The annual Bojangles International Veterans Cricket Sixes Tournament was recently held in Singapore with teams from Penang, Jakarta, KL and Singapore competing. “Sixes” is a shortened format of the game, rules can vary but in this event each match was a five overs per side contest, balls deemed “wide” attracted a 4 run penalty (but batsman could still hit the “wide” ball for additional runs) and there was no lbw. Each player, excluding the keeper had to bowl one over in the innings.

The event was staged at the Ceylon Sports Club (CSC) and the adjacent India Association cricket ground on Balestier Road. CSC in particular is one of the best places you could find to watch cricket, the clubhouse has a ground level terrace that opens onto the field, the bar behind it, plenty of tables and chairs, and a kitchen featuring the food of the sub-continent as you would expect at this venue.

The ANZA Cricket Club won the event a few years ago in a testament to big hitting, tight bowling, an appropriate level of fluid replacement and the ability to continue to play good cricket despite an appropriate level of fluid replacement (Tiger is indeed a fluid). Tradition dictated that the club was in it again in 2006. Being a tournament for “veterans” I had to reacquaint myself with the term. A quick scan of the Macquarie dictionary and the words “grown old in service” leapt out at me. Tournament rules provided further definition, “over 35 with at least one player on the field being over 40”, presumable to keep the “younger” guys in check. We managed to field a team with only one guy under 40.

Basically Sixes is all about runs and lots of them, innings totals range between 40 at the lower end to good totals in the 60’s and 70’s and the occasional blow-out to over 100!! (Yes that's 20 plus an over). In our first two games, spaced only an hour apart, we batted well but got hammered by the opposition batsmen and bowled too many wides. Lunch beckoned, so with our next game scheduled for mid afternoon we settled into some curried chickpeas, a black dish that was reputed to have chicken in it, a bit of rice and a few beers. This was followed by a team game of cards in between watching the other matches, the highlight of which was some guy who slapped 32 in one over whilst the PA belted out some Bollywood dance mix interspersed by a bit of Queen, the crowd cheering……talk about atmosphere!

By the time we hit the field again we had a new relaaaaaxed team strategy but with a bit of 10CC (of Dreadlock Holiday fame) blaring from the PA, “we don’t like cricket……we love it”, the worm turned for us and we hammered out 74 against the Jakarta vets. Apologies if you were driving past on Balestier Road about then as I managed to hit a big straight drive out of the ground and into some unsuspecting car cruising past (I recommend taking the middle lane whenever driving past CSC). Great bowling by big Glenn Wright and skipper Clive Tilbrook got us home in the field for our first victory.

We followed through Sunday morning with another sensational performance rattling up the same score, crowned by David Chamberlain smashing a very nice six over the square leg boundary off the last ball. We then got off to a great start in the field with a brilliant catch behind the stumps by Dave (Robbo) Robertson and tight bowling by Johnny Kett to set us up. A second victory! Alas, too much too late, two wins and two losses did not leave us at the top of our pool so we missed the semi finals.

The moral of the story is that we left the beer and cards too late. I’m also writing to the Macquarie dictionary with a further enhancement to the definition of “veteran” – one whose body aches badly after two days of Sixes cricket…..but what a great Singapore cricketing weekend.

by Greg Joiner