On Saturday, August 21, 2010, the Rinzai Mission in Paia hosted a Bon Dance. Therefore, in spite of the weekend games being planned in advance, the Maui Cricket Club decided to host the Honolulu Cricket Club in Lahaina instead of the cricket ground at Baldwin Beach Park, Paia. Turned out, we had a whole new type of fun. Since we were playing on grass, we opted for discretion over valor by choosing a cricketized tennis ball instead of the regular leather ball. Maui dominated the proceedings in the 20-over match. Probably because we played on turf much more over the years. Maui set a target of 123 runs which proved too far for Oahu on Saturday, who were all out for 87 runs in reply. As planned, Andrew Wallace anchored the Maui innings, with everyone else going for runs. Exceptional performances with the bat included Joel Loung who wasted little time in earning his twenty runs, the retirement limit today, featuring two mammoth sixes and a four. Captain Daniel Lovell closed out the innings with burst of runs in the end when the only thing Maui players seemed to be afraid of was to get a chance to bat. In the Oahu innings, Francis Saeed shined with the bat, but regular departures ensured an end to the fight back with more than one over to spare. Bowling was tight, with Baz Cumberhatch and Uday Kari claiming 2 early wickets each, assisted with amazing catches by Daniel Lovell and Shiheed Sutton as wicketkeeper.

Sunday, August 22, 2010, match was at held at Baldwin. Team Honolulu was victorious in chasing down the Maui Innings of 187. Albeit the best "player" on the Honolulu side was actually from Maui - his name was "Extras": about 50 aloha gifts given up by Maui in the match. Maui innings was founded, again, by an excellent opening partnership between Joel Loung and Andrew Wallace who both retired at 40 runs each. However, Honolulu had a better overall batting performance with Karthik Vijayarajan and Mark Berwick emulating Maui openers with much better follow through from rest of the team. Even Maui captain, Daniel Lovell taking five (5) wickets for 19 runs, not to mention the injury to Mark Berwick, did not inhibit the methodical run-chase.

Speaking of which, we all had a scary reminder in the use of helmets today. AGAIN, HELMETS ARE REQUIRED WHEN BATTING!! An outside edge of the bat from an innocent slow ball resulted eventually in an estimated 10 stitches to the forehead for Mark Berwick at Kaiser. But Mark, being the consumate cricket player, took it all in stride, even posing for gory halloween pictures sporting the Hawaiian shaka, which I hope to post soon!! There is simply no one who has done more for cricket in the modern era of the Hawaiian Isles than Mark and we wish him a speedy recovery.

Finally, Much Mahalo to everyone who made this weekend another great one for memories. Aloha.

Notes: Click on any image or caption below it to enlarge into high resolution.