Tag: Hong Kong
Nizakat Khan Scores Blistering Century
Nizakat Khan has continued his red hot run of form from Hong Kong’s tour of the United Kingdom and Ireland with a blistering century in the Premier league.
Playing for Hong Kong Cricket Club, Nizakat smashed 116 off 60 balls with his century coming off just 52 deliveries. His innings included an incredible 13 sixes. The innings comes after Nizakat scored 69, 123, 62, 43 and 40 in matches against Ireland and Scotland, with the right hander now feeling confident in his own game.
“I still feel that I’m in the form of my life, had a great tour for Hong Kong. I missed out in the first Premier League game but I knew my day would come and today was my day.” said Khan “I was in an aggressive mood, I wanted to be positive from the first ball and told myself anything in my zone I would put away. I wasn’t looking for fours, I was looking for sixes and they kept coming.”
Khan continued “I hit a few out of the ground, my favourite shot is to hit straight and managing to hit one over the sight screen felt good. I’m sorry that we lost so many balls today! But seriously, I am just trying to stick to my routines in training, working on my fitness and my weaknesses. I just want to be on the winning team so today was great.”
Nizakat’s whirlwind innings proved the backbone of a dominant 192-run win for HKCC against Pakistan Association Club.
HKCC posted 336-6 with Mark Wright (65) and Scott Mckechnie (56) also scoring half-centuries.
In response, PACC did reach 117-3 at one stage thanks to Bilal Muhammad’s 71, but the visitors collapsed to be all out for 144. Giacomo Lamplough ran through the tail and picked up 4-16.
In Sunday’s other match, Kowloon Cricket Club scored an easy win over the newly formed Cricket Hong Kong Independents XI.
Spinner Dan Pascoe’s 4-26 helped dimiss CHK XI for 139, Haseeb Amjad top scored with 36.
The CHK XI total was made more disappointing by the ease in which KCC picked off the runs. Kinchit Shah (53), Jamie Atkinson (40*) and Aizaz Khan (38*) helped the home side surpass the score in just the 22nd over.
Match Scores
Hong Kong CC v Pakistan Association CC: www.crichq.com/#matches/431090/1st_innings
Kowloon CC v Cricket HK XI: www.crichq.com/#matches/431093/1st_innings
Other domestic scores: www.crichq.com/#organisations/821/competitions/current
Additional reporting and image: HK Cricket Association
Women’s Rugby Shines on Super Saturday
The 2016-17 season of the Women’s Premiership kicked off with a Super Saturday showcase at King’s Park with six of the seven Premiership teams in action, including Premiership debutants City Sparkle, last year’s League and Grand Champions Valley Black and the runners-up in both competitions Gai Wu Falcons.
Last year’s top two were convincing form with muscular bonus point wins on the opening weekend. In the season’s opening match Valley dispatched CWB Phoenix 45-7 in an impressive eight try performance even though three of its top players were absent representing Hong Kong in the Asian Sevens series.
The absence of Valley’s large contingent of Hong Kong representatives, combined with a number of retirements in the off-season, has catalysed a youth movement in the Valley with numerous players called up from last year’s second side Valley Red.
“I’m really pleased with our performance today,” said Sam Feausi, the long-time Valley star, who is serving as assistant coach for the team this season. “We showed good structure despite having a few girls missing. We had seven or eight players from last year’s second team in the first side today and it’s good to see the young girls stepping up.”
Their ability to transition to Premiership level will play a decisive factor in Valley’s ability to defend its two-season long unbeaten streak once the top sides face each other.
“We are confident, but this season is going to be much more competitive. Everybody is pretty strong. All of the teams are missing their sevens girls but the results are still really convincing,” Feausi added.
Gai Wu Falcons soared to their biggest opening day victory in the day’s second match dispatching Kowloon 56-0 despite lacking four of their stars including Hong Kong captain Christy Cheng Ka-chi who were also on international sevens duty.
In the final match of the day, USRC Tigers withstood a fierce early charge from City Sparkle before overpowering the Premiership debutants 45 – 3.
Tigers coach Liu Kwok-leung said City’s intensity troubled his side early on: “They put us under a lot of pressure and it took us a while to get settled in and switched on. Their defensive line speed is good and stopped us from organising. They have good potential to compete this season.
“But eventually we settled a bit and I was pleased that we kept our structure and performed what we have been training,” Kwok added.
City coach Fung Kai-hang said, “Tigers are one of the top teams and they played well. We have set some goals for the league this season. There are games we target to win, games we target to compete in and games that we can use as a learning curve.
“This was our first Premiership match and the girls really felt the difference in intensity. It’s more confrontational and the speed and strength of the game is much better at this level, but we learned a lot today.
“We need to keep working on our set piece and the contact area. We play Football Club next and they have a big pack and will be similar to Tigers. But the girls are really positive. We gave up a lot of tries tonight but they kept working hard and going forward,” said Fung
For the full weekend’s results click here
Additional reporting and image: HKRU
Hong Kong Take on Sydney Sixers
Hong Kong will play inaugural Big Bash League champions Sydney Sixers on the 16 December at C.ex Coffs International Stadium in Coffs Harbour as part of their 10-day tour to Australia in December. The fixture means Hong Kong will now play two matches against Big Bash League teams, following last week’s announcement of a fixture against Sydney Thunder.
HK Cricket Association CEO Tim Cutler said about the game “The opportunity to play in the country, and experience country NSW life is a great opportunity for the guys and will be a great character building experience,” said Cutler. “Australia only probably got a taste of what Hong Kong has to offer with Ming Li being the Sixers community rookie last year…so this is another great chance for Australians, and especially country Australians, to see what talent there is in Hong Kong.”
The game will see many of the Sixers’ stars have their final hit out before the start of the KFC T20 Big Bash League on 20 December. “The guys are fortunate enough to be heading to Coffs Harbour which will be four days before our first BBL match,” said Sixers and Australian spinner Steve O’Keefe. “It’s vitally important that we hit the ground running and we’re at top speed at that time of year, but not only that it’s important that we get out there and showcase our skills to the local people of Coffs Harbour.
Sixers General Manager Dominic Remond commented “It is a great opportunity for our fans to experience Big Bash. It is an added bonus that our friends from the Hong Kong Cricket Association are sending their National team to play.”
Hong Kong v Sydney Sixers
Date: 6pm, 16 December 2016
Venue: C.ex Coffs International Stadium, Coffs Harbour
Tickets: Free
Women’s Rugby Results – 24 September, 2016
Premiership
Valley Black 45-7 CWB Phoenix
@ King’s Park, Kick-off: 15:00
Gai Wu 56-0 Kowloon
@ King’s Park, Kick-off: 16:30
City Sparkle 3-45 USRC Tigers
@ King’s Park, Kick-off: 18:00
Photo: Valley Black
Women’s Rugby Fixtures – 24 September, 2016
Artistic Swimmers
Some of Hong Kong’s Olympic swimming team have appeared in an artistic photo shoot by Rex Tsui to promote swimming, the Victoria Harbour race on 16 October and to raise awareness that to succeed in anything it takes persistence and determination. They might not have won medals, but there are not many people in Hong Kong who can say they represented their country at the Olympic games. Chapeaux!
Swimmers participating in the photo shoot included Au Hoi-shun Stephanie (歐鎧淳), Kong Man-yi Yvette (江忞懿), Cheng Lily-mei Camille (鄭莉梅), and Sze Hang Yu (施幸余), together they formed HK’s relay team, and Lau Yin-yan Claudia (劉彥恩) and Geoffrey Cheah (謝旻樹) who represented Hong Kong in the women’s backstroke and men’s freestyle, respectively.
Stephanie Au, also known as “Oriental Venus”, who was Hong Kong’s flag bearer at the opening ceremony of the Rio Olympics, commented that “I used to sing in the water when I was young. This is my first time to participate in the Harbour Race; I do not have any target but to enjoy the process. I am a bit afraid to swim in the sea but I believe it will be a great one.”
Harbour Race
Date: 8:30am, 16 October, 2016
Venue: Sam Ka Tsuen pier, Lei Yue Mun to Quarry Bay Park pier
Tickets: Free
More info: www.hkharbourrace.com, www.facebook.com/harbourrace
Scotland Win the Braidwood Cup
Hong Kong lost the final match of their Tour of the United Kingdom and Ireland. Scotland scoring a 53-run win in the Second One Day International.
After Thursday’s washout of the first ODI – it meant Scotland won the series and claimed the Braidwood Cup.
Chasing Scotland’s 266-7, Hong Kong had reached 139-2 after 30 overs, but with the required rate creeping up wickets fell and the visitors were dismissed for 213 in the 47th over.
Babar Hayat (56) and Nizakat Khan (42) were again the linchpins of Hong Kong’s innings but didn’t get the support required.
Earlier, Scotland recovered from 144-5 after 32 overs to post an above par score thanks to a century from Calum Macleod (102) and a run-a-ball 52 from Craig Wallace.
Wickets were shared among the Hong Kong bowlers with Tanveer Ahmed (2-50) the only multiple wicket-taker.
Hong Kong now return home, with their next assignment a three-game ODI series against Papua New Guinea in November, which will be held in Mong Kok.
Babar Hayat:
“We got a good start with the run chase, Nizakat and I were playing nicely and then we collapsed. They took two really good catches and saved a lot of singles and twos which we didn’t do, that was the big difference for me. The way we bowled in the middle was brilliant but we let ourselves down in the field in the last 10 overs.”
“Nizakat or myself needed to stay there until the end, we were playing patiently but those catches turned the game.”
“Overall we’ve played really well on this tour – we brought a lot of young guys and are missing key players. So it’s a learning process for us and we will be a lot better for the experience. We competed in every game, won the T20 series against Ireland and Nizakat’s form was outstanding.”
“We need to work on our fielding, in every game we gave away 20-30 runs and today it put us under a lot of pressure so that is something we have to work on.”
Additional reporting and images: HK Cricket Association, Cricinfo