What rain could not do this time, Stadt Verwaltung Freiburg did: And did it even better

There is something fundamentally wrong this season. We are in the month of June and so far not a single match has been played without rain threats. And today when German Rain Gods were on our side (at least it appeared so), and we were hoping for a full match under the blue sky, it turned out that the German Rain Gods had outsourced their job of hating cricket to the soccer gods and those who are responsible for creating a chaos in German organization.

Otherwise, how likely it is that a German mixes up his/her calender, that too, a German bureaucrat? That is what happened on Sunday last. The officer responsible for assignment of the ground at the seepark double booked the ground and before we could start our proceedings there were more than 16 teams competing for a strange version of a soccer tournament.

We, the people of the sub-continent, are not known for our managerial abilities to handle organizational problems. We had a living proof of that on the field today.

As soon as we arrived at the ground we knew that cricket would be impossible. The soccer people had occupied the ground before us. There was no way we could take off nearly 100 people off the field. And it was not their fault as well that the ground was double booked. 

But we tried anyways. With same arguments again and again. It is obvious that if an argument does not work once, it wont work again, if the situation has not changed.

The visiting team was another bunch of people who just wanted to just take advantage of the situation and go home with the points, without playing the game. 

Common sense suggests that today it was due to some factors not in any way in our direct control, that the ground was not available for cricket. This to me is similar to a whole day of rain scenario. I understand that if it rains whole day without any ball bowled, the points would be split. It did not rain today but the ground was not available for uncontrollable factors, with no fault of ours. It would have been our fault if our teams was not prepared, in any form, to host the opposition.

So common sense says that the points should be split.

The opposition and some strange person acting as an umpire, just could not even follow a common sense argument. How can one argue with such bunch on logical grounds.

After much deliberation as was expected, both teams made written statements to be sent to league administration.

From our side, we offered a shorter match (25 overs) which the visitors declined. With that option out, we argued for declaring the match abandoned. The opposition, while refusing to play a shorter game, maintained that the match should be awarded to them.

The  league administration that will look into our statements, is a joke to begin with. Every new situation is reinforcing this impression.

There are no proper rules for adjusting scores for rain affected matches. There are no rules to account for situation like that of Sunday last, when a game is to be abandoned for factor not in direct control. The formula used to calculate the net run rate makes no sense. And so on... I wonder if there is a human who really knows the exact set of rules and regulations of the league. I am sure we will keep discovering new shortcomings of the league with every match.

It is time some really concerned people get involved in the organization of the league. When the chief coordinator refuses to take any calls on Sundays and still want every decision to be made via him, you can just imagine.

All and all not a good day of cricket.


Arvind
PS: Raghav suggested the title of the blog. Thanks Raghav.

When cricket went onesided

The match (or the mis-match) lasted 12 overs. We took 8 overs to take 9 wickets of the opposition and conceded 31 runs, of those at least 9 were from wides. Then chased the score in 3.5 overs with the help of 9 extras.

The visitors from Leonberg were not at all ready to play a match. They were short of one player. Their team was under-prepared and understrength. It is very likely that they failed to raise a full strength team for an away fixture on a Thursday (although a holiday in south Germany).

We have, in past played against much more ill-prepared teams than the Leonberg team. In all those attempts, having accessed the strength of the opposition we invariably reduced the intensity and tried to create a match out of a mismatch. I recall reducing a team to 11-6 and then Matt and myself were taken off the attack and multiple similar instances.

Not in this case. The reason -- well, we wanted to get our points for the Twenty20 league and on top wanted to make sure that we improve our average. So in this process we just ignored cricket and focused on mere numbers. 

Did we do wrong? No, everybody in that situation would have done the same. 

But are numbers greater than Cricket. My answer is that no. The competition in the league forced us to take on such ruthless approach which was clearly not within the spirit of Cricket. In being ruthless and clinical in our victory we just respected the league system. 

At same time I would like to add that Leonberg did not act properly when they fielded such a team. It cannot be said that they had a bad day. They were just understrength. Except for a couple of player none of the opposition deserved their place. Teams that are part of the league should act in more responsibility and respect the fact that the league is in place to increase competition.

We did realize that our clinical attitude was perhaps not in the right spirit, so we did well to play a practice game with the guests.

It is difficult to find out what went good and not so good when we play such an opposition.

Tomorrow is a far more important game. We have only won one game out three for the 40 over matches league. The opposition is orders of magnitude better than the one we played on Thursday last, if rumors and score sheets have to be believed. So we really have to switch gears and secure a win tomorrow to remain in the hunt for the championship.

Then the Nomads Won: First victory of the season

Emily Dickinson wrote:

Success is counted sweetest

By those who ne'er succeed. 

An illustration of this beautiful poem could be seen at the seepark ground, Freiburg on the afternoon of Sunday, May 16,2010.

Nomads took a full season and four matches in this one, under Sikander's captaincy to secure a victory against a decent side. What a shame that the team captain who had led the team through one of the worst patch, was not there to savor the moment. The players who were part of the team in the last season finally got to taste victory and it was easy to see the significance of the win.

In a somewhat relevant dimension this victory also meant that now we have won a match in two we have played so far in the BWCV league. It was important to win the match to keep the hopes alive in the league and not to dive too deep in the league table.

Finally Nomads showed what they are actually capable of. We defeated a team that had won two of it previous league game and was leading the points table. The victory margin clearly reflects how one sided affair the match turned out to be.

Starting with a run-out in the very first over, Nomads kept getting breakthroughs at regular intervals. To chase 154 runs in 40 overs is not difficult in our field, but rain was an obvious fear. For some strange reason, the organizers have adopted a two decade old rain-rule which has been proved consistently retarded and useless. There was a reason why ICC adopted the Duckworth-Lewis rain rule. But not the BWCV, they still want to live in the dark ages of rain-rules.

With the overcast skies, Nomads batsmen had a single minded goal -- to stay up with the required run rate. That is what exactly happened. For one the German Rain Gods helped us by forcing the opposition to conceded a heap of extra runs and at one point we were cruising along at a run rate of 9 per over. Although we lost a couple of wickets in succession, Vijay who was playing his first match this season after a string of 'self-invited injuries' ensured that the lower order was not exposed and without any drama he took the Nomads home.

Besides, Vijay and Sagir's batting in my opinion one aspect that won us the game was our fielding. It was just a superlative effort. Field placement was perfect. In the point and gully region several 10s of runs were saved. I think Vijay was again the hero of field setting. Sikander more or less gave the control of field to Vijay and Sagir and that worked for us. If not for that field setting we would have been chasing a score in excess of 180 and that would have been a tough target in rain and heavy ball.

In the light of the win I do not want to ignore the fact that our fast bowling attack is not looking threatening enough. In the last match, Rajesh did well to control runs but he failed to take wickets. My terrible form continued and it is getting worrisome now. I had a good spell in the start but then on I was completely useless. With every over I conceded more runs. My bowling in the middle over is a reminder of Ajit Agarkar, who has a knack of bowling 4 amazing deliveries and still he finishes an over with 6-8 runs. I need to work on it really hard. I think it is psychological, I just hate the cricket ball we use in these matches. The cricket balls that we got from the Deutche-Cricket-Bundes (DCB) are complete disgrace. As soon as you hit the seam on the wicket the seam opens up and after few overs there is no chance for seam bowlers.

I have to say a word for the neutral umpire. It is indeed a very good idea. It is true that it costs Euros 25 per team to have a neutral umpire but it is worth it.

They say winning is a habit. Nomads now have secured a perfect victory to inspire them for the next games. But Nomads ought to remember that winning a match is just one thing and give the nature of the game and the world, it may even be a chance. To prove that it is not chance and they have it in them, they must get on to a winning track now...

right arm over

Arvind

Just not enough numbers for the Nomads: The first league match

Its now six days since we played our first league game. Despite our very good preparation, enthusiasm and confidence we started the season with a loss.

Numbers as objective as they are, out of their context, they may at times convey a wrong impression. Particularly, when we try to reduce a complex phenomenon to one dimensional quantification. For instance, in this case of our loss by three wickets, numbers may suggest that we played a very tight game which could have gone either way.

The match was pretty one-sided from the time of the drinks break of the Pak-Freiburg's inning. We gave them a modest target of 144 runs in 40 overs. At the end of 20 overs Pak-Freiburg were about 73 runs with a loss of 3 or 4 wickets. Even though we took a couple of quick wickets after the drinks break, it was not enough. 

Din and Rizwan for most of their time on the pitch just showed a dead-bat to the balls and essentially killed the game for us. Our bowlers, particularly myself, struggled to get past the bats of Din and Rizwan. They could enjoy that luxury of batting like they did because the required run rate was never a real concern. They need some 3-4 runs an over if they could bat through the 40 overs. If we add to this the fact that at our level, most of our bowlers, on average concede ~1.5 extra runs (wides, mainly) per over, the effective run rate for the opposition was around two an over. 

For us the only chance to save the game was to bowl our the opposition. None of our bowlers look like doing that, Sagir, and Rajesh showed some promise by taking a few wickets. But we lacked a penetrative power in our bowling. We all were bowling very monotonous. There was not much to test the batting. If we were defending a score of 180 runs or so perhaps our bowling would have been sufficient. But with no pressure to maintain the run rate the batsmen never need to take any risk.

After the match I thought hard to isolate reasons for loss. All I could come up is rather trivial -- we lacked a good score on the board. With some 30 more runs on the board, same bowlers would have appeared to be doing the job right.

I am not defending the bowlers, just because I am one. In fact, I am first to blame myself. The three wicket difference between the two teams is actually my share of wickets. If I had taken a couple, we would have put up a better show and the tone of this post would have been very different.

Finally, it maybe just me but I somehow got the impression that we were in some sort of panic all through the match. I cite two examples. First, in so many years of cricket, against easy and tough teams, in important and irrelevant matches, I have never been a part of a team meeting (team talk) in the drinks break of the first inning while we were batting first. Second, after the drinks break when we were bowling, none of the bowlers bowled in a proper spell. Bowlers, need time sometime, particularly when their bowling is not along the expectations. None of our bowlers, myself, Sagir or Rajesh bowled more than one over spell in post drinks session.

To what extent this panic contributed to our loss cannot be quantified, as a bowler I share the responsibility of the lack of penetrative power in the bowling. But the batsmen have a big task ahead of them in this league. We cannot imagine to win many matched with scores of ~150 in 40 overs.

The great thing about the game was that it ended in more or less harmony with the Pak-Freiburg team. I think it was an achievement of sorts.

PS: The match started with a perfect 'desi' style of management. The umpires (neutral ones, provided by the league and cost us Euros 25 per team) failed to show up. I am sure that German Railways or google-maps were not responsible for this. The icing on the cake was that the main coordinator of the league does not like to take phone calls on a Sunday. Imagine this and add to this the fact that the guy is from Pakistan.  After half an hour of aimless discussion it was agreed that both teams will nominate a couple of players from both the teams to do umpiring.

Freiburg Nomads: Raring to go

Freiburg is one of the small towns in Germany. So, unlike big cities, it is not a popular place for expats. There are very few people from the commonwealth living here. Of those, I think about a couple of hundred are 'desis'. With such a demography, it comes as a surprise that in this little beautiful town in the back forest, there are two cricket clubs.

In mid 1990s, the first cricket club was started by the British and Australian expats and very rightly they named it Freiburg-Nomads. Sometime in late 1990's the Pakistani expats started their own club.

The Pak-Freiburg has always been a less organized but very competitive side. By contrast, the Nomads, have been more of a social club. However, in recent years with more Indian/Pakistani students joining the club, the Nomads have become pretty competitive side.

With Nomads gaining strength, in last few years, a sort of rivalry has developed between the two teams. So matches between the two teams are very hard fought - on field and on some occasions even off the field. The last time the two teams met, the match was abandoned because of a rather unnecessary on field verbal explosion between the two captains. 

After that match the general feeling among the Nomads was never to play the Pak-Freiburg again. However, this was not to be. Both the teams joined the newly formed Baden-Wurtemberg cricket league and as the fate has it, these two local rivals will be face-to-face for their first league game on the coming Sunday (April 25,2010). 

The last season for the Nomads was one to forget, in which we barely one a game. This year, did not start any better, however, the early defeat in a practice game did a great deal of good to the team. Since that defeat, in four/five training sessions, players have been more systematic and have  been working  on their weak points. Three new players have joined in, including a pretty solid batsman, who will be a big bonus after we lost Vijay to an injury. Sagir's presence in the last two training sessions have been very motivating. I am particularly impressed with the improvement of Raghav as a bowler. Rajesh is looking good. In batting other than the incumbent Ritesh, Sagir, Sikander and Craig are looking solid. So is Adnan. Today I took a couple of overs to get in the rhythm but overall I am very satisfied with my form. So far in training I did not focus on taking wickets, so I will have to switch gears.

Very importantly, the team is in very good tempo, things are gelling very well.  Everyone is in high spirit and confident. I think self-confidence is the most important things to go with in a cricket game. After all, cricket is a team game played by individuals. All in all the Nomads are raring to go and take on their local rivals and everyone wants to start the season and the league with a WIN.

Cricket is a great unifier. Or at least cricket can bring opportunities to resolve conflicts. So I look forward to a great game and independent of the result, I hope the two teams will be able to resolve their conflicts and return to a healthy rivalry.

right arm over

Arvind