After a busy, fun, but ultimately disappointing April for the Sharks, with 8 games but only one win, the start of May saw the team hungry for better results.

The Shark`s first game of the month wasn’t until May 18th, when the 1st Xi took on Wyverns 1st Xi in JCL Division 1. Batting first, the Shark`s fielded a star-studded line up, featuring a rare appearance by Ibby Takahashi, who didn’t disappoint, scoring 51 and taking 1/10 off his 6 overs. Despite the long batting line up, the top order struggled to 59/6. Contributions from our middle order (Al 27, Ibby 51, Marcus 39 not out) helped us to 192 by the end of the 40th over. When it came our time to bowl Ibby and Ben proved impossible to score off, bowling dot ball after dot ball, while Muneeb terrorised the Wyverns top-order finishing with 4 wickets. In the end Wyverns limped home on 151 runs, the Shark`s winning their first match of May by 41 runs. Ibby was player of the match.

The next day, May 19th, saw the 3rd XI taking on the KKR 4th XI in the JCL Division 4, at Sano River Ground 1b. The Sharks felt they had a chance to win here…what fun that would be! The cheeky availability of a number of well-credentialed players put a spritely spring in the step of the 3rds. Raj a very late out, sleepy Atiq a sudden in. The Sharks won the toss and sent KKR in to bat. Although wides were still an issue on the day, runs had to be got with some risk against good bowling. Eventually that meant steady wickets and dried up runs. All bowlers took wickets. Yasir sublime. Haji came back well from Game 1. Sud acrobatic and 3 grabs behind the stumps. Great catch by Ali to get us started. When it came our turn to bat, chasing 168, it was a no-contest. A big Hague/Jan partnership was backed up by Sud and Atiq. After a careful start Yasir clobbered 86 (58 balls), A. ‘Hagar’ Hague a steady dining-table-bragging-rights 23 (68 balls). Yasir was player of the match. The 3rds are still finding their feet in terms of core players, but it took only two games for us to get a win. With a bonus point. We would like some more, please!

The following Saturday, May 25th saw the 1st and 2nd XI playing games on adjacent Fuji grounds, the 2nd XI were looking for their first win of the season in JCL Division 2 against the Rising Stars 2nd XI and the 1st XI were playing their historic rivals the Tokyo Wombats in JCL Division 1 and to contest the Shearer Thurgate Cup.

In the highly anticipated Division 2 match, the Chiba Sharks put up an impressive batting display against Rising Stars. The Sharks posted a formidable total of 239 runs, thanks to stellar performances by Gufi and Dhanachandran Sudharsan. Their excellent batting laid a strong foundation, giving the Sharks a significant advantage. However, the Sharks’ bowling was far from ideal, plagued by numerous extras. The team conceded 52 wide balls and 11 no-balls, which proved to be costly. Despite the high total set by the batsmen, the excessive extras allowed Rising Star to capitalize and chase down the target in the 37th over. Ultimately, the match was lost due to the poor bowling performance, highlighting the critical impact of maintaining discipline in bowling. The Sharks will need to address these issues to improve in future matches.

Whilst the 2nd XI were battling away on Fuji ground 1, the battle for the Shearer Thurgate Cup was being fought on Fuji ground 2….

The Sharks were in unfamiliar territory, losing the toss and being asked to bowl. An uncharacteristically bad fielding performance allowed the Wombats to get to 232. Muneeb was again among the wicket takers (3/32). Wombats captain Muhammad Ali was trapped LBW on 99 by Ben, one short of his century. After a solid start the Sharks wobbled in the chase, slumping to 98/6 and it looked like it would be the Wombats’ day. A fantastic innings of 95 not out from just 77 balls from Marcus Thurgate got the Sharks home, ensuring we retained the Shearer Thurgate Cup. Marcus was ably supported by Muneeb, Kento and Freddy in the one wicket win. A classic Thurgate “French cut” past the keeper for four sealed the victory. Marcus was player of the match.

On May 16th the Sharks T20 squad was competing in the Japan Cup against the Tokyo Falcons at Chiba’s Sammu ground (Sanbunomori Fureai Park), many of the players having taken part in the excitement at the Fuji grounds the previous day. This was preceded, however, with a training session led by the Sharks legend Nic, who came back to cricket this year and is already doing a great job! 

The Sharks started off by winning the toss and chose to bowl first. Again, we let the opponents score some runs with our mis-fielding, but our pace bowlers showed some results, notably Muneeb finishing 3/24. The Falcons finished their innings scoring 187, which set the Sharks a pretty high total to chase. With a big score to chase the side decided the had to make some big runs in the powerplay, so decided to open with double Thurgates (Marcus and Ash) which has never happened before! The innings started well with 62 runs in powerplay, exactly to plan, however at the end of the 20th over the Sharks were still 32 runs short of the target. The squad showed a lot of fight and will look to bounce back with a win against the Tuskers in June.

After the match the Captain Ashley had the following to say “It’s was good to see some new players [at the mornings training session] …I really appreciate with players who stayed after training session and cheered our playing Ⅺ! This is called ‘Chiba Sharks spirit’.” 

At the end of the month the Sharks had improved on their performances in April, taking three wins from 5 games. The 1st XI finished the month in 2nd place in JCL 1 and the 3rd XI climbed to 3rd place in the standings for JCL4. Both the 2nd XI and 20 over squad remain winless and are hungry for their next games and hopefully first points of the season. Let’s see what June holds……