Wearing the Whites

So as most of my friends, collegues and family know I had the honour of representing the country in the European Cricket Championships and gained my first international cap for cricket. A dream come true for any sportsman!

(In Israel, I just told people I was a national sportsman, without the cricket part, sounded better to them)

So already before we left as the war with Hezbollah in northern Israel and southern Lebanon escalated, there were threats against us and doubts whether our games would be organised.
Our team was ready after months of practising over the hot weekends. We had received our track suits, badges and sharpened our spikes and ironed the whites (long white cricket pants). In last minute style, we got the go ahead a day before that we were travelling.

So we embarked to Glasgow on August 2, to try keep it short interesting and to the point here were the highlights (see past email pasted below to get some more backgorund to the story):

• Being met at the aeroplane door by Scottish policeman and escorted to baggage claim to be met by photographers and cameramen. Later that day we were mentioned briefly on BBC Scotland. Aside from this we got lots of press coverage in the UK press as well as some Hebrew papers as well.
  
• I am sure you understood that it has to do with us being an Israeli side and the ME situation and not the enthuasiastic interest in the great game of cricket and us as quality players.
• Our first game as most the papers were reporting against Jersey was cancelled because they failed to find us a secure venue to play at and Scottish protestors (a few luny leftys and some of the Muslim community) were threatening to protest against the game. They threatened a few thousand people.
• Instead we had a practise, everytime we went on the bus we got escorted by police motorcade and had strong security at our venues.
• Finally the first game arrived against Norway - Just to explain the security again (this will be the last time I promise) two buses of police plus motorbikes escorted us to the ground as we arrived near the ground you could see luminous yellow jackets of the police everywhere in the area. Finally arriving at the ground we were greated by a sea of yellow, about 500 police, horses, mobile cameras and yes even a helicopter in the sky in the beginning. After the warm up we had a group picture see above and took the field to to the site of around 50 protestors in the parking lot of the ground waving Palestinian and Lebanese flags.
• The protestors were singing songs to the tune of: "Stop the cricket, Stop the hate, Israel is a terrorist State", "Free, Free Lebanon! Free Free Palestine", "Who let the bombs out? Bush, Blair Olmert!"
• I had the privilege of fielding on the boundary close to them, so I imagined it like playing at the MCG (Melbourne Cricket Ground), it was quiet an atmosphere.
• Ironically, we definitely pulled the biggest crowds to the game between all the police and the protestors. Funniest moment was the day after, same ground against France, a few less protestors and somewhere with thier ignorant cricket knowledge they thought Israel with our blue hats in the field were the French and proceed to try root for us and try put the french batsman off thinking they were Israel, after an hour of this they still had not worked it out!
• Anyway onto the more important part the cricket, Norway beats us well they put on 280 runs we managed 180. But we came back strong the next day to beat the French (Its amazing how many people were so happy we beat the French) they managed 180 odd and we chased the runs well. Both games I opened the batting taking that first ball and wearing off the shine, I managed to hang around and play defensively. On both occasions I made 14 runs and got stumped in similar manner off slow bowlers. So I did the hard work was set up but did not manage to get that big total.
• Then we went four hours up north of Scotland to the Highlands to play at an RAF airforce base. We played Guernsey in the rain of the lovely Scottish summer. (I injured my rib muscles so did not play the game). We batted first this time and only managed 130 odd (one of the bowlers got a hatrick). We did quiet well to get a few quick wickets off them but it did not help they got the runs easily. The final game was not played due to tournament becoming messed up with Greece fielding two unofficial players and getting all their points deducted for that. So we played the airforce base a fun game of 20-20 overs. This time it not only rained it hailed as well. Tough for us Middle Eastern desert people to handle.
  
• At the closing ceremony at the Glasgow City Hall, we received the prize for the best team spirit and sportsmanship award, not too surprising after all the issues we dealt with an had to do to play a game of cricket.
• Overall, with all the protests, teams getting points deducted, Norway won our division and we remain in the second division until the next Eurochamps in two years time.

Pic 1: Me forgetting which sport I went there to play Pic2: Me and the boys up at the RAF airforce base cricket ground

Thanks for the support and interest thats my take over the last two weeks from on top of this world,

Dovi

• THIS WAS MY EMAIL I SENT OUT BEFORE MY TRIP, THANKS TO ALL THE RESPONSES AND GOOD LUCK WISHES, I APPRECIATED THEM.
  
  Dear Friends and Family,
  
  I am sure you all know what is currently going on in Israel and with Lebanon and Hezbollah, it is pretty hard to miss, just look on the internet, see a paper or turn on a TV and its right on front of you. I am sure you have also thought about friends and family living in the region during this time.
  As much of the time as this place feels like a normal country, acts like one and is one, a different reality always sneaks up and arises. There is certainly never a dull moment, the countries mixed with contradictions, complexities and meaning.
  Perhaps my example can epitomise the extreme stark contrasts of this place. As the rockets continue to fall (average a hundred a day) in the north of Israel and operations continue in Lebanon and world leader continue to hold meetings and the media world evolves just around this issue, I will be neatly folding my white pants, white shirt, cleaning my kit and heading off to the airport on Wednesday morning to represent the country at the ICC European Division 2 Cricket tournament in Glasgow. I wrote this two days ago, meantime since then in the last twenty four hours, there have been negotiations between police and the muslim community in Glasgow who plan to protest our arrival. Not too surprising, but very dissapointing although we have been given the go clear to play. We w ill be under tight security and not be able to wear our Israeli cricket badges and uniform while we travel. But for me as a sportsman, it is a dream come true in many ways.
  For those more enthuasistic follows you can see details of the tournament and match reports on this website,
  http://www.cricketeurope.net/ECC/DATABASE/2006/TOURNAMENTS/EURODIV2/about.shtml
  Emails of support and encouragement will obviously be appreciated
  
  I hope my average will be as high as the number of Katyusha rocket attacks being fired on northern Israel everyday.
  Hope all are well,
  Be in touch,