Stars Cricket Club vs Giants Cricket Club

Stars Cricket Club chased 156 run in 19 overs with the loss of only 4 wickets against Giants in Millennium Cricket League (MCL) T20 game.  Fahad Bajwa excellent knock of 50 runs was the key in the successful run chase.Hhe wa ably supported by Mohsin Khan, Mohsin Malik, Sami Baig, Rana Hussien and Adeel Khan

Scorecard

CLNJ: Color kit

At the recent Cricket League of New Jersey (CLNJ) AGM some very productive and to an extent ground breaking decisions were made such as the passage of the motion to use pink balls for the 2014 season.  I for one am extremely excited about the ruling, but in my opinion, the Execs and the BOD once again took a beautiful thing and put a blemish on it. The blemish I refer to is the allowance of teams using either white or colored clothing at their own discretion.

I believe that a league which prides itself in being organized and well maintained, there should be some sort of uniformity when it comes to dress code as well. I say this not just for the sake of argument, but have witnessed the eye sore of a game in which one team played in whites and the other in colors in a local tournament last year.

I hope that the Execs and BODs look further into this matter and make the correct call of mandating teams to either play in color OR whites as this will aid our league games not to look like street “pick up” games .

Pink Ball

A lot of leagues in the United States are opting to use fluorescent pink balls instead of the traditional red or white claiming that it provides better visibility; and as we play on make shift grounds with trees and houses as backdrops, it will negate the need of sight screens to an extent. 

Of course, with any change come concern, resistance and debate. We can sit here and discuss the obvious points such as quality of the ball, the excessive swing or the lack of it etc, but I will like to bring up another angle and will love to hear from the” weekend warriors” aka USA club cricketers especially the ones aspiring to play at the higher level

Is this change (pink balls) very short sighted? How will this affect the players who strive to play at a higher level in the long run? ICC doesn't plan to switch to fluorescent balls just yet, are we doing these aspiring USA cricketers a disservice?

Syed Ahmed