Marina Cricket Club, Singapore

Marina Cricket Club

The Marina Cricket Club, Singapore (Marina) is a unique club of cricket enthusiasts in Singapore.

Marina takes its roots in the sub-continental passion for the game of cricket. The start of the millennium saw a group of expats making their way down to the reclaimed grasslands of Marina Bay for weekend games of tennis ball cricket. Over three years this group assimilated into a collection of like-minded men with a common zeal for cricket. In 2003, the group culminated into Marina Cricket Club, and participated for the first time in the Singapore Domestic Cricket League.

The club proved itself a force in its first season of competitive cricket by coming runners-up in Division 3, and moving up the ladder to Division 2. The ambitions and the numbers of the club swelled up following such an inspirational opening act, and a second team (Marina 2) team was added in 2004. An year later the club added a third team (Marina 3).

Currently the first team, Marina 1 is established amongst the best of Singapore cricket and plays in Division 1, brushing shoulders with former Test and first class players from around the cricketing world. The team boasts three Singapore National players of its own.

Marina 2 acts as feeder nurturing talents for the Div 1 team while firmly holding its own in the second division of the domestic league.

Marina 3, the kid of the lot, continues to compete in the fourth division with immense promise. It is also a breeding ground for trying out newbies wishing to join Marina ranks.

Whereabouts

The transition from the tennis ball to the leather ball saw a change in the club's home-base from the grasslands of Marina Bay to the confines of the Saint Andrews Cricket Association (SACA) ground at Malan Road. This served as the club's home ground for the League season of 2003.

The start of the 2004 season brought a further change of pitch as the club moved to the picturesque surrounds of the Singapore Turf Club (Turf City) grounds along the Bukit Timah road. Since then the club's teams have used the 'A' and 'B' pitches at Turf City as the home ground for the domestic competition.

As the beginning of the 2007 season, Marina 1 was offered use of the Singapore Cricket Association stadium at Kallang. This further affirmed the importance of Marina in the The Marina 2 and Marina 3 teams continue to use Turf City as their home ground.

Aside from the cricket venues, Marina members ("Marinoids") have always congregated and strategised and drunk-up at the twin spirit-ual centres of Bayshore Park and The Albany.

Marinoids

Marina 1

* Dharmichand Mulewa (C)
* Yogi Naik (VC, w.k.)
* Mohamed Shoib
* Mahesh Udayabhanu 'Maggie'
* Vijay Nanjangud
* Sagar Kulkarni
* Srini Murthy
* Srinivas H.S
* Ali Yafis
* Deepak Rajendran
* Vivek Vedagiri
* Kishore K V
* Prabhu Senghal

Marina 2

* Vineet Pande (C)
* Sai Prakash
* Pareet Desai
* Deepak Puri
* G. Chandrasekar 'Chandru'
* G. Manoj
* Trichy Mani Sridharan
* Kunalsingh Raghuwanshi
* Amit Bansal
* Sridhar Sesham
* Chinthaka M.H.F. (w.k.)

Marina 3

* Akshay Sharma (C)
* Anshul Chandra
* Mohan Roy
* Vikram Jit Singh
* Shantonu Bhadury
* Rajkishore Patel
* Suhas Darekar
* Vivek Chopra
* Amit Pathak
* Vishesh Goel
* Puneet Jain
* Rangaraj Chari
* Mani Bhat
* Kiran H. (w.k.)
* Kapil Tuli
* Amit Redkar
* Natarajan S. 'Ramji'
* Govardhan V. Singh 'Gova'
* Haroon Mufti

Overseas Marina stalwarts

* Bhanu Baweja
* V.S. Premanand 'Prem'
* Yogesh Kamat 'Yogi'
* Rajat Mohan 'Raj'
* Bipin Balakrishnan 'Bips'
* Navin Kamat
* Prashant Kaul 'PK'
* Gulamabbas Muni
* Rajendra Somthankar 'Rajen'
* Rahul Kashikar
* Conrad Serrao 'Connie'
* Subhrangshu Saha
* Shanmugasundaram Perumal 'Shan'

External links

* http://marina.org.sg