It was a case of ground hog day in Gymkhana Sixes III held at Gymkhana Club on 3rd and 4th December 2022 as Pattaya CC added yet another trophy to their collection as they overpowered Lanna CC in the Cup final by scoring 98 for 2 in their five overs to bat the Chiang Mai team out of the match even with former Thailand player Bobby Raina opening the batting.
Pattaya won the Gymkhana Sixes for the first time but they have also claimed the Bangkok League trophy and several editions of the Chiang Mai Big Bash and the Koh Chang beach cricket competition at two different levels and Simon Philbrook even got to bat in the final as 30 runs came from Richie George’s over.
Wezley Masterton and Luke Stokes were heavy scorers throughout the tournament and Jainish was useful at number three as well as bowling well so Pattaya did not miss Habby but they were tested hard in the Players section both by Lanna and All Stars and they even lost to Lanna in the league round as the addition of Bobby Raina made a big difference to the strength of the side.
All five teams won matches in the players section with Lamphun strengthened by the return of Chanchai who batted well in every game and Alibaba came good in their last match by beating Lanna when Bobby was rested and the batting order reversed. Naveed came back to play for All Stars so we had some very good quality cricket with the ball hit to all parts of the golf course.
The standard of cricket was also high in the Gentleman’s Section with the youngsters from Koh Chang and CMSCA reaching the final but the other teams also had their moments with Paul Jeffels scoring runs for Black Swans, and Chris Redman taking Shrewsbury Sloggers to a couple of victory to make their very memorable weekend.
It was Floggers and Robbers who added greatly to the atmosphere by erecting their bar so they were able to give John Wood a great send off as he departs soon to a new job in the United States. But in the end John let his bat to the talking by reaching yet another retirement as he made 33 to take Floggers to victory over CMSCA.
But the individual performance of the tournament came from Pang who took three wickets in the final over of the Shield final against CMSCA as all his wickets came as a series of impressive yorkers crashed into the stumps. He had struggled with the bat when he opened the batting but he came from zero to hero as Koh Chang won the Shield.
The presentations were all made at the end of a fantastic weekend’s cricket as Pattaya won the Cup and Koh Chang won the Shield with Pattaya’s Luke Stokes named as player of the tournament. Pattaya will be back for the Chiang Mai Big Bash in February and Simon Philbrook will be part of the Drifters team at the Chiang Mai Sixes in April.