Founded in 2002 by Achal Yadav and Amit Bhagat, UBS Cricket Club is committed to fostering, improving and promoting the game of cricket in and around Fairfield County, CT, USA. The club was initially started for players in and around Fairfield County in Connecticut, USA.

Amit Bhagat (left) chuckles when he thinks back to the Club’s first days. “We were just a bunch of guys who enjoyed cricket and were looking for ways to expand our cricketing horizons. The growing interest among our members to play serious, competitive cricket prompted our move to the SCTCA. The 2005 season was a great learning opportunity for the club members even though we weren’t successful”.

In many ways, Amit believes the lack of actual match experience summed up the club’s shortcomings in their first season, where they finished the league at the bottom of the table. If the experience of winning just three of their 10 matches, with another one drawn, was a bitter pill to swallow, Amit says they quickly learned the lessons of that failed campaign. “We probably did just about everything wrong that first year, but league cricket was new to us all, so it was very much a case of trial and error. The disappointment of that season has served the club well in the long term, both for the players involved and the current group of players. It was very tough to deal with at the time because our failure wasn’t through any lack of trying – if anything, we were probably all trying too hard; but the scars of that experience went deep, and have become engrained in the whole club establishment.”

Because of what happened in 2003, nobody at UBS CC ever gets ahead of themselves, no matter whom the opposition is that they are playing on any given weekend, or where they lie on the table. Achal Yadav (right), who featured in all seasons of the SCTCA league competition as a player before becoming the team’s Captain in 2009, concurs. “We’ve never been about talking ourselves up,” he says. “It’s hard to do now, given UBS CC’s continued success, but we actually thrive on being the underdogs. We all believe in each other and will work hard for each other. That’s the main thing.”

The Club’s collective belief helped the side reach the playoffs consecutively from 2006 to 2008 and battle its way to a place in the 40/40 league finals in 2006. Although the team lost to eventual champions, New Milford CC , UBS CC wowed many with their performance throughout that season.

Nikhel Thapar (right), who featured in all seasons of the SCTCA league competition as a player and served as the team’s Captain in 2008, echoes that sentiment. “It’s never mattered who we are playing. We don’t tend to focus that much on the opposition’s reputation, other than assessing their strengths and potential weaknesses, and working out ways to counter them”. Nikhel believes UBS’ biggest strength is this attitude.  He adds, “It is more about ourselves, both as a team collectively, and every player individually. It is what every individual does at any given moment that counts. That is what wins and loses games.”

Even so, the UBS Blue Lions can never be accused of being under-prepared, or of showing their opposition less than total respect. The club members spend two hour sessions on Thursdays and Saturdays to focus on their individual on-field play as well as indoor nets practice during the off-season.

With most of the club’s members drawn from the universities and corporate entities in and around Fairfield County, just 4 members of the 20 man squad who featured in the 2005 competition, remain part of the cast. Yet, despite that large change in playing personnel, the club has been able to remain consistently successful.

One of the reasons for the continued success is an efficient recruitment strategy and the ability to attract players from other clubs. 2008 saw the addition of the UBS Warriors into the UBS Cricket Family with more than 20 new playing members recruited into the club.

Player input is an important part of the whole process, as is player accountability if things don’t go well. The level of player input is greater than it used to be. “The club’s success has been built on developing a solid core of senior players, almost all of whom have been with the club since its inception. These players provide the on-field leadership for the rest of the group. Everyone is treated equally, all ideas are listened to, and everyone is made to feel that they are having an input into what is going on,” Amit says.

Looking forward to the upcoming season, Amit Bhagat and Achal Yadav feel that the next generation of players coming into the club have shown that they have the goods to keep the success flowing. “Some of the younger guys we have around here now have huge potential,” Amit says, “I’d say that there are a few guys here that are going to make pretty big names for themselves before the season’s out!”

That the UBSCC players are happy in their environment is shown by the amount of time most of them tend to spend together away from the cricket field.