Impartial Ice Cricket Championship

The first-ever Ice Cricket World Championship came to a rather inconclusive close March 4th, ending in an exhilarating draw. Attracting six teams from across the world (ie. England and the Estonian home team), it was Surrey's deftly-skilled Polygon team and Upminster's scrappy, albeit dryly named, 2nd team sharing top honors. Both teams finished with 14 points in a round-robin tournament that awarded 3 points for a victory, one for a draw. Polygon was the high-scorer on the day with 76 for 3 in 6 overs.

The Estonian home team, for their part, despite inventing the game and having home field advantage, managed to capture only three points and tied for sixth and final place with the Surrey club, A Few Good Men, in this tourney of anti-results. The creation of expat and Tallinn resident, Jason Barry, who also captains the home team, ice cricket has captured the attention of the international media with its inane existence and attracted 40 clubs to Tallinn over the course of this winter. Essentially the same as summer cricket, but in a six-a-side format on ice, ice cricket is an even more numbing version of the game played on Harku Lake, where it is too cold to suffer through the tedium of a regular-paced match. Despite, the seasonal melting of Harku's ice pitch, Barry and the lads stubbornly take their sport indoors to Jeti Ice Hall, refusing to go with nature and give it a rest. Hopefully the offseason practice will result in a better showing for the home side, and next year's Ice Cricket World Championship will actually produce a world champion.