Basharat Wani’s Chiang Mai Warriors who reached the Cup semi-finals in the 2013 Chiang Mai Sixes showed they would be a strong team in the 2014 competition as they won the Sixes warm-up competition which was held at Gymkhana Club on the weekend before the main tournament.
A warm-up competition for local teams was first held in 2013 primarily to give the team of scorers the chance to adjust to the high-speed nature of Sixes cricket and to test the new computer system. This year the ‘Sixes Warm-up’ was a major competition in its own right with six teams taking part. The event was generously sponsored by UN Irish who had also provided a new trophy, the Ian McDougall Shield, as the six men’s teams each played three matches, while the afternoon was rounded off by a practice match for the women who will be also taking part in the main Sixes competition.
Teams were drawn into two groups with Wani’s Warriors, Locky’s Lanna and a team from the tobacco company Stec in one group, and Maki’s CMCC team, Dom’s Lanna and a team of young Australians who are on their gap year in the other.
As expected Wani’s Warriors took the competition extremely seriously as they unveiled their new yellow shirts and they won their two group matches by convincing margins, while Locky’s Lanna greatly enjoyed their victory over Stec which took them to second place in the group.
Maki’s CMCC team were favourites to win the other group and started strongly as they defeated Dom’s Lanna but they met serious opposition from the Gap Boys team, who all went to school together in Sydney and have come over to teach hill tribe children while on their year off. CMCC were restricted to 45 for 4 with the young Australians extremely athletic in the field and the Gap Boys achieved victory with four balls to spare.
With the Gap Boys also beating Dom’s Lanna to win two matches out of two the Australians had suddenly reached the final but they were no match for the Warriors as their efforts in the heat finally caught up with them as Ubaid and Wani saw the Warriors to a total of 95 for 0 in 5 overs. The Warriors had won the Ian McDougall Shield but the Australians had enjoyed their day out and vowed to return to play more cricket in the coming months.
The tournament had run so smoothly that there was plenty of time to stage play-offs for the minor places and Makki’s CMCC team proved too strong for the Locky’s Lanna to claim third place but the match of the day was the play-off for fifth place as Dom’s Lanna and Stec both recorded exactly the same score of 64 for 1. Dom’s team had scored more runs of the bat but the teams decided that honours should be shared which is exactly the spirit that Sandy Cullen had hoped for when he arranged the competition in memory of his friend Ian McDougall.