs

Fall of wicket: 0/1 (Nadkarni), 16/2 (Baker), 36/3 (Cush), 49/4 (Dhaniram), 89/5 (Thyagarajan), 113/6 (Wright), 127/7 (Massiah), 129/8 (Marshall), 145/9 (Allen), 146/10 (Verma).

Singapore Bowling Overs-Maidens-Runs-Wickets
SK Janjua              4-0-25-2
NR Bongarum        9.5-1-24-2
J Manoj-Kumar       8-0-23-4
D Mulewa              4-0-22-1
PVSS Raja            3-0-17-0
A Param               6-0-25-1
RA Hussien          3-1-10-0

Defiant stand by Wright & Thyagarajan turns the tide for USA in win over Jersey

2010-02-23T19:45:00Z

By Peter Della Penna

With USA in deep trouble batting first at 55 for 5, Carl Wright and Aditya Thyagarajan guided their team to safety in a match-winning partnership as USA beat Jersey by 66 runs on day three of the ICC WCL Division Five Tournament at Tribhuvan University in Kathmandu, Nepal. Wright was named Man of the Match for his gutsy 76 while Thyagarajan top-scored with 83 for USA as the two combined to put on 118 runs for the sixth wicket.

Pic to the left: Carl Wright punches off the back foot as he got USA out of trouble to be Man of the Match. Courtesy Daniela Zaharia/USACA

“It wasn’t a matter of pressure, but it was just a matter of the situation and what you have to do in that situation,” said Wright. “I think with good support from Aditya, Dhani and the rest of the guys, we actually stuck it out and tried to see how much runs we could get in the situation and it paid off.”

USA won the toss and elected to bat first on a hazy and cool morning and were under pressure immediately. Sushil Nadkarni opened in his first match of the tournament alongside Orlando Baker, but Nadkarni didn’t last long as he chopped a good length ball from Matthew Hague onto his stumps to be out for 1 with USA’s score on 2. Steve Massiah came in, but also fell for 1 just nine balls later, edging a ball from Jersey captain Ryan Driver to Hague at first slip to make it 3 for 2. Lennox Cush, who had been red hot with the bat coming into this match, failed for the first time in the tournament as he edged one from Driver through to the keeper Bobby Minty and USA were struggling badly at 11 for 3 in the 7^th over.

Driver could do no wrong when he snaffled a brilliant return catch off Baker, sending USA’s other opener back for 20 to make it 30 for 4 in the 13^th over. It could have been even worse for USA as Wright was dropped on the sixth ball of his innings off a sharp caught and bowled chance to Hague when he had yet to score. But things did slide further when Sudesh Dhaniram was out for 9, middling one from medium pacer Jonathan Gough straight to Hague at square leg and USA were 55 for 5 after the first ball of the 23^rd over. Visions of USA’s previous meltdown against Jersey in 2008’s Division Five tournament semifinal started to appear when Driver took 3 for 32 and Hague claimed five scalps to take Jersey past USA into Division Four.

But in stepped Thyagarajan with USA in a hairy situation, a scenario he has encountered on more than a few occasions. Once again he answered the call, teaming up with Wright to change USA’s fortunes. Wright took a long time to get going while trying to see off the opening spells of Driver and Hague as wickets were falling opposite him. With Thyagarajan as his partner though, Wright seemed much more at ease turning over the strike. While Wright played straight down the ground and off his legs to score the bulk of his runs, Thyagarajan deftly and repeatedly found the gap between point and third man to frustrate Jersey’s bowlers.

“That’s just my strength,” said Thyagarajan. “Whenever we are down, I always play to my strength.”

The two batsmen progressed steadily to take the score to 136 for 5 when the second drinks break was taken after 39 overs. Wright had just brought up his 50 off 102 balls in the middle of the 39th over and when play resumed, he showed he was hungry for more. They decided to take the batting power play at the start of the 41^st over and Wright feasted immediately on Peter Gough’s off-spin, smashing him for back-to-back fours as part of a 13-run over. Wright started the 43rd over against left arm spinner Ben Stevens by lofting him over mid off on consecutive deliveries for another set of boundaries. However, Stevens got his man next ball, spearing one in fuller to get Wright LBW for 76, ending the century partnership to make the score 173 for 5.

USA turned this setback from a negative into a positive with immediate effect as Rashard Marshall came to the crease. Thyagarajan kept on chugging at the other end, bringing up his 50 with a single off his 60^th ball faced in the very next over. Marshall scored singles routinely to keep the scoreboard ticking as well as give Thyagarajan opportunities to score some boundaries. But after scoring nine singles in his first 12 balls, Marshall was ready to unleash his fury on the Gough twins and Andy Dewhurst. The 27-year-old creamed five sixes in the next seven balls he faced to electrify the crowd of about 600 gathered at the ground. His outburst was primarily responsible for USA scoring 52 runs in their last three overs as the innings ended with an unbroken 80-run partnership in 7.3 overs. Thyagarajan finished 83 not out with seven fours and a six while Marshall’s 42 not out came at two runs per ball.

“Marshall and me have always played together when the team has been down and we always have a partnership,” said Thyagarajan. “There has never been one situation where one of us hasn’t scored. We always go and score. What I do with him is just try to get him back on strike and whenever I get a loose ball, I go behind it. I try to get him back on strike as much as I can because he just strikes the ball so well, as we have seen in this entire tournament.”

Pic to the right: Aditya Thyagarajan goes for another cut. He top scored with 83 for USA vs. Jersey. Courtesy Daniela Zaharia/USACA.

Jersey, who had the match firmly in their grasp in the first half of the innings, saw it slip away in agonizing fashion. USA’s bowlers came out and never let Jersey’s batsmen get away as the biggest partnership in reply was 42 runs. Kevin Darlington made the first breakthrough, having Hague caught behind by Wright for 6 to make it 15 for 1 in 7 overs. After a couple of nervous drops in the field, USA tightened the screws as Massiah employed the off-spin of Dhaniram paired with Baker’s medium pace. Lennox Cush then came on after the runs dried up and struck on his third ball, trapping Dean Morrison LBW for 36 on an attempted sweep to make it 67 for 2 in the 23^rd over. Cush struck again in his next over as he fired in a flatter delivery to beat Peter Gough in flight coming down the pitch and Wright completed the stumping to have Gough out for 24 with Jersey falling further behind at 76 for 3.

Driver tried to lift his team up as he came out to join Sam De La Haye, but Darlington came on for a second spell and after being hit for six by De La Haye, bowled him next ball for 36 to make it 118 for 4. Saurabh Verma then came on to bowl the new batsman Stevens for 2 to make it 128 for 5. Driver tried to rebuild once more with Dewhurst as they put on 41 runs, but Cush came back for another double-strike as Driver tried to clear the ropes but was caught for 29 at long off by Thyagarajan. Three balls later, Cush had Minty out stumped for a golden duck and at 172 for 7 in the 46^th over, Jersey saw their dreams of going back to Division Four vanishing into Nepal’s thin mountain air. Verma took two more wickets but Jersey’s last two men stayed until the end to prevent USA from bowling them out, finishing at 187 for 9 in their 50 overs.

USA is now 3-0 in the tournament along with Nepal, who beat Bahrain on Monday by 8 wickets. Singapore stayed in third place at 2-1 with a tight two-wicket win over Fiji. USA will play Singapore on Tuesday morning at the Pul Chowk Engineering College in Kathmandu. Live coverage of USA’s matches continues on Dreamcricket with play scheduled to start at 10:15 pm EST on Monday night in America.

Video interview with Wright and Thyagarajan

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Official Scorecard

ICC WCL Division Five

Jersey vs. USA

USA won by 66 runs

USA won the toss and elected to bat

Man of the Match: Carl Wright

USA Batting

Batsman Runs Balls 4s 6s Dismissal

SS Nadkarni 1 7 0 0 bowled Hague

OM Baker 20 31 1 0 ct & b Driver

SJ Massiah* 1 6 0 0 ct Hague b Driver

LJ Cush 5 15 1 0 ct Minty+ b Driver

CD Wright+ 76 120 7 1 LBW Stevens

S Dhaniram 9 19 1 0 ct Hague b J Gough

A Thyagarajan 83 82 7 1 not out

RA Marshall 42 21 0 5 not out

Total Extras 16 (1 no ball, 1 bye, 3 leg byes, 11 wides)

Team Total 253 for 6 in 50 overs

Did not bat: TP Allen, S Verma, KG Darlington.

Fall of wicket: 2/1 (Nadkarni), 3/2 (Massiah), 11/3 (Cush), 30/4 (Baker), 55/5 (Dhaniram), 173/6 (Wright).

Jersey Bowling Overs-Maidens-Runs-Wickets

R Driver 10-1-25-3

M Hague 10-1-23-1

J Gough 9-0-58-1

B Stevens 10-1-48-1

P Gough 8-0-60-0

A Dewhurst 2-0-28-0

S Dewhurst 1-0-7-0

Jersey Batting

Batsman Runs Balls 4s 6s Dismissal

D Morrison 36 82 2 0 LBW Cush

M Hague 6 20 1 0 ct Wright+ b Darlington

P Gough 24 41 2 0 st Wright+ b Cush

S De La Haye 36 32 2 3 b Darlington

R Driver+ 29 52 2 0 ct Thyagarajan b Cush

B Stevens 2 18 0 0 b Verma

A Dewhurst 34 32 5 0 b Verma

R Minty+ 0 1 0 0 st Baker+ b Cush

J Gough 5 11 0 0 b Verma

I Crocker 1 9 0 0 not out

S Dewhurst 0 3 0 0 not out

Total Extras 14 (1 no ball, 7 byes, 2 leg byes, 4 wides)

Team Total 187 for 9 in 50 overs

Fall of wicket: 15/1 (Hague), 67/2 (P Gough), 76/3 (Morrison), 118/4 (De La Haye), 128/5 (Stevens), 169/6 (Driver), 172/7 (Minty), 183/8 (A Dewhurst), 186/9 (J Gough).

USA Bowling Overs-Maidens-Runs-Wickets

KG Darlington 10-1-40-2

TP Allen 5-0-17-0

S Dhaniram 10-2-30-0

OM Baker 10-1-34-0

LJ Cush 10-1-37-4

S Verma 4-0-19-3

SJ Massiah 1-0-1-0

Notes: Carl Wright was USA’s wicketkeeper for the first 43 overs in the field. Orlando Baker then padded up to keep wicket for the final 7 overs of the match.

"Bring on the USA" declares Jersey Evening Post

2010-02-22T15:35:00Z

Without losing an opportunity to rub it in that the Jersey team had defeated USA in the last encounter in 2008, Andy Bradshaw of Jersey Evening Post has challenged Jersey to a repeat.

"It’s a key match in the group and Jersey can not afford a second defeat if they are to achieve their goal of winning promotion to Division IV by finishing as one of the top two nations in the six-team tournament," he wrote. Jersey lost its first match against Nepal.

Jersey Cricket Board director Chris Minty said: ‘We have a rest day today but there will be no rest for us because we will continue to work hard in the nets."

Jersey was in Chandigarh in India ahead of the tournament getting some serious practice whereas USA was over in Dubai playing in the ICC WC T20 Qualifier.

USA must leave no stone unturned to win all the matches and finish at the top of the points table.

Here is the schedule for USA after a day's rest. Nadkarni is expected to rejoin his team after a quick trip back home to take care of business.

Feb 23	USA v Jersey
Feb 24	Singapore v USA
Feb 26	Nepal v USA
Feb 27	Final

Full article here.

WCL Division 5 Cricket: All round brilliance from Cush sees USA past Bahrain

2010-02-21T17:12:00Z

By Peter Della Penna

Lennox Cush followed up a sterling innings of 91 with two wickets in a handy spell of off-spin bowling to be named Man of the Match as USA held off a gutsy effort from Bahrain to win by 19 runs at the Birendra Sainik Maha Vidyalaya Ground at the Army School in Bhaktapur, just outside of Kathmandu, Nepal on Day Two of the ICC World Cricket League Division Five Tournament. Cush’s 91 is the highest score of the tournament thus far.

Pic (Right): Lennox Cush wasn't afraid to use his feet to the spinners, lofting one out of the ground here on his way to 91. [Courtesy: Daniela Zaharia/USACA]

“Today the bowler’s bowled very well early on,” said Cush. “You had to get in. I went in at a time where we were struggling a bit. They were on top of us. The ball was gripping and spinning on the wicket but I decided to counterattack.”

Carl Wright and Orlando Baker got USA off to a good start with a half-century partnership as they played the medium pace of Yaser Sadeq and Hamal Abbasi with ease. However, things started to turn around for Bahrain with the introduction of left-arm orthodox spinner Qadar Sayeed. Wright tried to hit against the spin and skied a top edge to point to be out for 22 at the start of the 14th over to make it 64 for 1. Sayeed struck in his next over only four runs later, getting one to grip the pitch as Baker chipped a return catch to the bowler to walk off for 34.

Cush then came in and combined with Steve Massiah to wrestle back momentum for USA. While Massiah nudged and nurdled for ones and twos trying to rebuild the innings for his team, Cush set the tone for his own innings on the sixth ball he faced, coming down the track to smash Sayeed over long off and into a Pepsi sign past the boundary for a big six. In the next over against the off-spin of Adil Hanif, Cush cleared the ropes again over long off to put the Bahrain attack on the back foot. Massiah was happy to give Cush the strike when possible and the captain didn’t hit his first boundary until he was 41 balls into his innings when he smoked one through the covers. The two put on 140 runs together before Cush was finally bowled by off-spinner Zafar Zaheer, around early trying to pull a good length ball, and the score became 208 for 3 in the 43rd over.

Wickets then fell fairly rapidly to end the innings as Zaheer accounted for Rashard Marshall for 16 to make it 240 for 4. Aditya Thyagarajan fell four runs later for a duck as Zaheer got his third and then Massiah finally was dismissed for a grind it out 67 to make it 251 for 6 in the 48th over. A small burst from Timroy Allen brought USA up to 273 for 6 at the end of their 50 overs.

Bahrain, who had been rolled over for 98 on Saturday by Singapore, came out fighting hard against USA. Shahzad Ahmed and Imran Sajjad showed no signs of trouble against the opening pace combo of Kevin Darlington and Allen, taking the score to 55 before Imran Awan came on to dismiss Ahmed LBW for 16 playing across to a full length delivery.

Pic (Right): Cush's bowling was also instrumental in USA's win as he took 2 for 44 in 10 overs. [Courtesy: Daniela Zaharia/USACA]

Abdul Majeed came out at number three and the score accelerated even faster as both he and Sajjad repeatedly cross batted anything marginally short to the ropes. Sajjad looked very dangerous the longer he stayed out there as he refused to slow down his pace, but it proved to be his downfall in the end as he swung across the line one too many times. Cush came on to bowl off-spin in the 17th over and on the last ball of his fourth over, sent down a good length ball that Sajjad couldn’t resist. He went for a big heave but was around far too early and the stumps were knocked back as Sajjad departed for 75 to make it 131 for 2 in 23 overs.

Bahrain had an excellent run rate and was well on course to chase down the runs, but after Sajjad fell, they couldn’t construct a decent partnership to build up some steam to get them to the target. The next blow for USA was struck by Baker, who got Ashraf Yaqoob LBW for 6 to one that kept low to make it 145 for 3. Baker then took care of the set batsman Majeed for 47 on the first ball of the 34th over. Majeed had been dropped on back-to-back deliveries off of Baker in the 32nd over, but the mistakes didn’t cost USA much. Massiah erased those memories with a superb effort running from cover to take a skied chance at mid off making the score 162 for 4.

Bahrain looked like they were still in with a chance when Hanif, who came in at number five, was at the crease. He put on 42 runs with Azeem ul Haq before ul Haq was out LBW for 9 trying to sweep the off-spin of Sudesh Dhaniram, who bowled a very stingy 10-over spell to stem the flow of runs for Bahrain. Hanif was the next man out for 46 to make it 227 for 6 in the 45th over, top edging a pull off a short delivery from Darlington to give a simple catch to Wright behind the stumps. From there, Bahrain’s hopes vanished and it was only a matter of time before the match was wrapped up. Cush took another wicket while Allen came back on to bowl off-spin after opening the innings bowling pace alongside Darlington. Allen took two wickets in three balls in the 48th over before Darlington sealed the match bowling Abbasi with a yorker in the 49th as Bahrain was bowled out for 254.

USA now moves to 2-0 in the tournament to top the table along with Nepal, who followed up a victory over Jersey on Saturday with a thumping nine-wicket win over Fiji on Sunday. Jersey beat Singapore on Sunday to make both teams 1-1 while Bahrain and Fiji are at 0-2. Everyone has an off day on Monday while the action resumes on Tuesday with USA taking on Jersey at Tribhuvan University. The match is scheduled for a 9 a.m. start, 10:15 p.m. EST Monday night in the USA with live coverage on Dreamcricket.com.

Official Scorecard
ICC WCL Division Five
Bahrain vs. USA
USA won by 19 runs
USA won the toss and elected to bat
Man of the Match: Lennox Cush

USA Batting
Batsman 		Runs	Balls	4s	6s	Dismissal
CD Wright+ 		22	34	3	0	ct Yaqoob b Sayeed
OM Baker		34	56	5	0	c & b Sayeed
SJ Massiah*		67	92	3	2	ct Sayeed b Dar
LJ Cush		        91	90	11	2	b Zaheer
RA Marshall		16	10	1	1	st Ahmed+ b Zaheer
A Thyagarajan		0	3	0	0	ct Abbasi b Zaheer
S Dhaniram		3	8	0	0	not out
TP Allen		12	9	0	1	not out
Total Extras		28 (2 no balls, 4 byes, 6 leg byes, 16 wides)
Team Total 		273 for 6 in 50 overs

Did not bat: S Verma, I Awan, KG Darlington

Fall of Wicket: 64/1 (Wright), 68/2 (Baker), 208/3 (Cush), 
240/4 (Marshall), 244/5 (Thyagarajan), 251/6 (Massiah). 

Bahrain Bowling	Overs-Maidens-Runs-Wickets
Y Sadeq		        5-0-31-0
H Abbasi		6-1-37-0
Q Sayeed		8-0-36-2
A Hanif		        5-0-18-0
T Dar			10-1-59-1
Z Zaheer		10-1-48-3
I Sajjad		6-0-34-0

Bahrain Batting
Batsman		Runs	Balls	4s	6s	Dismissal
S Ahmed+ 		16	26	2	0	LBW Awan
I Sajjad		75	77	8	2	b Cush
A Majeed		47	60	5	0	ct Massiah b Baker
A Yaqoob 		6	17	1	0	LBW Baker
A Hanif 		46	56	4	0	ct Wright+ b Darlington
A ul Haq		9	16	0	0	LBW Dhaniram
T Dar			10	17	0	0	b Cush
Q Sayeed		4	8	0	0	ct Massiah b Allen
Y Sadeq*		12	7	0	1	b Allen
Z Zaheer		2	3	0	0	not out
H Abbasi		8	5	0	1	b Darlington
Total Extras		19 (0 no balls, 4 byes, 7 leg byes, 8 wides)
Team Total		254 all out in 48.4 overs

Fall of Wicket: 55/1 (Ahmed), 131/2 (Sajjad), 145/3 (Yaqoob), 162/4 (Majeed), 
204/5 (ul Haq), 227/6 (Hanif), 230/7 (Dar), 244/8 (Sadeq), 245/9 (Sayeed), 
254/10 (Abbasi). 

USA Bowling		Overs-Maidens-Runs-Wickets
KG Darlington	        7.4-0-51-2
TP Allen		6-0-30-2
I Awan			3-0-23-1
S Dhaniram		10-1-34-1
S Verma		        2-0-17-0
LJ Cush		        10-1-44-2
OM Baker		10-0-44-2

Notes: Orlando Baker served as USA’s wicketkeeper for the first 
7 overs. Carl Wright then put on the pads to wicketkeep beginning 
with the 8th over until the end of the match.

Steve Massiah led assault produces 285-run victory for USA over Fiji

2010-02-20T16:21:00Z

By Peter Della Penna

Man of the Match Steve Massiah scored a brisk 74 with nine fours and a six to lead a USA rout over Fiji by 285 runs at the Pul Chowk Engineering College Ground in Kathmandu, Nepal on Day One of the ICC World Cricket League Division Five Tournament.

Pic (Right): USA captain Steve Massiah pulls hard on his way to 74 in a Man of the Match performance.[Courtesy: Daniela Zaharia/USACA]

“It was a very pleasing knock,” said Massiah, who backed up an encouraging knock in USA’s warm-up match earlier in the week to top score for USA against Fiji. “I thought the warm up match did serve a purpose. My goal in the warm-up match was to spend as much time as possible in the middle because I needed that.”

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Fiji won the toss and elected to field and made their first breakthrough right at the start of the match as Carl Wright was run out in the first over for 1 with only two runs on the board for USA. Massiah calmly came to the wicket and after combining with Orlando Baker to see the shine off the new ball, Massiah became the aggressor in the partnership, punishing anything loose from the Fiji bowling attack.

Massiah was on 23 with the score on 58 for 1 at the start of the 12th over when he fully unleashed himself on medium pacer Jikoi Vanualevu Kida. Massiah bashed the first ball of the over for a boundary before the second was a dot ball. The third was belted straight down the ground for another four and a no ball was called to bring up a free hit. Massiah then picked up a length ball and heaved it over long on for a six before hitting another loose delivery next ball for a boundary. He mercifully allowed a dot next ball before taking a single to keep strike, producing 20 runs in the over to deflate Fiji in the field.

Massiah brought up his 50 with his eighth boundary as Baker did a great job giving him as much of the strike as possible. The two added 129 together before Massiah was run out on the third ball of the 24th over from leg spinner Viliame Yabaki to make it 131 for 2. For the second ball in a row, Massiah laced a bullet along the turf to mid off, who had come in at the start of the over, but after deciding against a single the first time, Massiah decided to take on the fielder, captain Josefa Rika. Massiah appeared to be well in, but the throw was a direct hit and a devasted and disbelieving Massiah had to walk off knowing he had missed a century.

“I thought it was a very very close decision,” said Massiah. “I thought personally that I had made it but at the end, the umpire gave me out and that’s what matters.”

Lennox Cush came to the crease and followed up a half-century in the warm-up game with another brisk contribution. After Baker was out for 46 to make it 150 for 3, Cush combined with Aditya Thyagarajan to produce an 84-run stand for the fourth wicket.

Pic (Left): Rashard Marshall goes for another big one as part of his blistering 61.[Courtesy: Daniela Zaharia/USACA]

Cush once again made merry on short pitched bowling, heaving three sixes over the leg side in addition to four boundaries to bring up a half-century. But Thyagarajan and Cush fell in the space of nine runs, first Thyagarajan bowled off an inside edge for 39 going for a drive before Cush went packing trying to clear the off side boundary for another six to be out for 50 making it 243 for 5 in the 41st over as Josefa Dabea Balelcicia claimed both men.

It only provided an opportunity for Rashard Marshall and Timroy Allen to put the Fiji bowlers to the sword. USA took the batting power play at the start of the 43rd over with the score on 247 for 5 and in the next five overs, Marshall and Allen combined for 78 runs. After taking 17 off of Balelcicia in the 44th over, the two clobbered 23 in the 46th off the same bowler. Marshall started things off with a four and an elegant six clipped over fine leg before a leg bye was taken. Allen then defended a ball before pulverizing the next two balls over the leg side rope for back to back sixes.

Balelcicia got a small measure of revenge in the 48th over when he got Marshall to send one to long on to be out for 61 in only 28 balls, ending the sixth wicket partnership at 87 runs. The batsmen crossed in the air and Allen was given out LBW next ball for 32 in 17 deliveries to make the score 330 for 7. Saurabh Verma came in and clipped the hat trick ball through square leg for another USA boundary. He was run out for 6 when turned back by Clain Williams after taking off for a second run, but Williams and Imran Awan chipped in for a few runs at the end to get USA to 353 for 8 in their 50 overs.

“I thought it was a very very good team performance,” said Massiah. “Our goal was to get at least four to five half-century partnerships and I thought today we were very successful at doing that.”

USA came out after the innings break eager to bring the match to a quick end and it didn’t take long for the first wicket to fall as Kevin Darlington applied solid pressure on the openers until he trapped Joji Bulabalavu in front for 9 to make it 13 for 1 in the third over.

Pic (Right): Kevin Darlington's tight opening spell set the tone for USA in the field as he finished with 3 for 9. [Courtesy: Daniela Zaharia/USACA]

Darlington struck again on the final ball of his next over with an absolute gem, getting Fiji’s other opener Sekove Ravoka to edge one behind the stumps to Baker for 6 making it 22 for 2. Allen got in the act with the first ball of the eighth over as Tavo Sorovakatini played across and missed to be dead in front for 2 to make it 25 for 3. Darlington claimed his third scalp in the form of Kida who edged a ball off the shoulder of the bat to Marshall jogging in from point to make it 30 for 4 in the 9th.

After Cush and Baker teamed up for an outstanding stumping of Iniasi Cakacaka for 7, Awan ran through the lower order to take three wickets, despite struggling with his line especially to the left-handers Rika and Balelcicia. Awan took 3 for 16 in 8 overs as he bowled Rika, Gregory Browne and Yabaki, but 9 of those 16 runs came off wides.

Verma came on and bowled two tidy overs, the second of which brought about his first wicket for USA in 50-over match play as he accounted for Taniela Waqaituinayau LBW for 1 before Baker came on for the 29th over and got Tukana Tavo out LBW for 2 to end the match as Fiji was bowled out for 68 in 28.2 overs. Extras were the top score with 21 while Balelcicia was the only player to cross double-digits, finishing 13 not out coming in at number six.

“The key thing is for us to be very disciplined whether we bat or bowl and to execute our game plan,” said Massiah. “I thought the bowlers did that brilliantly so it can only give us confidence moving forward. All in all, I thought we executed very well today.”

Post Match Interview vs. Fiji with Massiah from Peter Della Penna on Vimeo.

USA will take on Bahrain at the Army School Ground on Sunday in Kathmandu before having a rest day on Monday. The match is scheduled to start at 10:15 pm EST on Saturday night in America with live coverage on Dreamcricket.com as conditions permit.

Olympic recognition of cricket - Could that benefit USA Cricket?

2010-02-18T04:08:00Z

By Venu Palaparthi

DreamCricket.com, USA's cricket destination, is now on Facebook. Please help us popularize cricket in USA by becoming a fan of our Facebook page.

Cricket and the Summer Olympics

A two-day match was last played at the 1900 Summer Olympics between Great Britain and France.   However, since the match was part of the 1900 Universal Exposition, the teams did not know they were competing in the Olympics. That recognition was granted retroactively in 1912. Thus ended the sport's 20th century cameo at the Olympics.

Pic (Right):  A poster announces the first Olympics cricket match in 1900

Fast forward to 2007, when cricket was granted provisional recognition for a term of two years. And this month, on February 11th, 2010, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) granted cricket ‘full recognition’.

With full recognition, cricket's inclusion in the Olympics is now a possiblity for the 2020 Olympics! "20-20 in 2020" could be the perfect slogan for its re-entry.

For that to happen, ICC must first bid for the sport's inclusion - a step that would undoubtedly be in line with the aspirations of several cricket playing countries. Thanking the IOC for bestowing full recognition, ICC chief executive Haroon Lorgat said: “The ICC is extremely proud of the recognition given to our great sport by the IOC, which we always considered to be our first step in becoming a part of the Olympic family."

"At this stage, no consideration or decision has been made regarding participation or applying for approval to participate in the Olympic Games,” he added.

USA Cricket to Benefit

IOC spokesperson Mark Adams said that national cricket associations would now be recognized federations, "which now means that they can take part in IOC events."

This bodes well for all cricket's national governing bodies such as the USA Cricket Association (USACA). In addition to the respectability that the Olympic recognition brings to the cricketers, USACA now has an additional funding source in the form of the US Olympic Committee (USOC).

IOC depends heavily on revenue from US based corporations and US television rights. In fact, US companies are responsible for 60 percent of all Olympic funding. That in turn results in a windfall for the USOC which gets 13% of U.S. television rights fees and 20% of marketing revenue from the IOC - an amount that is expected to reach $450 million for the 2009-2012 period thanks mainly to the whopping $2.2 billion in TV rights money that NBC has committed for 2012 London games. In plain English, that translates to an annual budget of roughly $150 Million for the USOC.

That is a lot of money!

That money is distributed to athletes as well as national governing bodies (NGB) of IOC recognized sports. For each of the sports that is funded, the USOC looks at what funding the NGB (i.e. USACA) is already providing and then augments that funding based on historic performance, athlete pipeline, medal potential and need.

Without a doubt, USA's prospects for a medal in international competition are expected to play a huge role in how the funds are distributed.   But if USACA can demonstrate the need and show some progress in the coming years, in a sport such as cricket, where the number of playing countries is not very high, the opportunity exists for USA to obtain funding assistance from USOC.

As a kicker, cricket has no competition from baseball in the Olympic arena.   Both baseball and softball were voted out of the Summer Olympics in 2005. It is now up to cricket to fill the void and get a lift.

The USOC has something of a 'targeted podium program' with the goal of providing buouancy to the medal prospects of Team USA. If Team USA are finishing fifth, they can request and receive help to move up to third. If they are in line for a bronze, they are given the assistance to aim for a gold.

Take US Biathlon for example. For the 2006 games in Italy, the USOC gave US Biathlon $250,000 a year. This season, that sport got $1 million, a sign that USOC views Biathlon favorably from a medal standpoint.

Younger Demographic

The new chair of USOC's board, Larry Probst cares very much about a younger demographic and about grassroots sports programs.

As the former CEO of Electronic Arts, he knows and understands cricket's potential!  "If you could build an online experience around the Olympic brand that has gaming elements to it, I think that could be an pretty interesting proposition," Probst reportedly said last year.

For USA Cricket's proposal to be compelling, it should project itself as a grassroots sport targeting a younger demographic. Programs such as the PSAL should form the cornerstone of USA Cricket's strategy.

Cricket and the Los Angeles Olympics

As a sidenote, cricket in USA has already benefited from the Olympics! California's only turf ground - the Leo Magnus Cricket Complex (more commonly known as the Woodley Cricket Field) is a legacy of the 1984 Olympics!

Pic (Above): Leo Magnus Cricket Complex - A gift of LA Olympics

As reported earlier on DreamCricket.com, between 1933 and 1978, cricket was played at Griffith Park in Burbank on a turf wicket with a matting cover and the one-floor 2,000 sq. ft. pavilion was well maintained with showers, lockers, a clock tower, a verandah to watch the matches.

In those days Griffith Field was surrounded by stables for horses taking part in equestrian events. The equestrian fraternity wanted to take over the Griffith Park field. Part of the reason was the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles and equestrian events and polo were on the drawing boards to be held in the immediate area.

The cricket family, led by the late Claude Worrell, strongly objected to the move and negotiations took place with local council authorities before it was decided that the game could move to what is now Woodley Cricket Field. It took another four years for trees to be removed and before the field could be transformed to the gem that it is today!

World Cricket League Div 5 - Warm-up: USA gets off to fresh start in Nepal with comfortable win

2010-02-18T02:42:00Z

By Peter Della Penna

Coming off back-to-back losses to finish third in Group A at the ICC World T20 Qualifier in Dubai, USA wiped the slate clean and started off with a solid win against Region 3 XI, a Nepal zonal side in a 50-over warm-up match on Wednesday at Tribhuvan University in the Kirtipur section of Kathmandu, Nepal. USA won by 73 runs and Lennox Cush was named Man of the Match with a blistering 92 off of 52 balls.

USA won the toss and batted first in an effort to give several players some much needed time at the crease. Clain Williams opened the batting with Orlando Baker and was the first to go, caught behind for 28 off the medium pace of Rom Shrestha to make it 47 for 1 in the 7th over.

Pic (Right): USA assistant coach Dipak Patel gives some spin bowling tips to some local college players who came by to watch the practice match. [Courtesy: Peter Della Penna]

Baker was joined by Steve Massiah as the two then continued with the solid start. Massiah took his time to ease his way in and gave as much of the strike to Baker as possible. Baker played a series of lovely shots around the wicket to bring up his 50 before he was out a short time later for 56, chipping a simple return catch back to medium pacer Sunam Gautam to make the score 122 for 2 in the 25th.

Then it was time for Cush to come to the wicket and in no time he raced by Massiah. He was particularly strong straight down the ground, lofting a series of deliveries from the spinners into and over the sight screens. His 50 was brought up in only 30 balls.

Nepal received a boost when Massiah and then Aditya Thyagarajan were out in the span of six balls. Massiah finally departed LBW to the medium pace of Kalam Ali for 37 to make it 187 for 3 in the 36th over before Thyagarajan was caught behind for 1 off of Shrestha playing a flat footed drive to make it 188 for 4 in the 37th. Cush was joined by Sudesh Dhaniram and continued to motor along before he finally was caught at long on with the score at 233 for 5 in the 41st over, but not before crushing eight fours and seven sixes in his knock.

Dhaniram and Saurabh Verma made small contributions while Rashard Marshall picked up the slack with USA’s third half-century as USA scored at more than 10 an over in the final 10 overs of the innings to take the total to 333 for 8 in 50 overs. Marshall retired on 61 off 35 balls with two fours and six sixes.

Region 3 made a rapid start in reply as Usman Shuja was given harsh treatment by the openers, Paresh Lohani and Subash Khakurel. Khakurel gave the home crowd of about 400 plenty to cheer about as he made his way to a brisk half-century with a series of lovely drives through the off side. Region 3 was scoring at better than eight runs per over and Massiah brought on Verma in the 9th over to bowl leg spin in an attempt to slow down the momentum. A few overs later it worked as Verma drew Khakurel fractionally out of his crease trying to drive. Khakurel missed and was expertly stumped by Baker for 50, making the score 95 for 1 in the 13th.

In the next over, Imran Awan was brought on and made a series of breakthroughs to stem the flow of runs and steal momentum back USA’s way. Lohani departed for 39 to an excellent catch by Shuja diving forward on the run coming in from long off.

Pic (Right): A stray dog makes friends with USA Team area in the hopes of getting some scraps of the team lunches. [Courtesy: Peter Della Penna]

In Awan’s next over, Gautam mistimed one high in the air to midwicket in the circle where Timroy Allen took a straightforward catch to send Gautam back for 5. Rikesh Lama followed in the 18th as Awan clean bowled him for 4 to take three wickets in three consecutive overs. Region 3 was reduced to 116 for 4 and from there USA was in complete control.

USA continued to apply pressure and although the wickets didn’t fall as hoped to bring the match to an end, Region 3 never came close to getting to the target. Verma and Dhaniram bowled very good spells to stand out as Region 3 finished their 50 overs on 260 for 7. However, a major blemish on the match for USA was continued poor fielding as multiple dropped chances and some sloppy misfields and overthrows gifted Region 3 plenty of runs in their innings.

After the match, the USA squad was driven to the US Embassy in Kathmandu where the team was welcomed by a gathering of Marines and American staff who were excited to have a rare opportunity to meet a national team visiting Nepal. On Tuesday, the team made an appearance at an English language international school where some cricket demonstrations were given by the players to over 100 children in attendance. The team will take a tour to the Himalayas on Thursday outside of Kathmandu for a tourist experience and some time to relax ahead of what will be a busy tournament with six 50-over matches to be played in eight days. USA’s first official fixture is against Fiji on Saturday at the Engineering Campus Ground in Lalitpur.

Official Scorecard
WCL Division Five Warm-up Game
USA XI vs. Nepal Region 3 XI (11 bat/11 field)
USA won by 73 runs
USA won the toss and batted
Man of the Match: Lennox Cush

USA Batting
Batsman		Runs	Balls	4s	6s	Dismissal
OM Baker+	56	81	7	0	c & b S Gautam
CH Williams	28	24	5	1	c Khakurel+ b R Shrestha
SJ Massiah*	37	74	3	0	LBW Ali
LJ Cush		92	52	8	7	c S Shrestha b Rana
A Thyagarajan	1	3	0	0	c Khakurel+ b R Shrestha
S Dhaniram	15	16	2	0	c Basnet b Rana
RA Marshall	61	35	2	6	retired out
TP Allen	3	4	0	0	c S Shrestha b Rana
S Verma		17	9	0	2	not out
KU Shuja	6	2	1	0	not out
Total Extras	17 (0 no balls, 0 byes, 6 leg byes, 11 wides)
Team Total 	333 for 8 in 50 overs

Did not bat: I Awan.

Fall of Wicket: 47/1 (Williams), 122/2 (Baker), 187/3 (Massiah), 188/4 (Thyagarajan), 
233/5 (Cush), 256/6 (Dhaniram), 273/7 (Allen), 312/8 (Marshall). 

Region 3 Bowling	Overs-Maidens-Runs-Wickets
K Ali			5-0-45-1
A Rana		        10-0-87-3
R Shrestha		7-0-39-2
R Basnet		8-0-61-0
S Gautam		10-1-44-1
S Uday			6-0-32-0
R Lama		        4-0-19-0

Region 3 Batting
Batsman		Runs	Balls	4s	6s	Dismissal
P Lohani	39	43	7	0	c Shuja b Awan
S Khakurel+	50	37	7	2	st Baker+ b Verma
S Shrestha	33	34	3	1	st Baker+ b Dhaniram
S Gautam	5	12	1	0	c Allen b Awan
R Lama 		4	8	1	0	b Awan
S Uday		53	74	6	0	b Dhaniram
R Shrestha	40	82	1	1	not out
P Shakya	2	4	0	0	b Allen
B Gautam	7	6	1	0	not out
Total Extras	27 (0 no balls, 1 bye, 10 leg byes, 16 wides)
Team Total	260 for 7 in 50 overs

Did not bat: R Basnet*, A Rana. 

Fall of Wicket: 95/1 (Khakurel), 99/2 (Lohani), 111/3 (S Shrestha), 
116/4 (S Gautam), 147/5 (S Shrestha), 241/6 (Uday), 246/7 (Shakya). 

USA Bowling		Overs-Maidens-Runs-Wickets
KG Darlington		4-0-16-0
KU Shuja		9-1-66-0
S Verma		        10-2-37-1
I Awan			4.5-1-30-3
LJ Cush		        0.1-0-0-0
S Dhaniram		5-0-20-2
TP Allen		6-0-25-1
A Thyagarajan		6-0-28-0
SJ Massiah		5-0-27-0

Big dreams and young legs

2010-02-15T23:51:00Z

By Linden Dodson

In Washington last summer something great occurred in a cricket tournament that will affect all involved for a life time. After two days of cricket in the Eastern Conference Tournament hosted by the Atlantic Region, a star studded New York Region team was reduced to third place behind Atlantic Region who had won both of their games and South East Region who had beaten New York and lost to Atlantic Region.

The team management, Linden Fraser (Coach), Steve Massiah (Captain) and myself (Manager) decided to forgo meeting with the team that Saturday evening scheduling instead a team meeting for 8.00 am on Sunday. Our last game, against Atlantic Region, the front runners, was scheduled for 10.00 am on Sunday.

The meeting was held at the hotel, right after breakfast, in the court yard, in the morning sunshine where we could find some privacy. At the meeting the team was apprised of the situation and the numbers were explained; we had worked out a chart and graph in which the most likely scenarios were extrapolated and this was communicated to the team; the boys were then challenged individually and as a team to go out and make New York proud.

The rest is history!

New York dismissed Atlantic region for 82 in 32 overs, then responded with 84 in 9.3 overs. By 1:30 pm on Sunday the game was over. New York catapulted from third place to first place in two hours of breathtaking cricket.

In Dubai this week Team USA found themselves in the same scenario in the Twenty 20 World Cup qualifiers. After two days of cricket they were in third place and needed to overcome a net run rate deficit of 2.6 runs per over to beat Afghanistan and qualify for the Super Four.

Afghanistan batted first (good from USA’s standpoint) and compiled 135 for 4 in their allotted 20 overs. USA now needed 136 in 14.5 overs to go to the next round. But they could only muster 106 for 7 when it was their turn at the wicket.

Is it possible that the team was not fired up to go out and achieve as was done in Washington?

In New York the sacking of both the Manager and Coach without explanation was well ventilated and it was brought out at that time that Massiah was part of the process in that removal. It should be now very clear to all that neither Massiah nor the administration valued the part that motivation and inspiration played in winning. Cricket was sacrificed at the altar of politics.

The Afghan medium pace bowler Hamid Hassan said in the post match interview that he enjoys looking at USA television and movies and particularly he liked Rocky and his team is the “Rocky” of International Cricket. Twenty two year old Hasan took eleven wickets in the tournament including three against USA.

The difference between the two teams is obvious - the Afghans had bigger dreams and younger legs they were able to take inspiration from an American folk hero to beat America.

The two teams that emerged from the ICC Twenty20 qualifiers and will participate in the ICC World Twenty20 this spring in the West Indies are Afghanistan and Ireland. For the record, let it be known that the average age of the Afghans is 22 years old; their youngest player is 17 years old and their captain is 25 years old. By the same token the average age of the Irelanders is 25 years old; their youngest player is 17 years old and their captain is 25 years old. Compare this to Team USA with 10 players over 30 years old including Dhaniram (9 runs from 5 innings) 43 years old.

After the tournament Americans in Dubai were left with the impression that in New York and USA cricket there are no big dreams and young legs.

USA cricketers, spectators and most stake-holders know otherwise and we must wash shame out of our eyes and demand nothing but the best from those who represent us on and off the field.

TV via DIRECTV - Live online streaming via Willow.TV - YouTube to provide delayed streaming

2010-02-15T19:59:00Z

TV via DIRECTV - Live online streaming via Willow.TV - YouTube to provide delayed streaming

In what promises to be a bonanza for cricket fans in USA, there have been giant strides since IPL first announced on January 18th that it was partnering with YouTube for online streaming of IPL 3.0.

In response to a question on where Americans can watch the matches, Mr Modi confirmed that while DIRECTV will remain the broadcaster of highest digital quality, Willow.TV will be the destination for live streaming. In addition, Mr. Modi wrote that the USA audience will also be able to watch IPL via YouTube which will be delayed by 5 minutes in countries such as USA where TV broadcast is live.

Coincidentally, Mr. Modi and IPL’s CEO Sundar Raman were in the USA during the first week of February meeting with Google and YouTube. Sundar Raman indicated via Twitter that the meetings were progressing well on “building larger IPL and Cricket communities."

"Google-IPL partnership makes thought to action shorter than short! Excited about what all of us will get to see when IPL starts,” Mr. Raman added. So is every cricket lover in USA.

Exhibition Matches planned for USA

On January 18th, the Sunday Economic Times quoted Mr. Modi as saying: “We hope to be able to provide the fans in the US the live experience of the IPL. We will start with a few matches in the US, in the next 18 months or so. We will start to examine venues and dates that may be available for this in the summer months.”

Responding to a question posed via Twitter seeking clarification on whether IPL was “shifting to US,” Mr. Modi wrote: “IPL is not shifting to US. Again we will look to do exhibition matches there.”

USA to host an International T20 series between New Zealand and Sri Lanka in May 2010

2010-02-12T20:17:00Z

In the first major announcement since formalizing its strategic partnership with New Zealand Cricket, the United States Cricket Association Chief Executive Donald Lockerbie - after completing meetings in Dubai - advised today that Sri Lanka has confirmed and will play the Black Caps in three Twenty20 internationals in late May 2010.

This match series represents the first ever cricket match played in the United States by two Full Member ICC countries. The series will be played at the ICC approved Central Broward Regional Park Cricket Stadium in Lauderhill, Florida.

The partnership between USA Cricket and NZ Cricket is being structured in such a way as to encourage commercial enterprise, develop major cricket events, provide cricket services from NZ Cricket operations to USA national, regional and club programs, and to secure external investment opportunities to build and fund the growth of cricket in the USA.

Justin Vaughan, Chief Executive of New Zealand Cricket said, “Given the ‘door to cricket’ has been opened to investment through the sale of Indian Premier League franchises, this model is a logical step to raising the capital required to take cricket in the US to another level.” He continued, “The structure proposed is a wonderful opportunity for someone to get in on the ground floor, particularly given the growing level of interest in the US cricket market.”

Mr. Lockerbie said, “We are experiencing increasing demand for “Destination USA” cricket events from many Full Member ICC countries and the Sri Lanka vs. New Zealand series will bring - as forecasted - world class cricket to the USA.

“The USA National Team will also participate in warm-up matches for the full members. Through the strategic collaboration with New Zealand Cricket we now have the additional administrative support and knowledge base to be able to commercialize these opportunities and ultimately grow the revenue streams from one of the world’s largest advertising markets.”

“The planned creation of a commercial vehicle with New Zealand Cricket is designed to serve a number of purposes. Firstly, it provides a clear focus on generating revenue, as the commercial rights will be separated from cricket operations. Secondly, the entity will be responsible for creating and/or sourcing cricket content. Finally, and most importantly, it provides an avenue for investment in USA Cricket that will be hugely attractive to both US and international investors who appreciate the potential of this market and have a love for the game.”

The announcement is timely given that IPL Commissioner, Lalit Modi and his COO, Sundar Raman have held talks with USA Cricket with a view to the US hosting IPL related events as early as 2011. USA Cricket is also interested in hosting ICC events in the future and is developing a bid committee to launch this initiative as well; notwithstanding the work that has been done dating back to mid-2009 to start a domestic T20 league of its own by 2012.

Mr. Lockerbie further stated, “These events and initiatives are a small indication of the amount of cricket content under consideration with our partners at New Zealand Cricket. We will be meeting with potential investors and event developers over the next few weeks and months to keep building our momentum. The interest is already high from potential investors in India and the US, and this is very encouraging.”

Source: USACA Media Release