Freiburg Cricket Day 2011

The idea was always there but this year given the motivated players we have, finally we were able to organize a day of cricket in Freiburg. The idea was to invite players from Freiburg and around to play in our ground and enjoy some organized cricket. Another important reason was to showcase cricket as a growing sport in the Freiburg region. So we organized a mini cricket tournament with eight players in each side and each inning limited to eight overs. To make it easy for non-regular players we decided to play with a hard tennis ball making it safer and protection equipments were not needed. Rules were changed a bit to make it easy.

We had four teams. IMTEK Warriors (IW) consisted of largely FNCC players who study engineering at the IMTEK Freiburg. Stusie Super Kings (SSS) consisted of four FNCC players and some other non-regular players from the student housing called 'stusie'. Peshawar Panthers (PP) included a three players from the Pak. Freiburg Cricket Club, four players from Pakistan who do not play regular cricket and one FNCC member (Ajit). And Saghir, collected some players from the villages outside Freiburg and formed the team Ringsheim Champions (RC). 

As per the schedule we decided to play on a round-robin league basis. That meant we had six league games. Vijay introduced a play-off between the second and third team, winner of which was supposed to play the league topper for in the final match. So we had eight matches lined up. 

Ringsheim Champions...The real champions of the tennis ball cricket in Freiburg.

The tournament was supposed to start at 0900hrs but naturally for so many people from Indian sub-continent involved, perhaps time was not the most important fact and the first match started a good one hour late. RC defeated SSS very easily in the tournament opener. The match was made one sided by some terrific hitting from Lucky to scored 28 runs in an over of Nila. In the second match IW defeated PP in a good match which was a bit more close and in fact if not for some strange batting order, PP might have pulled off a victory. In the end the a target of 66 runs was 10 runs too many. In the third match which started with RC being favorites. But PP had learned from their mistakes and came back very strongly. Bilal, Waleed and Prashant never let the RC batting take off. In fact losing Lucky early was a major set back. The target was set to 38 runs which was just not enough. Still, RC fought hard and did not lose many net-run-rate point as the PP won only in the seventh over.

The fourth match was between RC and IW. IW wanted to win to book a place in the finals and RC struggling to remain in the contest. RC bounced back and thrashed IW as they gained more than 8 net-run-rate points, this clearly shows how they dominated the IW team and once again declared themselves as favorites for the tournament. In the fifth match SSS lost again to the PP. That made the sixth match important because the winner was to play in the play-off match against the PP team. IW defeated SSS and qualified for the play-off.

With so many desi people it was a surprise that everything was running smooth. But after the sixth match when we were ready for the play-off match, we showed that only desi people were on the field. PP refused to play the play-off and threatened to leave their campaign mid-way in a thoroughly unfriendly and un-sportsmanly fashion. They cited reasons that they were not aware of the format and such a match was unnecessary, and that they have play in 20+ tournaments and none had that format. We can discuss the relevance of the play-off for example without that match the sixth match would have been without consequence. It was not cricket. Organizers cannot be blamed for a team not reading the rules. And if you have committed to play then you much follow the rules thats what cricket has taught at least to me. PP team could not be convinced to play a single over tie-breaker. So, Pandiyan, who was captaining IW took the initiative and decided to give PP walk-over. It was a great gesture and I would like to thank him and IW team for rescuing the tournament.

So we came to the final with RC taking on PP. And what a match it was. One would have thought that after playing three matches bowlers knew how to bowl on this surface. But first Lucky and later Waleed showed that bowlers had learned nothing. RC batted first and Lucky gave them a blistering start. At one stage they were 45 in three overs. Lucky completed his fifty (first of the tournament) in just 17 balls. They set an imposing target of 109 for the PP team at an asking rate of 12 an over. At the start it looked a difficult target but Waleed did not want to agree and he showed this by scoring a fifty (second of the tournament) in just 15 balls. However, once he was gone there was no one in the PP team to carry on scoring at that high rate. RC won the match by 20+ runs. Obviously they were the deserving champions.

Waleed Butt, the best player of the Freiburg Cricket Cup 2011

This was reflected in as we chose the best bowler (Cheema) and best batsman (Lucky) from RC team. Arpit (IM) was judged as the best fielder. Waleed (RC) was unanimous choice for the Best player.

Vijay who had to play for SSS shared the organization with Rehan and me, which meant preparing the schedule, setting up the rules and regulation and umpiring. but this is unfair that only we three took care of organization. All FNCC members contributed in every possible way. Even non-playing friends of FNCC like Sandeep helped out as he took initiative to cook food and prepare mango lassi and later he was seen taking photos of the match. Special mention for Arpit who was did commentary in hindi. It was very refreshing to hear description of a match in hindi...

The organization started in the middle of lat week when we started to set up the rules and regulation. Buying of food, drinks and refreshment was done on Friday night, and on Saturday. It was amazing how many things we had to bring to the ground. Rehan was very generous to offer his car for the purpose. It was overall a great experience and lot learning and understanding of the process of organizing a tournament. Already some players suggested that such event should become regular feature of the season in Freiburg. We are seeing even beyond and hoping to organize an invitation tournament next season to played with proper cricket ball. So it was more like a rehearsal for us.

Once again thanks to all who contributed to the organization and to all the players who played throughout the day under difficult conditions (35C with 50% humidity and a very bright sun). Also thanks to our muslim friends who were fasting that day and played despite their fast.

Hopefully this event will become regular in FNCC calendar and  besides bringing new players out it will also present cricket in its fullness to the locals who have remained alien to cricket irrespective of the fact that we have playing for 9 years in the same venue and Freiburg has two cricket teams.