Chiang Mai Lanna Cricket Club is building a reputation for playing friendly and entertaining cricket and giving all its members having a chance to play, and the friendly match played at Gymkhana Club on 19th January proved a perfect example of this with two Lanna teams playing against each other.
The match may have been low-scoring but it was competitive as Lanna A beat Lanna B by four wickets and everybody was more than happy to play a second match in which Lanna B showed what might have been by coasting to victory.
There was still more than enough time to spend a relaxed couple of hours at the ground reflecting on the day’s two matches and making plans for a Lanna team to head to Bangkok to play in the Southerners Sixes, so a great day was had by all.
A league match had originally been planned between CMLCC and Floggers & Robbers but Chris Coombes had been left with a team of one and so he joined forces with Lanna and other welcome guests including Chris Love from Blythswood CC in Australia who will be back to take part in the Chiang Mai Sixes. All players had been carefully assessed and ranked according to ability and two evenly matched teams had been selected.
But all those plans for a close game looked to have been in vain as Lanna B were quickly reduced to 26 for 5 with all the main batsmen failing to make an impact. Four of the top-order made one run between them, and Richard Cowles’ innings of 16 from six balls was to prove the highest score not only of the innings but of the first match.
Eddie Joyner and Lew Gleeson both enjoyed their opportunities to bat, each hitting a boundary, and the tail-enders stayed at the crease long enough for Lanna B’s innings to pass the fifty mark but a total of 57 in 15.4 overs looked very poor, especially as Lanna’s first centurion Gary Chatfield had arrived and wasted no time in heading for the nets for some practice.
Plans had already been hatched to getting the match finished as quickly as possible so a second game could be played but things once more didn’t go to plan as wickets continued to fall and the contest was much more competitive than expected.
The new ball was handed to Martin Cardno and Richard Cowles on the basis that they hadn’t scored enough runs so they must do better with the ball. Cardno bowled at a decent pace but it was regular wicket-keeper Cowles who made a double breakthrough as he dismissed David Holt who had taken a break from his catering duties and Gary Chatfield who had just returned from watching The Ashes and was thoughtfully wearing his Australian shirt.
Lanna A were closing in on victory but Jon Danby (the Chiang Rai express) and Eddie Joyner (the postman always delivers) both claimed two wickets as 46 for 2 became 54 for 6 but Neil Whitehead hit a boundary first ball to calm his team’s nerves and seal victory by four wickets.
Players rushed off the field to find that the chairman’s veal sausages still needed heating up so the decision was made to start a second 12-over match with six bowlers required to bowl two overs each. 11-aside had become 10-aside as Lew had hurt his knee and Chairman Holt was busy preparing his sausages.
But it proved a recipe for a highly entertaining match as Lanna A this time batted first and were restricted to 96 as Richard Cowles returned to his wicket-keeping duties and Martin Cardno was sent to deep mid-wicket.
Details of the second match remain scarce as scorer Puy Papworth was suffering from a headache following the rapid fall of wickets but JD and steady Eddie shared the new ball, Khurram and Adam Green kept up the pressure, and spin twins, Taran Persaud and Richard Lockwood, enjoyed the chance to bowl in tandem and were even happier to each take a wicket. Taran claimed yet another victim st Cowles b Persaud and Locky realized why he had sent Cardno to deep mid-wicket as Wani hit the ball straight to him.
Would Lanna B’s much vaunted batting line-up fail again? They were sent out to put right their earlier mistakes and the tactic paid dividends as Coombes, Bray, Cowles and Cardno this time all made runs as Lanna B cruised to victory with four overs to spare.
Both teams could be happy with a victory apiece but as the great tactician Tom Salusbury put it, ‘I shall tell my wife that we won the match – the second one didn’t count’ (and he could also mention that he took 3 wickets in the first match).
The veal sausages made for very tasty up-market hot-dogs and a large number of beers were consumed as the players happily socialized long after darkness had fallen at the end of another wonderful day for Chiang Mai Lanna Cricket Club.