Thursday, May 29, 2008

An apology, pastries and Cricket

This blog needs kickstarting. I am going to do this by not being so damn fussy about what I put in. There’ll be short entries, longer ones, toilet humour and recycled jokes about raw fish, all peppered with the fevered diatribes of a man who has to live in a culture without sausage rolls. Throughout history the most entertaining rants have all been produced by people suffering from a pastry deficiency, you only have to ask me and I will confirm this to you by saying yes. I’ll email Greggs tonight to enquire about the possibility of opening a new branch in rural Japan.


My life has generally been a respectably successful combination of happy accidents. These words can also now apply to Akita Cricket Club. Allow me to tell you in an unnecessarily long winded and overtly self aggrandising fashion, the story of Akita Cricket Club.


It began, as all tales of sporting rags to riches do, with a bin. A rubbish bin with a blue lid. Armed with this bin, 3 tennis balls, and a pair of irish hurling sticks, Akita Cricket Club took to their Honjo training camp amid much confusion from locals. Our members were an international mix of misfits, and given the amount of tennis balls that either went sailing over the batsman’s head or failed to reach the batsman at all, our chances did not look good for the tournament.


We did however reach out to the local community, with a very enthusiastic gaggle of 8 year old girls joining in at one of our practises. It is testament to our incompetence that having watched us for 45 minutes, they didn’t realise we were aiming for the wicket.


And so to Sendai! After 6 weeks of a gruelling training schedule of little girls bringing their inexplicably tiny rabbits to watch us hurling tennis balls at each others heads, 4 cars left Akita on Saturday 24th of May. These cars took with them the hopes and dreams of an entire prefecture, all resting on the shoulders of 11 daring sportsmen (and women). In the run up to the tournament Akita had suffered a blow to the strength of the team, as opening batsman Jon Hui suffered an ankle injury, and we realised his partner Owen Cunningham was Irish and therefore shit. But we ploughed on regardless, past the endless rice fields of Akita, to the bright lights of Sendai.


The day before the game was marked with most of the team being shown a cricket bat for the first time. An important milestone in the history of any cricket club. A booze filled practise session in central Sendai was hastily arranged, with a plethora of dropped catches due to fielders having one hand occupied with beer.


A chance to know thine enemy followed, an all you can drink party with the other teams. The teams from Sendai and Morioka, along with a mix of cricket enthusiasts from around the region making up the Tohoku team, all seemed very friendly and blissfully unaware of the TONKING they were about to receive. The night was punctuated with a visit to Lawson and McDonalds, and for some reason I thought it a good idea to tell some Japanese girls that Jeff has a big penis. Shitsureshimashita.


I awoke on match day with a craving for hash browns, and after I had stepped over the vomit of our opening Bowler, breakfast was consumed with much talk of what the winning formula for today might be. Having spent six weeks practising with the wrong equipment and doing it badly, the odds were not good, but spirit in the camp remained high.


Leaving the hotel to find a ground in the tree covered hills around Sendai was done with relative ease, and as we inspected a rain sodden pitch we prepared mentally for Akita Cricket Club’s first ever game, against a Tohoku Select VIII.


Losing the toss Akita were put into bat, and after respectable knocks from Jon Hui (19) Owen Cunningham (11) and captain Philip Cooke (10), Akita posted a score of 58/5 on an unpredictable pitch. Whether this would prove enough against a Tohoku side that were very much an unknown quantity was in doubt, but as early as the second over Akita Cricket Club took their first wicket thanks to a direct at a run out, a sharp piece of fielding from Cooke. The wickets continued to tumble as the Akita bowlers used their pace and accuracy to torment the Tohoku team, and when their best batsmen was bowled by a mean piece of medium pace accuracy from David Ebdon, the game was up. Akita saw the ten overs out with some tight bowling from Yoko Ihara and Scotsman David Thomson, who appeared to have recovered from the earlier vomiting incideint. Tohoku eventually finished on 28/6, and at no point looked like threatening Akitan supremacy. The team who had practised by throwing tennis balls at a rubbish bin for six weeks had their first win under their belt.


Confidence growing, their next opponents were the more than able Sendai, who boasted players who had represented University teams around the world. Now I can’t actually claim to have been present at this game, my cricket knowledge being required to umpire the Morioka vs Tohoku clash happening on the other pitch. However I can say that on a much better pitch consistently tight bowling from vice captain Tapo Mandal as well as Cunningham and Thomson kept a talented Sendai side restricted to 53 runs. The batting exhibition that followed was a masterclass in aggressive cricket shots, with Cunningham and Hui running riot with some of the tournament’s best batting. Both rattled off a lightning fast 20 runs before tournament rules forced them to retire. Thomson and the surprisingly old Tatsuya then saw the game home with calm collected batting performances. The game was won by 7 wickets with 4 overs remaining, and amazingly with Morioka triumphing against Tohoku, a place in the final was now assured.


The next match against Morioka was very much a friendly, a precursor for the fireworks to follow in the final itself. Nevertheless after once more being put into bat, the Akita team set about the Morioka bowlers with sadistic intent. Yoko Ihara and Amelie Girard opened the batting for Akita on this occasion, and were unlucky to be dismissed as they were getting into a rhythm. With the cavalry called for, Thomson and Hui set about dispatching the ball to all corners of the ground with an obvious contempt for the bowlers’ efforts. Morioka opened with weaker batsmen playing defensive strokes, and did not score quickly enough to be competitive with Akita’s total of 78/6. However there were warning signs when Morioka’s better batsmen came out towards the end of the game and started hitting huge shots over the boundary ropes. Ultimately an easy 30 run victory for Akita, but we knew the final would be a whole new, if slightly similar, ball game.

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