Floggers and Robbers made a rare appearance at Gymkhana Club outside Chiang Mai Sixes Week but they showed they were capable cricketers by beating Lanna by five wickets in the last over of a 20-over match.
The teams were evenly matched with the Floggers Sixes team augmented by Chris Coombes and by several junior cricketers who usually play for Lanna Thais. It was a tradition style of cricket as the men did the majority of the batting and the boys. ran around in the field and all had a bowl.
Martin and Puy had already organized a junior game in the morning with the younger boys and the girls all getting a good chance to play at Gymkhana, and it was a welcome sight to see the Floggers take the field outside of their normal one (or two) week season.
Lanna batted first but the new opening partnership of Daniel Lawson and George Hamilton did not fire but Hugh Williams is in a rich vein of form and the headmaster reached the retirement mark of 40 to maintain a very healthy average, and Matt Bray (20) and Shine Thomas (26*) both made useful contributions to take the total to 166 for 4. Jun, a useful acquisition for the Floggers, took two wickets in an innings that saw no fewer than 11 bowlers.
Floggers and Robbers played in the first year of the Chiang Mai Senior League and were often dangerous opponents particularly as they seemed to borrow some very useful cricketers when they were short of numbers.
Ant Robertson and Pete Guerin started well and Chris Coombes seemed to revel in being back with his old team-mates as he retired on reaching 40, then Dave Hird made 27 and Mark Robinson 35 before Warwick saw his side home with an unbeaten 27 with the help of Jun (2 fours) and Min who hit the winning boundary from his only ball.
Floggers had won an entertaining match with three balls to spare and it is hoped they will be regular opponents for Lanna during the season and that their ladies teams will also play some warm-up matches so they are well prepared for the Sixes.
It was a very busy weekend of cricket in Chiang Mai as Thaland Cricket Club visited from Phuket and lost two matches against a Lamphun Select XI at Prem, while Kuwait won the Chiang Mai International Ladies Challenge held at Royals as they beat Malaysian Malays in the final.
Richard Young, Pete Warner, Martin Cardno and Matt Bray were all invited to play for Lamphun but the cricket was nowhere near as evenly matched or enjoyable as that seen at Gymkhana. It was good to see that those playing at Prem and of course Locky who had been officiating at Royals had all made their way to Gymkhana to have a few beers with their Lanna team-mates.