Cricket

Regardless of its international reputation, the Hong Kong Cricket Club did not, and could not, exist on Interports and Friendly matches alone. Competitive league cricket is the backbone of the Club's day-to-day existence.

HKCC currently runs three teams in the domestic Saturday League competition and two teams in the Sunday League. Additionally, the Club provides teams in all junior league competitions (Under 13 to Under 19) and the HKCA Women's League.

The Cricket season runs from late September through to early May and Club team net practices are held under lights every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evening starting from 6:30 p.m.. Ladies' team practices are held on Friday evenings.

HKCC also organises junior coaching programmes in association with Hong Kong Cricket Assocation throughout the year. For more details please click on The Gappers.

The Saturday League has shown that the Nomads are as competitive as ever and that the Gap Ramblers have developed a winning mentality. If they can keep the momentum going, this should see both teams have a good season. Unfortunately, the Witherers have lost a couple of games from winning positions and will need a string of good results to put them back into contention for a place in the Finals.

In the Sunday League, Scorpions are looking extremely strong this year. Toby Brown set a new record against the Wanderers making a century in just over 40 balls and going on to score an unbeaten 158. With Tim Smart and Phil Pemberton also in the runs, the rest of the Scorpions are catching up on their reading. The Wanderers are still looking for their first win but there are a number of new players in the squad and once they settle into Hong Kong conditions, the Wanderers will be difficult to beat. The Optimists are doing well, mainly thanks to some strong batting from the captain, Shane Sibraa.

The training sessions are also running well - thanks to the organization of Mark Wright - and this improved level of attendance is paying off with a number of individuals producing match winning performances this season. I believe that this improvement in training attendance has a direct correlation to the improved results, but we will need to keep the high standards going, if we are to avoid our performances tailing off towards the end of the season, as happened last year.

The Sixes are almost upon us and if you have not purchased your ticket yet, I would suggest you do so as soon as possible. Hopefully, a number of HKCC players will make the squad again this year. I would like to wish the best of luck to all those HKCC players in contention for a place.

November will be an extremely hectic month. The Sixes will be a great social occasion, as always, and then, HKCC travel to India on tour. We will play both the Bombay Gymkhana and the Cricket Club of India. A full report will be in next month's issue. Old friends from Bickley Park CC (Kent) will also be visiting HKCC at the end of November.

James Callow
Captain of Cricket

8th-9th November

MARK KRATZMANN

706 runs at 117.7 on Saturday and 533 runs at 66.6 on Sunday.

Please refer to Hong Kong Cricket Association - www.hkca.cricket.org