Hornisham CC from the South West of England came to Chiang Mai and enjoyed their tour greatly despite losing all four of their matches. The tour was arranged by the Lodge brothers. Elliot and Geoff, with their Dad Kevin and Geoff’s wife Sam also playing and the tour had a family feel with the children also playing their part on the tour and the two families also attending the memorable barbeque staged at Shine Thomas’ house in the post-Christmas window before the rest of the touring party arrived.
Horningsham played their first match against University Cricket Club with Lanna players involved in making up both teams and the visitors were heavily beaten as Naeem hit another century in a total of 240 for 6 in 20 overs, but Horningsham battled hard to reach 125 for 7.
CMCC were the second opponents and Horningsham did well to bowl out CMCC for 176 and even with Naeem playing for the tourists Horningsham were bowled out for 131 in a highly competitive match.
The third match was a two innings match between Lanna and Horningsham which was evenly balanced throughout as Horningsham gained a first innings lead of 1 run and an away victory looked a possibility before Lanna held om to win by 7 runs/
The final match of the Chiang Mai tour was a 35-over match against Lanna and Horningsham looked set for a winning total as they batted first with Ali scoring a half-century but a late collapse saw the visitors bowled out for 171 as Richie George taking 5 for 41.
When Lanna were reduced to 78 for 5 and the bowlers were on top, that elusive victory seemed on the cards but Elliot and Leng went for their shots and shared a sixth-wicket partnership of 95 to see Lanna home to a five-wicket victory.
The end of match presentations brought Horningsham visit to Chiang Mai to an end with Harry Hatch and Josh Keen awarded Lanna sun hats for their performances and a bottle of Ballantyne whisky was used in the slammer session as Adrian was welcomed back on his month long holiday in Thailand.
Horningsham headed to the beach of Koh Chang for a couple of days of beach cricket to end their tour and they promised to be back in future for a combined cricket and rugby tour.