Volume 1 March 01, 2011 Issue 19

Robin Singh appointed as the Coach of the USA U-19 Team

Editorial – Singh is King

SCCA League update

All-rounder’s Game

Blunders galore in Bengaluru

USA – ICC Americas U-19 Champions

Winter League
EDITORIAL Editor: K.C.S. Rao

SINGH IS KING !

The appointment of the West Indian born former Indian All-rounder

Rabindra Ramnarayan Singh aka Robin Singh as the Coach of the USA
Under-19 team, is the only positive move made by the USACA in the
past several months.

With the CEO position of USACA yet to be filled up, I am surprised that President
Dainty found time to finalize a coach for the Under-19 side. Dainty may have just
pulled a rabbit out of his hat.

Robin Singh has got lot of experience as a coach and an ideal person to coach the
young Under-19 side. Robin has coached the Indian Juniors and India ‘A’ squads in
the past. He also served as the Fielding Coach for the Indian side for 2 years and is
currently the Coach of the Sachin Tendulkar led Mumbai Indian’s side in the Indian
Premier League (IPL).

He has got a lot to offer as an experienced coach and as a former International

Cricketer. His links with the West Indies and India will surely help him in
understanding the minds of Cricketers who have migrated into USA from these
countries.

Having experienced himself, Robin knows how one can perform in the top level by
understanding ones limitations. Robin, as we all know, is not of the flamboyant all-
rounder category. He was a fighter and work horse who kept on doing the job for
India, as a cricketer, by fully understanding his limitations and playing to his
strengths.

Under his guidance as a coach the Indian Under-19 side and the ‘A’ side performed
extremely well in the International cricket. The Mumbai Indians have been
consistent under his coaching in the IPL and had reached the Finals, last year.

Robin believes in hard work and is surely going to push our Cricketers a lot. He has
experience in identifying players and bringing out the best in them. The decision to
send Cameron Mirza as opener in the first game is an example to this.
There is a talk that Robin might also be assigned the job of coaching the USA team.
For now, Dainty seems to be obsessed with his new staff and his willing to support
whatever additional role Robin might be interested in taking up for the cause of
USA Cricket.

Luck always plays a major role in any field for any assignment. It seems the Lady
Luck has embraced Robin in his very first assignment. Within days after
appointment as the coach for the USA Under-19 Team, the Robin coached USA
Under-19 Team came victorious in the ICC Americas U-19 Championship with a 5-0
win record.

A Positive move by the Board and a positive performance by the Team. Robin has
started with a winning note and we wish him the very best and hope he Coaches
even our senior side and help USA Cricket perform consistently in the International
arena.

SCCA League Update Staff Reporter

SCCA is scheduled to start the League Season in March, subject to weather conditions. SCCA is moving
forward in improving the facilities for the Players to practice by installing new practice nets. Hopefully, this
would help the Batsmen polish their skills and bring in much needed relief to the Bowlers in reducing wides and
no balls. The last season saw quite a few innings where the wides accounted for more than 5-6 extra overs.
ALL-ROUNDER’S GAME Dr. V.V. Giri

The World Cup started in grand style with India scoring a thundering and convincing victory over Bangladesh.
This was a revenge for the Indians who had a humiliating defeat in the last WC at West Indies resulting in
rolling of many heads.

This time, India gave no chance to Bangladesh with Sehwag literally destroying the Bangladesh bowling with a
superb 175. Virat Kohli also chipped in a century thus ensuring that the fight will be between Raina and Yuvraj
for the lone batting vacant slot.

Other countries also recorded their victory as expected, though there were some tense moments for England
against Holland, Bangladesh against Ireland and SA against WI. If you call an upset, it was for the SL team
which lost to Pakistan.

But I won’t consider Pakistan as underdogs and in this World Cup they have a good side with many genuine
allrounders. True, their batting is slightly vulnerable, not as strong as their bowling, but their fielding and
catching are still atrocious which makes me feel them not the favorites for the Cup.

In this WC, the strengths and weaknesses for each team is going to be different. Since the tournament is played
in the sub-continent, batting and bowling will be difficult for the regulars especially for the South Africans and
the Aussies.

The ball is not going to come on to the bat and hence the stroke making is going to be difficult. Since the
wickets are very slow with low bounce, the real fast bowlers are going to suffer. I can name the bowlers - Dale
Stein, Morkel, Tait, and Lee will have a tough time in this Cup.

Spin and slow bowling are going to be the order of the day and as such you see the spinners opening the
bowling for South Africa, West Indies and for India too I expect Dhoni to open the bowling with spinner. Even
the military medium pacers will have a role to play.

When the wicket is slow and not for stroke making, it is ideal to have ‘gentle’ medium pacers like our former
champion cricketer, Jimmy Amarnath who could frustrate the batsmen. Many teams will change their strategy
this time and they will not go for genuine pacers. They would pump the side with many all rounders and use
them at a suitable time.

This WC will see each side using more than six bowlers, unlike the regular five with ten overs each. The
captains nowadays do not give a bowler a long spell and uses him in 3 or 4 spells. This is to avoid the batsmen
from settling or getting used to the bowler.

Gone are the days when the batting sides slog during the initial power plays like Jayasurya and Kaluwitharana
and go for higher run rate during the first ten or fifteen overs. They would like to have a good start, meaning -
without losing wickets. They want to keep enough wickets till the end and go all out during the last ten overs .
They want as many batsmen in the side as possible which means they would prefer allrounders.
If you notice one good point in the present WC, all the wicket keepers are genuinely good bats - Sangakarra,
Dhoni, Kamran Akmal, McCullum, Prior, Haddin and the greatest of them all - A.B.deVilliers. They all bat
within first five batting order and are number one keepers of their respective countries.

Allrounders is a tricky word. There are batsmen who could bowl a bit and bowlers who could bat decently. I
call them useful cricketers. My allrounders should be able to bat within first seven position and bowl regularly
ten overs. These types of allrounders are very few in today’s cricket. We don‘t have Sobers, Devs, Bothams,
Imrans, Hadlees or Procters.

In this WC, we have very few genuine players and J. Kallis is the best among them. Each country has tried their
best to select as many allrounders as possible.

India has Yusuf Pathan, Raina and Yuvraj. Perera, Mathews, and Dilshan are for SL. Aussies have Shane
Watson, David Hussey and Johnson. Gayle, Bravo and Pollard are terrific allrounders for WI. NZ have Vettori
and Styris. Pakistan have, in my opinion, the best all rounders in Hafeez, Afridi and Abdul Razzaq.

With the wicket keepers becoming main batsmen of each team, they are also considered as allrounders. So in
this World Cup I guess allrounders will play a leading role and the captains will use more bowlers (even part
timers).

India won the cup in 1983 through allrounders in England where the wickets were slow in nature. We had Kapil
Dev, Sandeep Patil, Yashpal Sharma, Madan lal, Binny, Shastri, Kirti Azad and the great Amarnath who got the
Player of the World Cup award. I guess the side with more allrounders will win the cup this time.
BLUNDERS GALORE AT BENGALURU Dr. V.V. Giri

The Indian team seems to have a 'hearing problem' in addition to its bowling and fielding woes which led to its
failure to defend a strong score of 338 in the World Cup match against England here last night.

The on field umpire Billy Bowden with the Australian third umpire, made a mockery and added more fuel to the
fire when he ruled Ian Bell - not out after reviewing the LBW DRS appeal. His interpretation was the leg was
2.5 meters in front of the stumps, which the English commentators themselves would not agree.

Replays showed three things working in favor of the appeal --- there was no no-ball, the ball hit in line, and
Hawkeye said the ball was hitting the middle stump. Seeing the replay on the giant screen, Bell started walking
back when the umpires decided to stay the not-out decision.

Hawkeye said the ball was hitting the stumps and there was no reason to not give it out, even though Bell was
out of his crease. There were many instances in which batsmen walked down the pitch, hit on the shin and were
given out LBW. So if that can be out, so should be this.

This is a clear example of adulteration of technology with human intervention.

The World Cup match between India and England at Bangaluru, which ended in a thrilling tie, has sparked a
new life into the tournament and sent a strong message to the critics who believe that one-day cricket is nearing
its moribund stage, British media reported on Monday.

In a nerve-wracking World Cup group-B league match at the M. Chinnaswamy stadium last night, England tied
the scores after being set an imposing target of 339 by the Indians.

I really thought the game would be over by the 48th over the way Andrew Strauss and Ian Bell were batting, so
I am quite happy with the result.

Dhoni, covering one of his many faults of not retaining Zaheer for the 49th over said he was at peace having
given Munaf Patel the final over in which England needed 14 to win. Rookie pacer Azmal Shahzad hit a first-
ball six to put England back in the game. But Munaf did a good job. He was bowling in the right areas, but
Shahzad played a good shot. It happens.

No need to discuss about how poor bowling and fielding in addition to a late batting collapse that resulted in the
fall of India's last seven wickets for 33 runs and nearly enabled England to win.

Strauss benefits as Team India turns deaf: England skipper Andrew Strauss, who was the architect of India's
agony by hitting his highest ODI score of 158, should have been out when he has scored a mere 13 if wicket-
keeper Dhoni, Zaheer or close-in fielders had appealed for a caught behind at that point. Strauss clearly nicked a
Zaheer delivery but there was no appeal by the Indians.

98 runs later, the England skipper had another stroke of luck when he again edged Zaheer to Dhoni with his
score at 111 but none of the Indians on the field appealed.
Some of the television commentators, who heard the clear nicks in the replays, thought that the Indian players
probably did not hear the edges because of the crowd noise -- an unconvincing argument given the fact that
Indian cricketers are used to noisy, boisterous crowds everytime they set foot on the field. No cricket ground in
the world has as vocal spectators as Kolkata's Eden Gardens where over one lakh fans turn out for big matches.
Petersen also nicked a Munaf Patel delivery early in his inning as well (players never appealed)

Now each and every Indian cricket lovers are so worried and scared about this WC. How can a team listed as
favorites to win the World Cup concede 621 runs in their first two matches? That is the worrying thought as the
Indian campaign continues on its roller coaster ride, the ups being provided by the batting and the downs by the
bowling and fielding.

The words Shahid Afridi has used in lambasting his own team could well be used for the Indians too. "If we
field like this we will return home long before we have planned" said the Pakistan captain mincing no words in
describing the abysmal fielding standards.

But by going with what we have seen so far the Indian cricketers are no better. For at least a couple of players it
is ‘going back’ to the bad old days when the fielders used to "escort the ball to the boundary."

One wonders as to how a team can hope to win the World Cup with thin bowling resources and sub-standard
fielding and faulty catching. The latter has always been a sadly neglected aspect of Indian cricket and while
there has been some improvement in recent years the Indians are still some way behind most other countries
whose players leap, dive and slide while making saves or completing catches. Indian team’s fielding appears to
be far below the standards displayed by some of the teams like Kenya, Zimbabwe and Netherland.

In a closely fought match between teams evenly balanced in batting and bowling - and from the quarter-finals
every match is going to be frightfully close - it is the 20 odd runs conceded in the field or a dropped catch that
can make the decisive difference between winning and losing.

The point is that MS Dhoni seems resigned to the ineptitude in the field. After Sunday's game the Indian captain
remarked that "we could have defended this total if we had a better fielding side but we have to make do with
what we have got." Therein lies the problems for the Indians. It is customary for any team's think tank to discuss
shortcomings after a match and come up with solutions.

The disturbing aspect is that there seems to be no practical solution for these twin problems. The fielding will
continue to be sub-standard while the bowling will continue to be hit all over the park whether the team
management goes in for three seamers and a spinner or two seamers and two spinners.

A lot has made about the Indians having many part time spin options but on current evidence their bowling does
not provide a comforting thought. On the contrary it is alarming to think that the team will have to soldier along
on these lines with the Indian team management not inclined to shift from the seven batsmen four bowler
policy.

Time and again the Indian batting has come to the rescue of the team. But it appears that the most illustrious
batting line-up in the game will have to perform superlatively even by its own Himalayan standards in the
World Cup. If the bowling and the fielding cannot defend a total of 338, what can be done? A lot may be made
of the fact that the Indians slid sharply from 305 for three to 338 all out. It is asheer display of reckless batting
at the end.
I am sure the bookies have already made some changes and installed Pakistan, South Africa or Australia as the
new favorites. Going by what one has seen during the first ten days of the competition these three teams have
been particularly impressive but of course it is still a long way to April 2 and anything can happen. Who
expected Pakistan down and almost out midway through their campaign in 1992 to emerge World Cup winners?

Plenty of fuss was also raised over the India and England match after former Australian leg-spinner Shane
Warne correctly tweeted seven hours before the start of the match that it would be a tie.

England skipper Andrew Strauss claimed that Warne had shown he was a cricket genius with his correct
prediction but others also observed that it was strange how one could predict a tie so early before a match.

Yes, on summarizing, the main reasons for not winning this match:

1. Poor fielding - only one or two fast movers in the eleven. Others are anchored, flat footed fielders.- Sachin,
Sehwag, Gambir, Yuvraj, Bhajji, Zac, Munaf, Chawla - no where near international standard.
2. Poor bowling ability, except for Zac, others have - no speed, no variation, no talent, no ideas. No one is
available in India, Can't help.
3. Blunders by umpires, blunders by bowlers in not appealing (thrice).
4. Clueless lower batting order - 7 wickets given for 30 runs.
5. Very poor captaincy- in field placing, bowling changes.
6. Above all, team has a terrible coach- who doesn't do home work at all. No bowling strategies, No batting
strategy towards the end, Unable to read the opponents and perform the SWOT analysis, Not working in
repairing our batsmen's weakness against short pitch balls, slog over bowling, catching and fielding. Simply
hangs around, never troubles the players to work hard, pats all the players all the time, keep their belongings
(mob ph, wallet etc) and be a nice guy. Only one solution - We need Greg Chappell maan !!!
USA – ICC AMERICAS U-19 CHAMPIONS Prakash Krishnagiri

Standout performances by Cameron Mirza and Gurpreet Sandhu helped USA

win the ICC Americas Under-19 Championships recently held in Florida.

The USA team won all their 5 matches to seal the Championship. It is their
second championship title in the last 6 years. They won the Championship
earlier in 2005.

Cameron Mirza was named the Most Valuable Player of the Tournament for
leading the runs chart for the USA with 193 including a magnificent 118 not out
against Argentina in the opening game, where he carried the bat through the
innings.

Gurpreet Sandhu was the joint leading wicket taker in the Tournament with 12 wickets, including a
mesmerizing spell of 5 wickets for 7 runs against Bermuda.

The USA team was a dominant force throughout the Tournament and it was evident when their bowlers
bowled out their opposition for totals of 54, 40, and 50 whenever they bowled first.

Though credit of the success goes to the coach, in this case, Robin Singh, the USA coach hardly had 3 days to
workout with the boys before the first game. A good talk, few tips, self-confidence is all that could have been
possible for him to provide for the first game. From there on his presence has made a huge difference to the
team in the way they conducted themselves on the field and performed consistently without any
complacency.

It is good to see that the new coach starting with a

bang. The Players too seem to enjoy his rigorous
sessions. The USA team along with runner-up Canada
join, Afghanistan, Nepal, Papua New Guinea, Kenya,
Namibia, Scotland, Vanuatu and Ireland in the 2012
Under-19 World Cup Qualifiers to be held from July
28 to August 9 in Ireland. The top six teams will
qualify for the ICC Under-19 World Cup.

The Team has got great talent and with a proper coach
in Robin, taking charge of the Team, USA will be
hoping to qualify for the ICC U-19 world cup for the
second time in a row.

Weekend Cricket Management and Readers congratulate the USA U-19 team and wish them good luck for their
World Cup qualifiers.
SO. CALIFORNIA WINTER CRICKET LEAGUE Staff Reporter

Torrance Beat USC by 11 Runs

Torrance 128 for 8 in 20 Overs (Saravanan K 27, Sunil Jain 20, Dushyant Sharma 3 for 10, Tarun Sandhu 2 for
26, Jeet Poonater 2 for 28)
USC 117 for 8 in 20 Overs (Tarun Tyagi 20, Rishab Nanda 20, Pranav Dua 20, Maduka De Silva 3 for 27,
Karthick RP 2 for 14, Saravanan K 2 for 9)

Friends Beat Transformers by 6 Wickets

Transformers 74 for 8 in 19.1 Overs (Asad Khan 27, Ajit Sonawane 20, Asif Idrees 3 for 10, Fahmeed Khan 2
for 8)
Friends 75 for 5 in 15 Overs (Asif Abba Ali 31, Rashid Zia 21, Ashish Lone 3 for 8)

LA Slammers Beat Hollywood AS by 1 Wicket

Hollywood AS 95 in 17.4 Overs (Delan Bastian 43, Rafiq Mohammad 4 for 4, Vishal Dhiman 5 for 16)
LA Slammers 96 for 9 in 20 Overs (Pranav Kumar Sinha 25 not out, Venkat Mayreddy 3 for 31, Delan Bastian 3
for 27, Kiran Challa 2 for 9)

CSUF Titans Beat Transformers by 24 Runs

CSUF Titans 105 for 9 in 20 Overs (Nitesh Anandan 20, Adheesh Bhate 22, Inderbir Singh 2 for 12, Asad Khan
2 for 28)
Transformers 81 for 8 in 17.4 Overs (Inderbir Singh 34, Kanwarajit Singh 3 for 24, Muhammad Sadiq 2 for 10)

IE Beat Culver City by 52 Runs

IE 179 for 5 in 20 Overs (Nandish Patel 84, Dhaval Desai 21, Priyank Patel 21, Ishan Patel 24, Muffidkhan
Pathan 3 for 31)
Culver City 127 for 9 in 20 Overs (Wahab Daud 59, Saad Yusuf 21, Muffidkhan Pathan 21, Janek Patel 5 for
16, Nandish Patel 2 for 19)

CSULB-Deccan Beat CSUF Titans by 3 Wickets

CSUF Titans 90 in 17.3 Overs (Muhammad Sadiq 34, Nishant Patel 5 for 20, Babar Hashim 2 for 14)
CSULB-Deccan 91 for 7 in 19.2 Overs (Nishant Patel 32, Ravi Singh 4 for 19)
Warriors Beat Kings11 by 7 Wickets

Kings11 83 for 9 in 18 Overs (Pawan Daruri 5 for 12)

Warriors 87 for 3 in 14.3 Overs (Nick Kapadia 34 not out)

Friends Beat USC by 9 Wickets

USC 61 All Out in 15.2 Overs (Rishabh Nanda 23, Rashid Zia 3 for 8, Shahzad Memon 4 for 1, Fahmeed Khan
2 for 12)
Friends 62 for 1 in 9.2 Overs (Rashid Ramzan 23 not out, Asif Abba Ali 25)

Warriors Beat Culver City by 4 Wickets

Culver City 110 all out in 20 Overs (Andy Kapadia 2 for 14, Kartik Nuggehalli 2 for 21, Aditya Kuchibhatla 2
for 11)
Warriors 112 for 6 in 18.2 Overs (Kartik Nuggehalli 23, Nick Kapadia 26, Avez Shaikh 3 for 7)

Transformers Beat CSULB-Deccan by 21 Runs

Transformers 64 for 9 in 16.4 Overs (Nishant Patel 3 for 8, Babar Hashim 4 for 6)
CSULB-Deccan 43 all out in 16.4 Overs (Chirayu Sapre 3 for 10, Colin Cox 3 for 7, Abhimanyu Rajp 2 for 8)

Hollywood AS Beat Star by 17 Runs

Hollywood AS 127 for 6 in 20 Overs (Delan Bastian 27, Satvinder Singh 3 for 11)
Star 110 all out in 19.1 Overs (Venkat Mayreddy 2 for 35, Kiran Challa 3 for 9, Satish Balu 2 for 9, Delan
Bastian 2 for 12)

LA Slammers Beat Kings11 by 5 Runs

LA Slammers 117 all out in 20 Overs (Srini Kancharla 32, Lokesh Dhar 27, Jay Patel 2 for 23, Nandakishore
Krishna 3 for 18)
Kings11 112 all out in 20 Overs (Harry Zalim 42 not out, Ajay Ahir 21, Pritesh Patel 25, Nafi Newaj 2 for 14,
Rafiq Mohammad 2 for 22)

IE Beat Dolphins by 73 Runs

IE 117 for 9 in 19.1 Overs (Priyank Patel 79, Pardha Manyala 2 for 9, Praveenkumar Devarajan 2 for 7)
Dolphins 44 all out in 13.5 Overs (Janek Patel 3 for 11, Ritesh Patel 3 for 4)
Torrance Beat CSUF Titans by 6 Wickets

CSUF Titans 120 for 6 in 20 Overs (Ravi Singh 25, Adheesh Bhate 25, Charan Raj 3 for 20)
Torrance 126 for 4 in 18 Overs (Hari Srinivas 31, Ajay Garyali 36)

IE Beat Kings11 by 7 Wickets

Kings11 44 for 7 in 11 Overs (Dhaval Desai 2 for 12, Ishan Patel 2 for 8, Janek Patel 2 for 2)
IE 46 for 3 in 10 Overs (Priyank Patel 24 not out, Hitendra Patel 3 for 10)

Culver City Beat Hollywood AS by 1 Wicket

Hollywood AS 80 all out in 15.5 Overs (Zair Daud 2 for 17, Muffidkhan Pathan 2 for 8, Faisal Mohammed 2 for
4)
Culver City 81 for 9 in 19.5 Overs (Kiran Challa 2 for 10)

IE Beat LA Slammers by 6 Runs

IE 122 for 5 in 20 Overs (Dhaval Desai 62, Kazi Ahmed 3 for 26)
LA Slammers 116 for 8 in 20 Overs (Srini Kancharla 44, Vishal Dhiman 25 not out, Dhaval Desai 4 for 19,
Janek Patel 3 for 28)

Kings11 Beat Hollywood AS by 6 Wickets

Hollywood AS 103 for 8 in 20 Overs (Ankur Patel 30, Satish Balu 26, Hitendra Patel 3 for 18, Mahesh Ahir 2
for 18)
Kings11 104 for 4 in 18.3 Overs (Nikesh Ahir 25, Gunjan Patel 45 not out, Delan Bastian 3 for 13)

‘Global Warming’ has not spared Southern California region and its cricket. It has not only been raining for a
longer duration this year but has snowed in Southern California – a rare event. Southern California Winter
League was badly affected by these rains and a few games have to be postponed. This league has now reached
the play-off stages and should be completed within the next few weeks provided the rains show mercy!