PRESS CLIPPING SERBIAN CRICKET FEDERATION Press Clipping – SERBIAN CRICKET FEDERATION SERBIAN CRICKET FEDERATION http://www.serbiacricket.com LINKEDIN https://www.linkedin.com/company/serbian-cricket-federation 2 Press Clipping – SERBIAN CRICKET FEDERATION TWITTER YOUTUBE https://twitter.com/cricketserbia www.youtube.com /Kriket Srbija TWEETS198 FOLLOWING164 FOLLOWERS1,347 FACEBOOK.COM www.facebook.com/serbiacricket 3 Press Clipping – SERBIAN CRICKET FEDERATION WIKIPEDIA.ORG http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serbia_national_cricket_team Serbia national cricket team From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The Serbian Cricket Team is a world class team which represents the nation of Serbia in International Cricket competitions. In recent years the game has begun to grow again, a recent article on Cricinfo highlighted the progress made by the team. Serbia are not officially endorsed by the International Cricket Council and are therefore not entitled to participate in ICC Official events. However, Serbian Cricket Federation is recognized by the ICC-Europe as a sole governing body of cricket in Serbia, which should see them granted Affiliate Status in the near future. In October 2009, Serbian national team made its first away appearance, losing one and winning one match against Slovenian team Mezica CC. In August 2011, Serbia reached semi finals in the EuroT20 tournament in Budapest.[1] Currently there are 4 active teams: McKenzie (Ĉaĉak), Mirijevo (Belgrade), Vraĉar (Belgrade) and Stari Grad (Belgrade). 40- and 20- over championships are played and the season runs from April to October. The curiosity of Serbian cricket is that there is a cap on expat players (4 per team), which enables greater involvement to local players. Current squad The following table lists the players in the Serbia squad for the 2010 European Twenty20 Championship:[1] Haris Dajĉ (Captain) Nebojša Đurić Pavle Obradović Ian Bancroft Vijayakumar Perumalsamy Dhanushka Kumara Amberish Sarang Slobodan Tošić Ranit Ranitović Luka Manitašević Darko Ivić Dragan Đokić (wk) Nenad Dugić Miloš Bulj Nikola Pantelić Bogdan Azarić 2011. EuroT20 squad: Vladimir Ninković (captain), Savo Ĉeprnić, Dragan Đokić (WK), Nasir Chaudhry, Yasir Chaudhry, Slobodan Tošić, Nebojša Đurić, Luka Manitašević, Marko Milanović, Baily Boland, Luke Ginnell, Derek McGeehan, Nauman Arshad, Aleksa Đorović, Ranit Ranitović, Peter Cheeseman (player/coach). 2012. Bucharest Tri Nation Tournament squad: Vladimir Ninković (captain), Dragan Đokić (wk), Haris Dajĉ, Dhanushka Kumara, Magdalena Nikolić, Slobodan Tošić, Mladen Panović, Luka Manitašević, Aleksa Đorović, Nebojša Đurić, Marko Milanović, Dušan Ratković. 4 Press Clipping – SERBIAN CRICKET FEDERATION Nebojša Đurić (23 years old)(captain, from the second match. He was also the official umpire for the first match of tournament played between Russia and Romania) Vladimir ninkovic (31 years old) (captain, for the first match, after that he resigned as captain to give the duties to young generation and suggested name of Nebojša Đurić as new captain of the team, however for the benefit of team and considering his experience players urged him to continue as coach and player.He also played a role of commentator in the tournament whenever Serbia was not playing there matches) Kaustubh Suresh Thakare (30 years old) (wicket keeper and right handed batsman, played as an expat in the team belongs originally to Republic of India) Bojan Nesskovic (31 years old)(leg spinner and right handed batsman) Slobodan Tošić (29 years old) (off spinner and opening batsman) Ranit Ranitović (28 yeras old) (right arm fast bowler) Wintley Burton (22 years old) (right arm medium bowler and batsman, played as an expat in the team originally belongs to Antigua) Stefan Nerandzic(27 years old)(opening batsman) Dragan Đokić (31 years old)(right handed batsman) Nenad Dugić (30 years old) (right handed batsman and one of the best fielders in the team) Dusan Ratkovic (26 years old)(right arm fast bowler) Serbian team played with the great spirit and was the only team in the intercontinental euro cup, 2014 in which 9 local players were playing in first eleven. while as in other teams mostly expats from India and Pakistan outnumbered the locals by huge margin. this is considered as stepping stone in building strong serbian team consisting of local players. -In the first match of the tournament Hungary scored a huge score of 241 against weaker serbian bowling attack in the reply serbian team could manage just 96 runs for the loss of six wickets but showed the hunger of batting for full 20 overs. Nebojša Đurić played very good innings of 21 runs and found a good support from Slobodan Tošić (18) and Vladimir ninkovic (16). - in the second match of the tournament against bulgaria, finally serbian bowling showed some spark and Ranit alongwith slobodan and Bojan restricted the bulgarian score to 137. there were some good performances in field especially by Kaustubh (wicket Keeper) who stumped out the main support of Bulgarian batting Faiyaaz on off spin bowling of Slobodan. Bojyan and Ranit took three wickets each. However because of the slow start in the batting serbia could score only 12 runs in first 6 overs. after that batsmen tried to improve the run rate and were able to score 113 runs in 20 overs. main scorers were Wintley (25), Bojan (17), Thakare (12). However the opening batsmen Stefan and Slobodan bear the main brunt of fiery bowling attack of Bulgarian bowling and made it easier for the batsmen who followed. - in the third match of the tournament serbian team was against strong Romanian team, after winning toss serbia decided to bowl first and because of the poor bowling performance gave away 269 runs in 20 overs which is considered as the biggest score in T20 cricket. in the reply sebian team managed to score 98 runs and the main scorers were Thakare (34), Đokić (17) and Duric (14). - in the last match of the tournament there was nothing to loose, serbians batted first and scored 99 runs in the 20 overs. main scorers were bojan (32), slobodan (18). in the reply russia scored required runs in only 10 overs. overall this was a dismal performance by the team mainly because of poor bowling attack. however the team remained united and tried to motivate others by playing maximum numbers of local serbian players. only two expats which played for the team were kaustubh suresh thakare and wintley burton. many postives can be drawn from this tour like - every batsman in the team showed hunger to stay on crease and scored atleast one score of double figure. - bonding between all the players increased many folds as there was no shouting on the field for dropped catches or poor fielding and no blame game was played. instead all the team mates shared the responsibility of losing tournament. - organizers of the tournament were happy to see a team dependent on local players to win and were praising the serbian team a lot. - this can be considered as step towards ICC affiliation. 5 Press Clipping – SERBIAN CRICKET FEDERATION T20 INTERNATIONAL http://www.t20international.org/serbia WORLDHERITAGE.ORG http://worldheritage.org/articles/Serbia_national_cricket_team 6 Press Clipping – SERBIAN CRICKET FEDERATION 2007. ESPNCRICINFO.COM http://www.espncricinfo.com/wisdencricketer/content/story/224695.html November 2005 The spy who left cricket cold Angus Bell discovers a Serbian cricket side missing equipment, players and a skipper Angus Bell Angus Bell discovers a Serbian cricket side missing equipment, players and a skipper The cricket captain of Serbia, according to the newspaper article I discovered on the internet, was an MI6 secret agent, who'd helped mastermind the arrest of former president Milosevic (I wondered if they'd trapped him using cricket. "You available next weekend, Slobodan?"). Sadly, the captain's cover - running the Belgrade cricket team - had been blown, and he had to flee the country, leaving cricket in tatters. This is what I was up against in Serbia. Months later an email arrived from a Balkan journalist. Milos Pesic wanted to found a Serbian cricket league and take his country to the 2012 Olympics. "This is my dream. For a year I am trying to organize cricket club. Zrenjanin is the city of sports, yet when I speak about cricket here, people think that I've gone nuts. All my efforts were useless, nobody wants help me. So, you are my last hope!" he wrote. Serbia's Olympic vision would not be realised easily. First, cricket has to become an Olympic sport. Then in his next email, Milos dropped a few bombshells. He had no ground; no equipment; no players; and he had never played before. He had never seen the game before. And he hardly spoke English. "Never fear, Milos," I wrote back. "I will bring you equipment. I will train you. And we will see Serbia there in 2012!" I imagined a Disney film, ending in Olympic glory. At the Zrenjanin football ground, as I dug out the cricket gear from the Sköda, I ceremoniously lifted two bats and laid them before the gathering. Their reaction was like seeing a flying saucer land. Milos had done superbly in his recruiting. No longer did people think him nuts. He had sourced the top marksman in all former Yugoslavia, whose unerring accuracy was perfect for cricket. He had found a chemical engineer, whose knowledge of fertilisers singled him out as the groundsman. There was a psychologist - the Mike Brearley of the team, who, although never scoring runs, possessed the brain to outwit Australia. "My neighbour is a carpenter," said Milos, picking up a bat. "He will make us a thousand like these!" Riding on the crest of this confidence, I set up the stumps and began coaching. "You pick up the bat like this ..." "What is a bat?" asked one brave pupil. Where to begin? How to explain `wicket' when it meant three things? As far as they knew, `googly' was a search engine.