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Cricket

The current IPL Tournament is coming to an end on the Padang so that Panaga Cricket season will soon begin in earnest. To help the local IPL team, the Daredevils, prepare for their semi-final a fledgling group of Panaga Cricketers took to the field in late April. Despite some players not having played for a number of years Panaga were able to give the highly rated Daredevils a big shock bowling them out within the allotted 15 overs due to good bowling and superb fielding. Unfortunately, the Panaga batsmen were unused to this shortened version of the game and batted as if they were building a test match innings, by the end if the 15 overs despite losing only 4 wickets Panaga only got to within 30 runs of the required total.

Back in the 1990's Panaga Cricket Club were a force to be reckoned with in Brunei Cricket, regularly playing 50 over games against teams from Bandar. It might be a while before we can get back to that level but based on the display against the Daredevils we might have a chance in the local F-15 (fifteen - fifteen) smash and grab tournament. The Indian Association of Brunei (IAB) will be organising another F-15 tournament in the summer (July - August) and the intention is to put together a Panaga team to take part. If sufficient interest is shown then several teams can be entered. The tournament is played with an adapted tennis ball - basically a heavy tennis ball which means that no protective equipment is needed for the batsmen.

I know that there must be a number of ex-cricketers out there and I can't think of a better way to round of a weekend than a game of cricket. Our intention is to play from 4pm on Sunday afternoons, we have even tested the lighta and it will be possible to complete the match under floodlights.

For those who have never played cricket please come along. I would particularly like to appeal to the baseball players we have noticed them playing on an adjacent pitch. The matches take less than 3 hrs to complete and involve very aggressive baseball style batting, don't worry about complex looking bowling (pitching the ball) we have sufficient bowlers and it is a difficult skill to master if you didn't learn at a young age. As we ae playing with a softball there is ni risk of injury should you get it wrong when batting.

Please contact Alan Ennis (alan.ennis@shell.com), Ross Daines (rossdaines@me.com) or Sagar (Vidyasagar.Kanpoori@shell.com) for more details.

Once the IPL tournament is completed I will send an email to all those who have responded and put an announcement out on BFBS Radio but keep your Sunday afternoons free from June onwards. Also if you feel that it has been too long since you last played feel free to come along and watch  - we promise not to make you the scorer.