I was hit by the cricket ball

After reading the title, wondering what is the big deal :-). I accept. Not a big deal for you. Neither it is for me now, but when I was hit, it was indeed painful. Very very painful. And I have been hit twice.

Both the occasions when I was umpiring. So umpiring is not as safe as it looks on the TV screen. We as umpires do not have to face the likes of Brett Lee or Shane Bond to be hit. But that does not prevent us from being hit either. It is not that I have been hit only twice, but these two occasions were really painful.

The first occasion was when I was in Belgium last year, 2010. It was around the beginning of the season. The match was between Antwerp Indians CC v Belgium Development side (U-19). It was AICC batting, first innings of the game. The batsman (if I remember correctly) was Sehul Javeri. He was hitting the ball all round the park. It was very evident that BDS would have to chase some very big score. Sehul hit a perfect straight drive. This occasion I was at the bowling end. The ball was coming straight towards me. It was at my face height. It was coming really fast. This was not the first time that I was in such a situation. The only thing that I had to do was to get away from the line of the ball. On a normal day, I would have done so. As I had mentioned in one of my previous post, I have been struggling with my knee for more than a year now. June 2010 was the time when I was just recovering from my injury. At that point of time, to make rapid movements from one position to other was a huge problem for me. In umpiring, one has to do that a lot. Without any doubt last season, I had been struggling to move around. In this situation, when the ball was coming towards me, to prevent myself from being hit, I had to move away, but my knee did not help. The ball was very close and the only thing that I could do was to raise my hand to prevent myself from being it on the face. All this happened in span of couple of seconds. It was well in time and the ball hit my elbow (right at the joint) and it was a nasty blow. The next moment, I was on the ground with excruciating pain. Luckily, ice cubes were available with the home team (AICC) and I rubbed the point of injury with ice for about 5 minutes. I felt some relief. Later, I wrapped up few pieces for ice in my handkerchief. Then resumed my umpiring with the handkerchief tied around my elbow. I continued like that till the ice melted. The pain was still there but bearable and did not impact my umpiring much, though I had two injuries to manage now (one on my knee and another on my elbow). But somehow I managed both and the game as well. Luckily, I did not have any fracture, there was no swelling, but I had to live with the pain for another couple of weeks.

The next incident was this year in February back in India. It was a game between Twentieth Century CC and Minerva CC. The game was played in Chennai Medical College ground. This was the most uneven ground that I had come across. But we had no other choice but to play the game. The fielders were having tough time fielding the ball, as the ball would suddenly jump in front of them. The maximum damage would be done when the fielder is at the boundary. He would be all set to field the ball and then all of a sudden the ball would take an unprecedented turn or bounce (because of the unevenness of the ground) and will cross the boundary. On one such occasion, the ball crossed the boundary. I was umpiring at the bowling end. I have the habit of scoring as well when I am umpiring. On this occasion, as the ball crossed the boundary, I signalled 4 to the scorer and then I was busy recording the 4 on my card. My attention was completely towards the card. The fielder threw the ball towards the bowler. The ball pitched in front of the bowler, the bowler was ready to collect. At this point of time, the ball took a vicious turn and bounced high and by the time I realized what happened, I was down on the ground. The ball had hit my left jaw joint. The pain was unbearable. More than the pain, I was worried about any possible fracture of the jaw. My jaw had already been fractured once in the past (not while playing or umpiring) and I was still bearing the scar (figuratively) of that. So I did not want another one. With all these thoughts in mind, I was releived to know that one of the team had ice with them. I touched my jaw and there was very little swelling, which gave me a hope that there was no fracture. I tried to open my mouth wide open and I was able to do it with no severe pain. This was another positive. But I had to rub the jaw with ice to prevent the injury from worsening. I did it for a while and then, like previous incident, I wrapped some ice in the handkerchief and held it against my jaw with the left hand and resumed the game. So with one hand on my jaw, I began umpiring as well. I am not sure, if I was being foolish or being brave (in my opinion, neither of them), but I wanted to carry on with the game. In my assessment (as in previous incident as well), the injury was not severe enough for me to leave the field. I was able to manage the game, without any problem. The game got over but like before, I had to bear this pain for another week or two. In this case it was even more painful as whenever I had to eat something, I had to bear this pain.

That completes the narration of the two painful incidents that I had. Wondering why I had to come up with this now, as both the incidents are not recent one. The answer is very simple, I am making an honest attempt to keep my blog alive. With season coming to an end, I will not have any games in the recent future. That would mean that I will not have any game that I could discuss in this blog. The result, another break in my writing. So I thought, I will come up with some incidents from my past.

Hope it was not a painful reading. :) Will try to come up with something less painful (if you are lucky, more interesting) next time. :)

Game 9 this season

As promised in my previous post, here I am with a write up on my game on May 1, 2011. I know it is more than a week late, but anyway, it is better than not coming up with one. Sorry for the choice of the title. I could not come up with anything better.

May 1 is normally a holiday. It was even Sunday this time. I was not fortunate to have a day off. I had to stand in this 50 overs game, that too on a very hot day.

This was an interesting game as it was between the top two teams of the Division 4A. It was game between TSRMSC and Jupiter SC. TSRMSC was at the top of the table having won all 10 games so far. Jupiter SC had just lost 1 game out of 10 played. So, that meant that if TSRMSC won this game, they would be the champions. But if Jupiter SC won this game, then there would be a play off between the same two teams to decide the champion. So that means we umpires had a tough game ahead.

My colleague for the day was Mr K. Raghuram. He too qualified as an umpire in 2009 with me. This season, since I was not in India for most part of the season, this was only my 9th game. But this guy had already done 50+ games this season and overall he has done some 75 games in just two seasons. He has already been rewarded for his dedication. He has done two Division 1 games (3 days game) so far and he is expected to get Division 1 games in the beginning of the next season. So here was a guy from whom, I can draw some inspiration and work really hard to beat his count :-).

Now let me come back to the game :). The venue for the game was IIT Stadium. TSRMSC won the toss and elected to field. This was a surprise choice, as I have never seen any team in these leagues electing to field first. This meant that they had tremendous confidence in their bowling attack. I hoped that their bowling does come good and we had a shorter game. Remember, the heat was already too much at 9:30 in the morning.

The game started at 9:30 AM and the very first over offered an opportunity to the fielding team. But the fielder at first slip missed a sharp catch. Jupiter started their batting with aggression and were around 7 per over till wicket fell in each of the 5th and 6th over. Jupiter were 41/2 then. Then steadily their run rate started dipping.

It was just 10 overs and we were all sweating profusely. Though the first water break was scheduled only at 10:30 AM, we were allowing the teams to have water during the over breaks. More the frequency of such break, it would mean that there could be a delay in finishing the game. At the same time, lesser such breaks would mean that we would not have enough players in good conditions till the end of the game. So, we as an umpires had to strike that balance.

Meanwhile, another wicket fell in 11th over. Jupiter were now 58/3, you can see the run rate has already come down. This fall of wicket was something special. This kind of incident happened for the first time in my umpiring career (still premature to call it a career :)). The bowler was bowling from my end, left arm bowler, bowling round the wicket, coming diagonal. It was right hand batsman. The ball pitched outside the off stump, the batsman lunged forward to reach the ball, the ball turned away from him, caressing the edge of the bat, the keeper took the catch and as soon as he completed it, he whipped off the bails in a flash, the batsman in the process of lunging, dragged his back foot outside the crease. In the excitement, all of them appealed to the striker's end umpire and the umpire had no hesitation in giving the batsman out. Then I went to my colleague and told him that it was a legal catch as well, which meant that catch takes precedence when compared to stumping. So it had to be recorded as caught behind and not stumping. My colleague agreed and we asked the scorer to record it as caught behind.

After couple of overs, of the same bowler, the batsman tried to go for a slog sweep, he missed it completely. The ball rose and hit the helmet of the batsman and fell short of the man in gully. The fielder dived but could not get it. The captain was disappointed with the fielder's effort. The captain asked me if the ball had hit the bat, to which I responded in negative. The captain was disappointed with my response. I do not know if he was sure that the batsman had hit, why he had to ask me :). Anyway, everyone thought that it had hit the bat during the sweep, but somehow I was not convinced. Thankfully the catch was not taken, so no damage done (to me :), of course).

Another couple of overs, there was a huge appeal from the fielders and a mild appeal from the bowler from my end for LBW. I turned it down as the ball was high and there was no way it could have hit the stumps. When I could see the the bails below the level of ball, and the ball is rising, it could not have been out. As the bowler was walking back to his run up, his captain told him that the appeal should have been full hearted, only then he could get a better result (I think the previous incident contributed to this remark). This is not the first time I have heard such comments from the players. They completely forget that we do not base our decisions solely on how confident the bowler is (sometimes that also contributes), but we base our decisions on the facts that we see. They always has this notion of louder and longer their appeal is, better is their chances of getting a decision in their favor, which is not the case. Anyway, the decision was made and game progressed without any issue.

Another wicket fell in the 19th over and then there was a drought of wickets for another 18 overs. These 18 overs, with no wickets falling and the heat having its impact, we were all getting drained. It was very much visible in the body language of the fielding team. In the 30th over, the bowler (was bowling spin) bowled a ball well above the waist high, it was really high but still below the shoulder level. I immediately called it no ball, which was a correct decision. It was my next step which increased the temperature on the ground further. I gave first warning for unfair delivery. The captain was of the opinion that it was a slow bowler, hence the warning was not valid. My colleague confirmed that it demanded a warning but the captain of the fielding team was not impressed. Neither were we with his on field behavior. The wicket keeper even went to the extent of telling my colleague to go and check the rule book. The players always have their own interpretation of the rules. The rule does talk about the slow bowl being bowled above shoulder high as dangerous and not when it is bowled above waist high. So it is the speed of the bowl that counts and not the nature of the bowler. If the bowler is bowling spin, does not mean that he is necessarily bowling slow.

Finally the relief came for the fielding team in 39th over when they were able to break the 5th wicket partnership. The innings lasted full 50 overs but the batsmen in hurry to score quick lost their wickets and the final score of Jupiter read 214/10 at the end of 50 overs. My hope at the toss that the first innings would end soon did not happen and we had to spend full 3 hours 40 mins in the scorching heat.

The next innings started at scheduled time of 1:45 PM. TSRMSC being at the top of the table, I expected a fight from them in this innings, which would mean that the innings would last for full 50 overs. I prepared myself mentally to stand in the heat for next three hours. But it was not and auspicious start for TSRMSC, they lost their first wicket in the 2nd over when the batsman was adjudged LBW. The batsman was visibly upset, not that he was justified. He stayed there in crease for quiet sometime. Thereafter TSRMSC started losing wickets at regular interval. At the end of 11th over they were 30/5. The bowler was on hatrick at the end of this over but could not get that in his next over. The heat was taking a toll and water was coming in the field almost at the end of every over. The fall of wickets continued and I could not see any real fight from the batting side. The innings finally folded in 30th over. TSRMSC scored just 87. The match ended more than an hour before the scheduled time. This was a relief for everyone except the losing team, of course.

This means that TSRMSC and Jupiter SC will have another game to decide the champion in their zone. Not sure who will umpire that game. For now, this game was over and it was a relief for me. I had to leave the same night for Bangalore, so this would give me some time to relax before I start for my travel. The cricket season 2010-11 is coming to an end. I am not sure, how many more games I will get. But I will try my best to keep you all updated. Till then have a nice time.

Back in business

Yes, I am back in business, both in blogging and umpiring. I am not sure how long I will continue with blogging, but umpiring is going to stay.

In fact, after my return to India on January 14, 2011, I started umpiring the very next week. This year already I have done 9 TNCA league games (Eight 50 overs and one 30 overs). In fact, it should have been two 30 overs game, but one of them was abandoned because of the overnight rain in Chennai.

The highlight of the season so far was, me getting to do two "Division 3" games. So far, I had been doing games only in "Division 4" and "Division 5". The other interesting thing was that these two "Division 3" games were on the turf. It was a very nice experience. It was really good to see the true bounce of the surface. Otherwise, on mats, sometimes you never know, if the bounce was a result of the bowler's effort or was it because of the unevenness of the surface under the mats.

Overall, I have done 45 games so far (excluding the 30 overs game). I need to work a lot on my concentration. The trouble in my knee has been a great source of distraction. No excuses, of course. Lapse of concentration has definitely lead to a few wrong decisions (of course in hindsight). When I take the decision, I do believe that it is correct but an afterthought sometimes tells you that it could have been wrong. But of course, you cannot verify that with anyone. You have to just go by your judgement. There will be always set of players who will be unhappy with you, so you cannot take that as a criteria to evaluate yourself.

The current season is almost ending. I have a game tomorrow. I think couple of more weeks and the curtains will be down for the current season. The next season will start in July 2011. The target for the next season will be to do at least one "Division 1" game. It is a three day game, so should be interesting. Also, there would be big names involved.

I will try to come up with a write up for my tomorrow's game. If I am not able to , do not be annoyed.

Till then, bye bye.

Dream Come True

In the journey of umpiring, it was another small step. This Thursday, i.e. May 13, 2010, I was appointed to umpire the game between Belgium and Germany. This was the first international game of my umpiring journey. Though this was just a friendly game and did not have an official status, the teams competing were the national sides of the respective countries. In fact were not allowed to call this a Belgium v Germany game. So it was called Belgium XI v German Selection. This was my first opportunity to umpire at this level. I never ever imagined in my wildest dream that I would ever umpire a game between national sides so soon (I have started umpiring only in 2008). Though I have umpired only one season (2008) in Belgium (I missed completely 2009 in Belgium though I did 4 games in India), I am happy that my efforts had been recognized and I had been given this opportunity. This is indeed no way close to what I have to achieve as an umpire, but this small step would definitely go down as a highlight of my umpiring journey (Note, I am still not calling it a career).

May 13 was a holiday in Belgium, so that made it is easy for me. I did not have to convince my manager for a leave. I decided the night before that I will have a good sleep, so that I wake up fresh. When I was going to my bed, I knew deep in my heart if something that could spoil my chance of making an international debut, it was the Belgian weather. True to its reputation, the weather did not disappoint me. Indeed when I woke up the next day, it was raining, though not heavily (which again is typical of Belgium). It was too early in the day (7 am), I knew it could change anytime in the coming hours. It could get better or even worse. Since that was not in my control, I did not bother about it much. I finished my daily chores. Then I went through the regulation of the game once again.

The game was supposed to start at 12:30 pm. It was 50 overs game. Scotty was giving me a ride today to Rumst (where the game was to be played). We decided to meet at our usual meeting point, i.e. the airport at 11:00 am. I left my house at 10:00 am. It was still drizzling. We reached the ground at 11:30 am. Still it was drizzling. Peter, my colleague for the day was already there. BCF officials were also there. Some Belgian players were already busy with their warm ups. German team had not arrived yet.

I helped Marc Vandereviere (official scorer of Belgium) and Sheel Shukla (Manager, Belgium Team) in marking the inner circles. During this time, I observed that the ground was still very wet. I was still not sure if we would be able to start the game on time. Deep in my heart I did not want a truncated game. First international game being a truncated game would not suit the bill.

By 11:45 am, we saw that the German team also arrived clad in red tracks. Soon they took to the field starting their drills. Very similar to the Belgian team, the German team also had majority of people from Indian and Pakistani origin. The only difference was that the Belgian team had more number of Pakistani origins and German team had more number of Indian origin people.
Since the start of the game was 12:30 pm, the toss should happen between 12:00 no0n and 12:15 pm. We were still not sure if we would be able to start at 12:30, considering the drizzling that was still in progress. Very typical of Belgian weather, the drizzling stopped, and we diced to go for the toss at 12:15 pm. Belgium XI won the toss and elected to bat first. This was a very practical decision considering that the ground was wet. No captain would like to field under this conditions.

As an umpire we had to asses the fitness of the ground to play the game. Though the ground was wet, it was still not dangerous not to play. Moreover we did not want to waste any time that we got in between the rain. So we started the game at 12:30 pm as scheduled. My first game at this level and I had goofed up. I forgot to take the match ball to the field and that created a bit of confusion to begin with. Since the ground was wet, German captain James suggested that he would prefer to change the ball after 25 overs. The ball would be replaced by a dry old ball. Belgian captain Javed agreed.

The bowlers were finding it really hard to grip the surface and as a result, they leaked to many extras. This helped the Belgian openers to settle down without taking much risk. The score went to 42 in just 6 overs when German had their first breakthrough. After this fall of wicket, the scoring slowed and by end if 17th over, Belgians were 86/4. We thought that there was an early finish on the cards. I was very un happy as, being my first international, I wanted a full 100 overs game. At this point of time, the captain Javed Iqbal joined Shahid Ahmed and began the consolidation. It was very evident from their batting that they wanted to stay their as long as they could. This resulted in severla maiden overs in between and scoring rate fell drastically. The bowlers (especially Tarun and Kashif) were bowling in good lines, but were not able to break this partnership. This was resulting in some sort of frustration among them. The sledging was in full flow. It was not agrressive but continuous. Moreover it was in Hindi and I could understand everything that was going on. It was really amusing. The partnership had streched from 18th over till 38th over without taking any risk. First sign of agression came when Tarun was hit outside the park on the last ball of 39th over. From then on, the scoring rate galloped. Every bowler bleeded runs. Captain was tempted to make a bowling changes and introduce Rishi in 41st over. Even his last ball went for a six. In the meantime both Javed and Shahid had reached their half centuries and the partnership had grown to 131. In 43rd over, Rishi produced the ball, that each German was waiting for. Shahid was finally out caught but the damage was already done. Belgium XI were 217 for 6 now. Soon Javed also departed and Belgian Team finally were bowled out in the last over and the target set to German Selection was 256. Rishi ended up with 4 wickets in as many overs. German captain must be wondering, why he did not make him bowl in the beginning.

After a break of 45 mins, the German selection started their chase of 256, which by no means was a small target. Moreover, the rain had stopped and it would be far more easier for the bowlers to bowl. Germans began their chase slowly and they were definitely not helped by the disciplined bowling from Shar Khan and Shalin. In the 6th over Shalin gave them a double jolt and they were 26/2. Germans were in no mood to surrender after this double jolt, so they put their heads down and looked for a partnershipscoring in singles, doubles and occasional boundaries. Belgian bowling also did not give them many chances to score freely. Then finally the defence of Germans were broken and the third wicket fell in 21st over. The score was 82. At this stage, Germans were still in the chase. But soon Belgian captain shuffeled with their bowlers and that gave results. The scoring rate dropped and Germans started losing wickets in regular intervals. In spite of the regular fall of wickets, their innings lasted till 42nd over when their 9th wicket fell at a score of 155. At this point of time, the German Selection decided to call it off as their last batsman was injured and they declared the innings over. The game ended in a very unusual way. My first international game was over. It was a releif. It was almost a complete game. Rain luckily did not play a spoil sport, at least in terms of interupting the game. To be very honest, I was very disappointed by the quality of the game. Germany is in a division higher than Belgium, but the way the game progressed (apart from the first 20 overs), it looked the other way round. The level of game was very much comparable to the division 1 games in Belgian League. So there was nothing special.

At least for the name sake I had done an international game. The level in no way is near to the normal ODI games. I am waiting to see how far I progress in this path. It is a tough ask and lot of perseverance is needed. Hope I am able to put all the hard work required and keep myself motivated.

My first league game of the season

The Belgiun Cricket League started yesterday (i.e. May 9). There were seven games played yesterday. I too got my first game yesterday. Considering the number of umpires available, it was not a surprise that I got a game. It was a Division 1 game between Oostende CC and PCCB Greens. This was the first game that I was umpiring for the Oostende CC. It was a home game for Oostende, so I had to once again go to Oostende. This was my third trip to Oostende in four weeks. My colleague for the day was Peter.

Peter picked me up from Oostende station. We reached the ground at 12 noon, a good one and a half hour before the scheduled start of the game which was 1:30 pm. The weather was pretty cold but fortunately for us it was still dry. The most surpising part was that some players were already present on the ground. These were the players from Greens. The home team arrived around 12:30 pm. They started with the preparation of the ground. We supervised the markings of the boundary and the marking of the inner circles.

We took the team list. Each team had nominated 12 players. We did the toss at 1 pm. Oostende won the toss and elected to bat. It was 45 overs game and scheduled to end at 8 pm in the evening. We started the game at 1:25 pm. I started at the striker's end. It was a slow start. Within few minutes of the start one of the opening batsman twisted his anle and the game had to be stopped for approximately three minutes. At the end of 5 overs Oostende were 21/2 including a suicidal runout (not at my end).

Later, the period of consolidation began and at 13th over Oostende were 54/2. At this point of time batsmen decided for a quick single. I was at the striker's end and the ball hit the wickets directly (at least that is what I assumed). The wicket keeper had covered the wickets completely, so I could not see what happened. I just heard the sound of wicket being put down and at this point of time the bat was in air and based on this I raised the finger to give the batsman out. Retrospectively I think I should have asked Peter, if indeed the wicket was put down fairly. These are the things that I should work on and improve. Needless to say, the batsman was disappointed. In his opinion he had made his ground but he never realized that his bat was in the air.

Period of another consolidation started and Oostende were now 87/3. I was at bowling end and Waqas was the bowler. He was bowling left arm over, medium pace. After a patchy first over, he had got into a rythem. He was pitching in right areas. Somehow I had always found it difficult to judge the trajectory of the bowl whenever a left arm bowler is bowling, especially over the wicket. I find it difficult to follow the bowl as soon as I have seen his front foot. As I knew that this was an area where I had to improve, I was concentrating hard. This bowl from him pitched in line between middle and leg and was going straight, the batsman tried to shuffle towards the off side and flick this ball towards the fine leg. He missed it completely and ball hit his backfoot. There was an appeal and I had no hesitation in giving him out. The height was perfect and the ball would have hit the stumps.

By the end of 23 rd over, half of the home team were back in pavilion. Waqas started the 24 th over. I was at the bowler's end. The ball pitched on middle and was moving towards the off. The batsman wanted to glide it towards the third man missed it completely and the ball crashed into the off stump. I was stunned. I must confess, had the ball hit his pads, I would have never given it as LBW. Oh God, there are lot is things that I need to improve on.

Waqas had set the tone for the Greens and Oostende were packed up in 33rd over for a score of 151. The only savind grace was the last wicket partnership of some 20+ runs. Waqas finished with 5 wickets (3 bowled and 2 LBWs). Myself and Peter had score of 151 but the scores had 150, so we decided that the target was 151.

The innings ended 3:45 pm, 45 minutes before the scheduled time. So as per the regulations, we had to take a 10 mins break.

The run chase began at 3:55 pm. This time too I started at striker's end. It was not the kind of start that the home team wanted, defending a total of 150. They conceded 11 runs in the first over. It was a run fest at display. Greens raced to 76/0 in 8 overs when I had to call it TIME for the lunch break (we call it Tea break here). There were lots of extras bowled during this period, which did not help Oostende at all. With half the score already being scored, an early finish was on the cards. The lunch started at 4:35 pm. It would be a half an hour break.

We resumed play at 5:05 pm. As after every break, a wicket fell for the visitors in 10th over. The score was 89/1. The new batsman at crease was the hero with the ball, Waqas. As expected, the scoring rate dropped with this wicket. In the 12th over, when I was at bowling end, the bowler was bowling right arm round the wicket, the ball pitched outside the leg and there was no movement, it wend straight and just behind the batsman (in my opinion). The keeper missed it. The batsman took a single. I called it wide. The keeper and bowler reckoned that it had hit back of the pad, which in my opinion did not. Batsman also confirmed that it did not (though we cannot take his word as he was at the advantage). I was pretty sure that it did not hit the pad but I think I have to be more careful in such things.

At 15th over another wicket fell and Greens were 114/2, still no reasons for them to panic. In 20th over, when I was at the bowler's end, the batsman hit the ball towards the square leg, they wanted to take single but finally decided against it. The fielder at bowler's end threw the ball to the bowler. Since the batsman had decided against the run, the bowler was relaxed and did not collect the ball. As soon as the ball went past him, the batsman took a single. The keeper objected to this stating that the ball was dead. The bowler argued that he was walking towards the run-up assuming the ball is dead and hence he did not collect the ball. In my opinion, the ball was in play and to have a second opinion I glanced towards Peter and he confirmed by nod of his head. I stuck to my decision of not calling the ball dead. The run was counted.

Greens wrapped up the game in style, finishing it in 23 rd over itself. The game finished at 6 pm, 2 hours in advance of the scheduled time. It was a disappointing performance from the host. It was not the quality one would expect for a Division 1 game. Peter and myself waited for the scoresheet to be filled. We signed it and left for the day.

My first game of the season was over. It was a releif. I was also happy that it finished soon.

School Tournament 2010

Today was a special day. I was called to umpire in the School Tournament organized by Belgian Cricket Federation. I was not sure what to expect from this. I accepted it as it was a weekend and I had nothing else to do.

I received the rules for the tournament from Scotty yesterday. The rules are given below for your reference.

o Each team has an inning of 8 overs (all overs will be fully bowled, even if the second batting team has scored the necessary runs)
o The score of each inning starts with 100 runs – this score can go up (scored runs) or down (lost wickets)
o Every team consists of 8 players; they play in 4 pairs of 2
o Each pair bats 2 overs – the team tries to switch pairs as fast as possible
o All overs are to be bowled from the same end (keeper/bowler do not change ends).
o Each player can only be out by being: bowled, caught, stumped, run out, hit wicket, hit the ball twice (no lbw)
o Each out means a (-5) score; the player who is out is not playing for the next ball (unless the next rule is applying)
o Each player has his turn at the first ball of one over.
o Each over is 6 balls; wides & no-balls = 2extras, no extra ball, except the last ball of the inning (extra ball, but only one extra run)
o The bowler can bowl “over-arm” or “under-arm”; “No-Ball” is called if the ball bounces more than twice; if the ball rolls the umpire shall shout “dead ball”.
o Each bowler cannot bowl more than 2 overs for each inning.
o For the group tournaments: a win (2 points), a tie (1 point)If there is a tie in the final game: then there is a bowl-out (6 balls to the unguarded stumps, there must be 6 different bowlers; the ball can bounce a maximum of twice)

I reached the ground at 10 am. Already couple of games had already started. already there were three umpires (Scotty,Richard and peter) present. Only after reaching the ground, I realized the purpose of this tournament. Cricket is not popular in Belgium. This was an attempt to teach the young kids in the age group of 10-12 years about the game through a formal competition. Already a lot of ground work had been done by the Belgian head coach Fazil Mahmoud. He had visited several schools to have sessions with these kids and their sports teacher, to introduce them to the game. Today was a stage for them to test their learnings and at the same time enjoy a day out. So this was no way a conventional game of cricket but cricket mixed with fun and education. So as an umpire, just umpiring was not the main task but our responsibility included facilitating and guiding the game. For me it was a good opportunity to test my coaching skills, as this was the first time I was being formally involved with people who were not aware of the game of cricket. Since I have also done a course on Cricket coaching, this was an interesting exercise for me.

There were two schools, one from Leuven and one for Lier where majority of the team members were girls. It was very encouraging to see that even girls were interested in the game. It would be really interesting to see how many of these girls take up this sport and pursue it for a long duration. It was long time that I saw girls playing cricket (I mean live). The last time that I remember I saw a girl playing cricket was, when I was in school. It was my house vice captain, who played with us, because we were short of players. This was almost 20 years ago. I do not include the Dutch lady cricketer who was with us in the coaching course as it was just a course and not an actual game.

When I reached, already two games had started and third one was about to begin. All these games had an umpire but only two of them had scorers. I went to the third game where Scotty was umpiring. I waited for the first inning to get over and took over the scoring from Scotty. It was a challenge. The score sheet was a customised one for the tournament. Quickly, I learned the nuances of the scoring and succesfully did it during the innings.

The first game that I umpired was between Mols 1 and Leuven. Leuven had 5 girls and 2 guys all in the age group of 10-12 years. So they were 1 player short. Mols 1 was definitely a better team as there were coupel of Indian kids and they had better exposure to cricket than the other Belgian kids. So this was not an even game. Only couple of guys from Mols 1 could bowl over arm. Rest were bowling under arm and there were lot of wides. The batting of Leuven was not that good and it was expected. But since they did not have very good understanding of the game, they ran themselves out quite a few times. So this made their score go below 100 (see the rules above). When it came to bowling, again none of the bowlers from Leuven could bowl with the bowling action. They too conceded too many wides and easy balls for the Mols 1 to hit boundaries. But the energy these girls (and the guys in the team) had was tremendous and they enjoyed the game very much. Obviously, they lost the game but they were good in their spirit.

The next game that I umpired was between Leuven and Lier. This was an exciting game. But for now I think I have written enough. I will give you more details in the future posts. Tomorrow i.e. May 9, I have my first league game of the season. I have to brush up the league regulations. Also I have to go out for dinner. So until my next post goodbye.

Ostend T20

18-04-2010

With the IPL fever on in India, Belgium is also not lagging behind. Ostend CC is organizing T20 knock out tournament with 8 teams participating in it. Why I am writing about this? Obviously, I had an opportunity to umpire in the tournament.

As per the tournament schedule I had to umpire only in one game (as a field umpire) and incidentally and that happened to be the first game of the tournament. For the second game I was the reserve umpire.

Ostend is in the coastal side of Belgium and approximately 2 hours drive from Brussels by car. I got a lift from my colleague Richard Eames (current ECC umpire, who was the reserve umpire for the first game). We started around quarter to 9 and reached the ground around 11 am. We were the first to reach the ground. The match was supposed to start at 1200 hours. We were surprised not to see even the organizers, leave alone the teams. Soon Scotty also reached the ground with Steve Tovey (Former ECC elite panel umpire from The Netherlands) and Peter De Boeck (Former ECC umpire).

Around 1115, Ostend Exiles, the team playing the first game arrived. Soon after that the organizers also arrived. We umpires were discussing the regulations of the game and other things (including IPL). The other team, Arcadians arrived only around 1145. The ground was also not ready, so their delay did not have any impact on the start of the game.

Steve and myself were supposed to umpire the first game. Richard, we on field umpires and the captains went to the middle of the square for the toss. Exiles won the toss and elected to bat first. We decided for a 1215 start. It was a very pleasant weather, unlike the last weekend. Learning by last weeks experience, this week I was wearing a full sleeves shirt.

Before the start of the game, Steve asked me which end I would prefer. I said anything is ok. He then said, "You missed an opportunity to prove that you were a good umpire". I asked, "Why?". He said, "Whenever your colleague asks this question, you should choose the end, towards which wind is blowing. This would assist you in making decisions on nicks.". The game had not begun and already I had my first learning. Then he allowed me to take the end towards which the wind was blowing. Incidentally that happened to be the end from where the first over was to begin. So that would mean that I would call "Play". I like this very much. More in this case as this was the first game of the tournament.

I counted the number of players on field, checked with batsmen if they were ready, checked with the fielding captain, checked with Steve if he was ready, checked with scorers if they were ready and finally called "Play". The first ball pitched short, at a very comfortable height for the batsman, he went for a full blodded shot, could not middle it, nicked to the keeper and the keeper dropped it. An auspicious start for the Arcadians.

This T20 tournament regulations were close to the ICC T20, and thus they had free hit for a foot fault. I was watching the bowler's foot carefully. There was no luck for me to call a "No Ball" in the first innings. Though in the second innings, I had my chance. This bowler was bowling very close to the return crease. In this process, his back foot landed on the return crease and I had to call a "No Ball". Then I signalled for the Free Hit. This was the first time I had signalled for Free Hit.

During the game, we also had to take off the bowler for dangerous bowling. The Arcadian bowler, bowled two full pitched ball above the waist height in the same over and had been given warning by Steve. This was the final warning. The same bowler came back to bowl, but this time from my end. It was his second over. He once again bowled a full pitched ball above wait and I had to call No ball and take him off. Another first for me in this game.

We had to keep a close eye on the time. The innings was supposed to last only for 1 hour 20 mins. Arcadians did pretty well to bowl their 20 overs in 1 hour 15 mins itself. But they allowed Exiles to score way too many runs. Exiles set Arcadians a target of 244 in 20 overs, which in my opinion was a impossible target. That is how it turned out to be. Arcadian were all out for 81 but in 20 overs. So no early finish. Exiles also did very well to completed the 20 overs in the alloted time.

It was almost two weeks ago (today it is May 3) that I went for this game and now I do not remember much of the game. So I will stop here. Till next time bye.