Darwin boys shine in Bali Int'l 6's cricket

The Jakarta Post,Jakarta

Udayana University was the venue for recently completed Annual Bali International 6's Cricket Tournament over the Easter weekend.

With three days of wonderful sunny weather at the Udayana Oval, ten teams competed with great gusto for top honors.

The tournament had two overseas teams; the Topenders (Darwin) and the Camden Rams (Sydney). The others came from Sumbawa, Surabaya, the Jakarta Cricket Association (JCA), Sangatta, the Lombok Lizards and three local Bali teams, Udayana Cricket Club, the first Indonesian cricket club formed and managed by local players, the Bali Geckos and the host team, Bali International Cricket Club.

The teams were divided into two groups with each team playing four pool matches, before the finals on Sunday.

Saturday saw some exciting cricket with the Camden Rams winning all their matches. JCA also did well in overcoming Udayana, and the Topenders continued their winning ways. Others struggled but enjoyed the fine day.

At the end of the preliminaries, the top two teams from each group moved to the semifinals. In Group A it was the Rams and Geckos, and from Group B, the Topenders and JCA. This left the playoff for the Plate Final with Udayana v. Sumbawa and BICC v. Surabaya, with Udayana and BICC winning.

Sunday was semifinal day. In the Plate Final Udayana showed good form again after struggling a bit the day before and BICC was not able to match the young Indonesian team. A good win for the first all-Indonesian cricket club.

In the first semifinal JCA batted well, for a total of 57. In reply, Camden lost a few wickets finding themselves struggling to make the required runs, and managed only 49, putting JCA in the final. The second semifinal had the Topenders in full flight, with openers Darren and Daniel both finding the boundary often, for a huge total of 79. The Geckos struggled to a mere 53, so the Topenders cruised to the Finals.

In the Cup Final, the Topenders again set the pace with a dazzling opening stand of 40 with Darren being caught out long on by Sachin for 20 and Daniel retiring on 25. Kerry continued the hard hitting and the Topenders finished with a hard-to-beat 71. In reply, JCA found the form bowling of the Topenders difficult to get away from, so the scoring was not as quick as hoped. Deepak retired for 25 from 12 balls. Prakash struggled against the good bowling, and in the end JCA, with a total of only 45, were just not able to match the tight bowling from Darwin boys.