FCC represent at Shanghai International Sixes 2004

The players that represented Formosa CC at the tournament were Darren (C), Shardul, Cilliers, Prem, Tom, Adrian, Will (borrowed) and Gordon (borrowed).

The weekend started with a practice session, in real nets, on Friday afternoon.

Formosa Barbarians vs. Shanghai Barbarians

After that there was a warm-up game between the Formosa Barbarians and the Shanghai Barbarians. Formosa made 74/4 from its 5 overs. Darren 30 not out, Shardul 13. Shanghai was then kept to just 49/4 after their 5 overs. Cilliers and Shardul took 1 wicket each, but Prem was the star conceding only 4 runs in his over.

Formosa CC vs. Hong Kong CC

Formosa was in the same group as the Hong Kong CC and the party animals from Chiang Mai (CBB SK). Our first match was against Hong Kong CC and was memorable for the amount of wides we bowled. Tom – 6, Shardul – 4, Cilliers – 5 and Darren – 1.

Apart from us helping them with wides, they had Atul, a former Indian international, in their team, and he got hold of Prem. It must be added immediately that Mr Prem didn’t bowl a single wide in the tournament. Well done! They ended on 83/3.

Our batsman tried hard put came up just short at 73/3. Darren again was the top scorer hitting a huge six over long off as he worked with Will to try and secure  an unlikely win.

Our cause wasn’t helped by the wolf as he refused to take runs in the last over -- Atul bowling the last over at international standard to concede just 6 runs.

Formosa CC vs CBB SK

As CBB had beaten Hong Kong in the first match, we knew that if we could beat CBB, we still had a chance to win our group.

They were 17/4, before fighting back to post 49/5. We now had to score at a fast rate to try and overtake the Hong Kong team. Towards the end Darren got hold of the bowling and we reached 52/0 in 3.2 overs. 

It appeared that we had done enough. The official scorer came to us to inform us that our run rate (minus wides and no balls) was 8.42 as compared to Hong Kong’s 8.00. We were happy – FCC into the top four again! Our semi-final was scheduled for 12:30pm on Sunday. Darren was named Man of the Match

But the story was just beginning. On Sunday morning we returned from our big breakfast and some took a shower, some took a rest, some were on the toilet, when we got an urgent call.

We had to be at the field in 10 minutes to play! It was 10:50am. We were rattled, confused and perturbed.  It turned out that the village idiot in charge of scoring made a mistake and we were second in our group.

We had to rush to the field, and with no warm up, we had to play our plate semi-final less our star keeper batsman Tim.

We batted first and couldn’t get the bowling away. After 5 overs we had only scored 44 runs. Shardul made a nice 20 and Cilliers 9.

Our woeful bowling continued and they easily passed our score after just 3 overs and 1 ball. Needless to say, nobody was happy. From joint third last year we dropped to joint seventh.

In hindsight, we can blame it on the mathematical error, but in reality it was our bowling. We should never have lost the first game against Hong Kong. 32 runs off wides alone were just too much. A similar case can be made for the semifinal.

But the skipper would like to thank all the boys for making it to shanghai after a number of lat withdrawals weakened the side – a special thanks to Tom and Adrian!

All in all the weekend was enjoyable. There were big breakfasts, classy dinners,  free beer, negotiations with ladies of ill repute, picture sessions with Viv Richards, faithful Formosan groupies that came out with us every night, lost ladies appearing in the fifth floor and Japanese love trouble.

But those are stories best told over a few beers at MOP.

If only we had bowled better…