The KCC has decided to drop one Sunday League team from its roster in 2007-08. Since winning the Sunday League and Cup double in 2003-04, the Club has struggled to recruit new cricketers and has found it increasingly difficult to maintain two teams of a decent Sunday League standard in recent seasons. KCC’s plight has been worsened by the loss of senior players, such as Yarman Vachha and Graeme Jardine, who have left Hong Kong recently to accept new job opportunities offshore.

Whilst the HKCC has enjoyed an abundance of new players, which allowed them to resurrect their third Sunday League side - Wanderers - last year, the same can’t be said for KCC. Rather, in recent years the playing ranks of Templars and Infidels have been propped up by an increasing number of junior players, guest players and other non-members - none of whom add greatly to the fabric of the Kowloon Cricket Club.

The single Sunday League team, which will play under the name of ‘Kowloon Cricket Club’, will be skippered by Damian Kelleher (pictured above). It will be the first time since the 1961-62 season that the ‘Templars’ name will be missing from the record books. The ‘Infidels’ name has appeared since in 1978-79.

The ramifications of this change will not only rumble through the corridors of KCC, but the impact will be felt around the wider circles of Hong Kong cricket. The Sunday League competition will drop to a nine team format and the KCC team will have to play all of its matches on the Cox’s Road ground so that the venue remains available for cricket use (if the KCC team is not playing, then the ground will be lost as two non-KCC teams will not be allowed to use the ground). This may prove to be a godsend for other forms of cricket (i.e. women’s cricket or junior cricket), which may be able to use the ground, but it may create a scheduling problem for the Sunday League. This problem will be further exacerbated once the Po Kong Village Road ground is closed for redevelopment in December 2007, resulting in the loss of not one but two wickets.

In the long run, KCC will be hoping its player fortunes will change for the better and that it can resurrect its second team again in the near future. But one has to ask the question - “How do you attract new players when you don’t have a team for them to play in?”.

The 2007-08 HKCA Sunday League will start on 16th September 2007. The Saturday League will start on 1st September.