Huge boosts for University cricket in Germany
The cricket team of the University of Goettingen (CTdUG)- a founder member of the DCB, and one which has been playing in the German league since its inauguration in 1984- finally made its mark on the cricketing map in Germany with two sensational firsts recently.
Bettina Hammersen ? Germany's 1st female umpireNot only did it convincingly win the coveted North German Cricket Association´s (NDCV) annual Indoor Cricket Championships held in Oldenburg- the first time any University cricket team has ever won an official DCB (German Cricket Federation) tournament ? but one of its club members, Bettina Hammersen (right), became Germany´s first qualified female umpire when she passed the DCUSA Level 1 examination with 84%! 3 other club members ? Mike Wright, Sebastian Gründig and Oliver Huq- also sat and passed the umpire´s exam with flying colours. Of the four, 3 of them are native Germans and 2 of them (Sebastian and Bettina) only began playing cricket just over one year ago! (In fact, Paul Baldwin has run 2 umpiring courses in Germany in the last 2 months- 1 in Buxtehde (near Hamburg) and the other in Düsseldorf- involving 39 participants, 21 of whom took the DCUSA (Deutsche Cricket Umpires and Scoreres Association) Part 1 exam. 20 of these passed with flying colours, and the DCB & DCUSA look forward to 20 new umpires taking to the field at some point in the very near future.)
The CTdUG went into the Indoor Championships as last year´s runners-up and started on the best possible note by beating reigning champions, Buxtehude CC, in a nail-biting first round game ? Goettingen getting the winning run with just 1 ball to go! They never looked back from then on, coasting through their first round and semi-final games and sending all records tumbling in the process ? a stand of over 100 for the first wicket vs. the Hamburg Youth team (Premnath and Sajjad Khan), the highest team score in the tournament (154 for 2 in 10 overs) and bowling out the opponents for the lowest team score in the tournament (46 all out). The Player of the Tournament award also went to a Goettingen player, Saju Balakrishnan, for his outstanding all-round performances during the entire tournament. In the final they met their arch-rivals (and very good friends) Alster CC, Hamburg. Batting first, Goettingen was only able to score 85 before being all out in the 9th over. But excellent tactical bowling changes and field setting by the captain, Asad Ali Khan, kept the strong ACC batsmen at bay and they were dismissed for just 69 runs, giving the CTdUG their very first championship in its 20-year-old history. The statistics of the championships can be seen on the CTdUG website www.gocricket.de.