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

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.