An overnight deluge followed by a flurry of early morning phone calls to besieged Prem groundstaff eventually led to a T20 match starting in the late afternoon.
On a freshly cut pitch and with the ominous roll of thunder never far away, Lamma batted patiently to reach an even 100. With the outfield still damp, Richie Abbott topped the scoring via a series of expertly judged twos and threes which, while effective, was probably not part of the Lamma pre-tour game plan.
Lanna Juniors Choo (3/23) and Chanchai (2/12) were the best of the bowlers. Both found swing with the old ball—due to a mix up among Lanna officials, the ball was in fact old from the start—and made the most of helpful, albeit unfamiliar conditions.
Lanna captain and opening bat Chris Coombes led from the front, working singles around comfortably and feeding the strike to Gary Chatfield who managed four boundaries as the sun finally came out. Martin Cardno also found the fence with a series of powerful back foot swipes. The Lamma players weren’t particularly impressed with his method and responded with a lethal triple-wicket over from Mark ‘Monty’ Burns.
Despite this wobble and an appalling run out engineered by Wani, former Lamma player Ismail guided Lanna home and dispatched the winning boundary with three overs to spare.
Chair-/Barman Holt fired up the new Lanna barbecue for the first time, duly burnt the sausages in the traditional Australian style, and sold a pleasing number of beverages to the opposition with the dual purpose of raising money for the juniors and ensuring a crushing victory the following day.
Special thanks to David Buck and his team at Prem for all their hard work getting the ground ready.