SCA Sixes Weekend

SCA Cricket Sixes

The Bashers were mostly on tour in Xiamen, losing the Xiamen 666s to a Barbarians squad from Chengdu, or in Japan beating the Japanese national team, but a few were in Shanghai over the weekend to take part in the SCA Cricket Sixes.

Shit Shoes (c), Korean, Long Dong and Sharapova, were joined by a few Daredevils and a couple of Hot Dogs to make up a SCC Pirates squad for the tournament.

The squad assembled at a cold and gloomy Tongji University, and got ourselves a free playing shirt (all the teams wore the same shirts). The field was full of university students using a special “training” area at the far end of the field, and the nets at the other end. Sharapova put Pope’s playlist on the speakers, and the occasional explicit lyrics seemed to pass unnoticed by the students.

The first game was against Tongji University, and Long Dong went out to open after an impressive warmup. He played a full length, five over innings of nicks and byes. Despite barely hitting the ball the Pirates still put together 49 in our first effort. Not too bad we thought. Shit Shoes managed to take the catch off Korean’s bowling for the first (and only wicket we took all day), and then a few dropped skyers cost us in the field with Tongji getting home off a dropped catch off the penultimate delivery. In the next game against Donghua University Foreign Students, Irfan from the Hot Dogs, put one bowler to the sword with three consecutive 6s, and the Pirates posted a competitive 62. Unfortunately, a few too many pies and a couple more dropped catches cost us as the Donghua batsmen ripped into the bowling and won with a huge 6 over cow corner off a full toss in the final over. Two games, two losses, and Irfan went off to work.

The Pirates put together a scratchy 43 in the next game against G.I. Joe’s team (that was pumped up and cheering excessively), and then despite some good bowling just didn’t have enough runs to defend. In the final game of the day, we bowled first and bowled well, restricting the strong Songjiang team to just 52. We were confident of chasing it down, and the Daredevils batters hit some good shots to take us pretty close. Unfortunately, we lost a few wickets in the fourth over, and ended up needing 15 off the last over and then 7 off the final delivery.

So although we’d played some good cricket and pushed every game into the last few deliveries, we hadn’t had any luck to notch up a win. The locals were playing some good cricket, and the atmosphere was fairly good (although nothing like the videos that were emerging from Xiamen).

The next day dawned cold, but with a hint of sunshine floating through the air, and we assembled at the ground once again at 8.30am to play East China University of Politics and Law. Shit Shoes finally won a toss, and the Pirates opened up with Sharapova. She bowled a great over (would’ve been even better without the 4 byes let through by Shit Shoes behind the stumps). The bowling effort continued to restrict the scoring, and Shit Shoes took the second catch. Eventually, the opposition had scraped together 34 runs, and the team was confident to chase it down. Alex from the Hot Dogs and Sharapova opened up, and put on 20-odd before Sharapova was bowled by a girl… a couple of nervous overs and another wicket fell before the Pirates got home off a leg bye with 3 deliveries remaining.

So we finished on a high, and although we didn’t qualify for the semi-finals, it was a fun weekend of cricket amongst the local university students. There is certainly a lot of talent amongst the local teams, and the SCC Pirates should continue to participate in these weekends in the future.

SCC Pirates and Tongji University after the first game

SCC Pirates after winning their final game!

Thanks to Sharapova for organizing the team, and the Pirates who bought their team kit bags for the squad to use (it would’ve been nicer if someone had packed some wicket keeping gloves though).

Shit Shoes