USA captain Steve Massiah has been reprimanded and warned of his future conduct for breaching the ICC Code of Conduct following his country’s match against Denmark in Pepsi ICC World Cricket League Division 3 (WCL Div. 3) on Saturday 29 January 2011.

Massiah pleaded guilty to the charge which was laid down by the on field umpires, Kevin Bishop and Vinay Kumar.

As such, after a disciplinary hearing which was held to establish the seriousness of the offence under the provisions of the code, ICC Match Referee Graeme La Brooy imposed the sanction.

Through his admission, Massiah was found to have breached Article 2 Section 2.1.3 of the ICC Code, which relates to “showing dissent at an umpire’s decision during an international match”.

Explaining his decision, Mr La Brooy said, “I hope Mr Massiah has learned that there is no place for this type of behaviour in the game and that the spirit of the game should be maintained at all times. I also trust that in future, he will be more courteous and pay others the respect they deserve.”

All Level 1 breaches carry a minimum penalty of a reprimand and a warning and, as with other breaches at this level, the ICC Match Referee’s decision is final and binding.

The offending USA captain Steve Messiah (Pic: Daniela Zaharia/ESPNCricinfo)

Meanwhile, in the match between hosts Hong Kong and Papua New Guinea (PNG) at the Kowloon Cricket Club (KCC), HowzitHongKong.com also noticed some in-your-face taunting by the visitors whenever they dismissed a Hong Kong batsman.

The very vocal team was at one stage also reprimanded by the match-official who obviously didn’t feel the need to officially sanction the team.

We felt it really unbecoming of a side who had, at that stage of the tournament, already qualified for promotion to Division 2 of the Pepsi World Cricket Cricket League.

Some more pictures from the recently completed WCL Division 3 in Hong Kong:

Hong Kong beat Papua New Guinea (PNG) by four wickets in the final of Pepsi ICC World Cricket League Division 3 (WCL Div.3) at the Kowloon Cricket Club in Hong Kong on Saturday.

Having been set a target by PNG of 203, Hong Kong claimed victory after a superb performance by teenager Mark Chapman which set the side up for victory. By virtue of reaching the final, both Hong Kong and PNG joined Namibia, Bermuda, Uganda and hosts United Arab Emirates in Pepsi ICC WCL Div. 2 to be hosted in Dubai from 8 to 15 April.

After the group stage of the event PNG had been top of the table despite one loss to Hong Kong on Friday in the round-robin section of the tournament. Today, Rarua Dikana’s men were ready to avenge the Hong Kong side that had inflicted the only defeat on the team during the course of the tournament’s group stages, but Hong Kong had other plans in mind.

Hong Kong captain Najeeb Amar had a fantastic day with the ball claiming 3-32 including in his haul the key PNG opener Tony Ura for 51 and top order batsman Chris Amini for 60.

Amini had few team-mates to build on the total with, not helped by the four batsmen below him totalling just 12 runs, but the arrival of Hitolo Areni helped the team to respectable 202-8 at the close of the Papua New Guineans’ innings.

After the break, the locals made steady work of knocking of the runs with the key player of the innings being middle-order batsman Chapman whose knock of 70 not out was key to the hosts victory.

The 16-year-old saw many of his team-mates come and go with Hussain Butt and Waqas Barqat the only two to pass 20 runs each. PNG captain Dikana was the pick of the side’s bowlers, taking match figures of 3-40.

HK Captain Najeeb Amar with ICC President Haroon Lorgat (Pic: ICC/CricketEurope)

A delighted Hong Kong captain Najeeb Amar said of the side’s win in front of its home crowd, “Today I feel like I’m flying, like I am sat on the moon I am so happy that we’ve won the tournament. I was delighted to score the winning the runs with Mark Chapman in front of our home crowd.

“Credit must not just go to the team but also our coach, Charlie Burke, he’s unbelievable, he made my job easier, he gave us a simple task, don’t panic and the results will come, which they did this week.

“Our team is full of surprises and talented guys, especially Mark Chapman among many others, they can prove themselves against any team and hopefully when we get to Dubai we can do the same. The teams in Division 2 will be a tough task, but the way we perform and play and we can make it any level and we’re confident.”

Man of the match Chapman said, “It’s an amazing feeling to win in front of my family and home crowd and then take home the man of the match medal too. I worked hard today to grind out the runs since I’ve not had a great run this tournament. I don’t know much about Dubai and the sides we’ll face, but I’m sure we’ll be ready.”

Man-of-the-Match 16-year old Mark Chapman at KCC today (Pic: Mike Jansen)

Elsewhere, Oman defeat Italy by eight wickets in the third-fourth play-off at Hong Kong Cricket Club while Denmark beat USA by 84 runs to take fifth place. Oman and Italy stay in Division 3 while USA and Denmark were relegated to Division 4.

Kowloon Cricket Club hosted Hong Kong vs. PNG today (Pic: Mike Jansen)

Papua New Guinea (PNG) has secured itself promotion to Pepsi ICC World Cricket League Division 2 (WCL Div. 2) to be held in April in Dubai after Rarua Dikana’s men beat Denmark in Hong Kong today to take its fourth victory in a row of Pepsi ICC WCL Div. 3.

Usman Shuja led USA to victory today, helping to secure the Americans a win over Oman in a tightly fought contest at Hong Kong Cricket Club, while hosts Hong Kong battled to beat Italy by one wicket.

By PNG securing promotion today, it means Friday’s games will be crucial for the five other teams in the tournament with regards to the second available promotion spot, the two relegation places and the two berths that will see two sides remain in WCL Div. 3

PNG continued its domination of this event today seeing off with ease a challenge from Denmark at Kowloon Cricket Club. The Danes batting line-up failed once again today with the top seven batsmen in the side all departing after being caught in the field by the in-form Papua New Guineans.

Aftab Ahmed was the top scorer for the Danish side with his 39 not out to help his side to 112, but his efforts were in vain as Loa Nou, Hitolo Areni, Chris Amini and Chris Kent claimed two wickets each leaving one each for their captain Rarua Dikana and team-mate Mahuru Dai.

Having given the Danish a master class in fielding, it was then up to PNG’s batsmen to showcase their abilities to the European side. Unfortunately for Asad Vala it wasn’t his day to give a batting exhibition, with the 23-year-old departing for a duck, but he made way for Chris Amini who alongside Tony Ura knocked off the required runs in just 22.3 overs.

Today’s victory has secured the side a place in Saturday’s final no matter what the results are on Friday when all the teams square up for the final round-robin section of the tournament.

PNG head coach Andy Bichel was pleased with the side’s strong performance and sees the promotion to WCL Div. 2 a culmination of hard work that has paid off. “I am immensely proud of the boys and feel that qualifying for Pepsi ICC World Cricket League Division 2 achieves a goal we set ourselves18 months ago.

“The final on Saturday is now a short term goal and taking home the title is an important part of finishing this tournament,” said Bichel.

Man of the match Chris Amini said, “It is nice to finally contribute at this level and have a really strong game. I’ve not won an ICC man of the match award since Pepsi ICC WCL Div. 3 in 2007 in Darwin and I feel proud to again achieve this honour.

“I feel at this stage as a team we are approaching our best and I know we still have more to achieve.”

Aftab Ahmed takes a tumble (Pic: ICC)

In the highest scoring fixture of the day, Hong Kong battled against Italy in a thrilling match that saw the hosts claim victory by one wicket with just two balls remaining.

Alessandro Bonora won the toss at Mission Road and elected to bat first and despite his opening batsmen failing to fire, he put on a hard-fought 77 while Peter Petricola provided his first century of the tournament to help the Italians to a total of 235 on a track that saw little action for the bowlers.

When Hong Kong took to the field the top order continued its poor run of form and none of the side made a solid partnership until the arrival of the middle order duo Nizakat Khan and Waqas Barkat and then later on captain Najeeb Amar.

The trio helped the side to rise up from being 68-5 to a point where victory was in the side’s grasp but with one wicket remaining and only one over to go, the match looked sure to be in the grasp of the Italians. However, tail-end batsman Aizaz Khan had other ideas, smashing his way to 24 in just eight balls, including three sixes, to help steer the side to victory with just two balls remaining.

Hong Kong captain Amar was naturally thrilled with the side’s comeback but is keen to remain focussed on Friday’s big fixture against table-toppers PNG.

“I’m obviously relieved we won today after a tightly fought game where the track wasn’t really giving anything to our bowlers but when it came to us making the runs the task fell to the bottom order. They deserve credit for how they played, all of them taking responsibility to help us to victory.

“Friday we face PNG who have been having a great tournament here but I’m not worried, we’ve a psychological advantage over them. We beat them in the warm-ups with a Hong Kong side that wasn’t full strength so I believe we’ve the upper hand going into Friday’s game, not them,” said Amar.

Tomorrow is a rest day with play resuming on Friday.

Points Table (Day Four)

Hong Kong suffered a nightmare start to their ICC World Cricket League (Division 3) campaign when they went down to Oman and the USA in their first two matches.

In the tournament opener against the USA on Saturday, the hosts were defeated by a whopping 7 wickets at the small Kowloon Cricket Club oval. A day later they suffered the same fate, at the same venue, but this time to Oman by 3 wickets. 

However, the tournament hosts can still rescue their dreams of promotion to Division 2 of the World Cricket League when they meet Denmark (Tuesday 25 January) and Italy (Wednesday 26 January) at the Mission Road oval.  Their final match will be against Papua New Guinea/PNG (Friday 28 January) at the Hong Kong Cricket Club.

ICC media manager Lucy Benjamin introduces the skippers at a media event last week (Pic: ICC)

Promotion or demotion

The two finalists in the competition will be promoted to the ICC WCL Division 2 and will play in the ICC World Cricket League Division 2 tournament to be played in UAE during 8-15April 2011. The 3rd and 4th placed teams will stay in WCL Division 3 while the 5th and 6th placed teams will be demoted to WCL Divsion 4. 

Hong Kong’s Irfan Ahmed (centre) celebrates in their match vs. Oman (Pic: ICC) 

Here are some more images from the WCL tournament:

The Pepsi ICC World Cricket League Division 3 (WCL Div. 3) tournament will be played from 21 to 29 January 2011 right here in Hong Kong.

Teams from Denmark, Italy, USA, Oman and Papua New Guinea (PNG) will join hosts Hong Kong for the tournament.

The top two sides will win promotion to WCL Div. 2 to be staged in the United Arab Emirates in April 2011.

The matches will be hosted at three grounds in Hong Kong:

* Kowloon CC (KCC),

* Hong Kong CC (HKCC) and

* Mission Road.

Hong Kong will be lead by their inspirational skipper Najeeb Amar.

Here he is pictured during a visit to a local school (HK Sixes 2010):

The Hong Kong side for the Pepsi ICC World Cricket League Division 3 is:

Najeeb Amar (captain), Nadeem Ahmed, Irfan Ahmed, Waqas Barkat, Tabarak Dar, Khalid Butt, Asif Khan, Courtney Kruger; Roy Lansam, Mark Chapman, Nizakat Mohammad, Moner Muhammad, Adil Mehmood, Mohammad Aizaz Khan

Hong Kong cricket sixes soon-to-be-legend, Irfan Ahmed (below)

Cricketers from UK, Australia, Shanghai, Thailand and Hong Kong will be enjoying the camaraderie and competition of the 9th annual Hong Kong Cricket Festival this weekend (3-5th December) at Hong Kong’s newest cricket venue, Kai Tak Cricket Ground, site of the famous former airport.

The award winning Festival, part of the Asian Cricket Sixes Tour and hosted by Lamma Cricket Club, gets underway on Friday 3rd December at 1.30pm with a Twenty20 match featuring players from Shanghai Dragons & Pirates versus a combined Honourable Horse Artillery / CBB side in what promises to be an entertaining match up.

The sixes part of the cricket Festival will be played all day Saturday and Sunday from 9.30am to 5pm.

Spectators and supporters, possibly feeling Ashes fever, are very welcome to come down to the picturesque ground in Kowloon City and enjoy the atmosphere.

For further information see the tournament website at www.hkcricketfestival.com

Here’s a teaser from last year’s Private Capital Cricket Festival: