Royal Bangkok Sports Club is one of the most prestigious sports clubs in South East Asia as it a members only club in the centre of Bangkok so opportunities to play cricket there are extremely rare. Gymkhana Club in Chiang Mai has a long history of sporting excellence itself so the invitation came for the cricket team to travel to Bangkok to play.
RBSC members had enjoyed themselves during the wet season in a pair of matches at Royal Chiang Mai but this was a special occasion indeed on a sunny day in perfect conditions with a spectacular skyline of sky scrapers surrounding the ground.
Places in the Gymkhana team were highly sought after and a squad of 15 was assembled for the trip and after a quiet evening in Bangkok on Saturday, everybody was ready for an early start on Sunday morning and all 15 members of the Gymkhana tour party (and all CMLCC members) played some part in a very special occasion.
Gymkhana started well as Ubaid and Wani both showed they could open the bowling with pace rather than bowling their more normal spin. Ubaid, always keen to play quality cricket, was impressive bowling sharp left-arm round and RBSC were reduced to 37 for 3 as the stumps were hit three times.
Left-handed South African Daniel Jacobs, who played schools cricket for Free State with Test player Ryan McLaren was joined by Vishal and the pair was content to rebuild the innings at a leisurely eight runs an over. JD had arrived late the previous evening from Chiang Rai and probably wished he hadn’t as his only over went for 22.
Chris Coombes juggled his attack but the results remained the same as Russell Ward went for 20 and Eddie Joyner went for 30 in single over spells as Daniel accelerated through the gears after reaching his fifty as a succession of fours and sixes flew out of the ground. He raced to his century and although Walter Persaud was relatively successful in restricting the run-rate as his 7 overs went for 49, the damage had been done.
Daniel was finally caught on the boundary by Ubaid for 105 but Vishal also completed a century and next man in Sarbi also passed fifty. The runs continued to flow but somehow wickets began to fall as Eddie was given a second chance and so was Russell who managed to finish the innings off with four wickets in ten balls.
Ubaid had three catches to add to his two wickets and Russell’s excellent figures of 4 for 28 did not tell the whole story of what had been a deluge of runs. In the end RBSC lost 12 wickets in reaching 320 in their 35 overs and eight batsmen were dismissed in single figures.
Gymkhana Club had shown great character in not giving up with the ball disappearing to all parts of Bangkok and there was much talk of what might have been if one more wicket had fallen before two batsmen smashed centuries.
Gymkhana’s openers, Chris Coombes and Ubaid, had a difficult job on their hands as they required an asking rate of more than nine an over from the start. Ubaid is an elegant left-hander and Coombesy can cut and pull efectively but although they shared a partnership of 70 they could not compete with RBSC’s extraordinary strokeplay.
The home side was not taking any chances as Daniel and Vishal both bowled their full seven overs and Daniel also claimed two extraordinary catches to show he was a cricketer of a completely different class. Ubaid top scored with 45, but Chris Coombes made 26, Richard Young 32 and Adrian Ballantyne and Russell Ward also made good contributions to what would normally be described as a very solid scorecard.
Eddie finished the innings with a nice boundary and the total of 178 for 8 was very much a par score but since the opposition had made 320 the match was lost by 142 runs. Consolation was gained in the great team performance that had been given as four fewer wickets had been lost and 11 bowlers had been used.
After the match RBSC proved very generous hosts in providing a much needed supply of Heineken and it is hoped that Gymkhana Club will be able to reciprocate in the very near future. Negotiations have already begun to bring Daniel to Chiang Mai as his fabulous display of straight hitting will linger long in the memory.