3 Schools represented Lamphun in a girls only “Sawasdee” junior cricket competition held at Maeonwittyalai school in Mae On on the 4th February 2012, the competition was kindly sponsored by Paul Zaleski of Cats Corner bar, Pattaya.The Lamphun girls teams from Sibonyeun Wangthong, Ban Jam and Muangkwak were competing with teams from Maeonwittyalai, Buakcroknoi and Huai Keao schools in the first competition of it’s kind in the history of Chiang Mai junior cricket. Favourites had to be Muangkwak, who, after their first tournament win at the mixed tournament at Umongwittayakhom School on the 4th December 2012, followed up with a win against Ban Jam in a one off girls inter schools game, so were quite confident that they could take home the winning trophy.
The day started with Muangkwak v Mae On on pitch 1 with Ban Jam v Huai Keao on pitch 2, which ended with comfortable wins for Muangkwak and Ban Jam, with both winning team teams bowling straighter, conceding less in the field and taking advantage of any lose bowling down the leg side. Muangkwak started the tournament off by hitting the biggest score of the day with 278 in the first game!
Next up on pitch 1, Muangkwak v Buakcroknoi, Bowling first Muangkwak girls were far too straight for the Buakcroknoi girls restricting them to just 189, then they took advantage of some very lose bowling to score 272, yet another big score and winning by a margin of 83 runs, an easy victory for Muangkwak Girls.
Next up on pitch 2, Ban Jam v Sibonyeun, despite Sibonyeun having 3 very good players in the team were easily beaten by a much stronger Ban Jam team, batting first Ban Jam scored an impressive 273 and restricted Sibonyeun to 227, strength in depth showed along with the bigger hitters on the Ban Jam team.
Following on pitch 1 & 2, Mae On v Buakcroknoi and Huai Keao v Sibonyeun, both games were much closer than previous, these 4 teams were matched a little better with skill levels and both games were very close. Buakcroknoi scored 259 so a good total, but Mae On girls battled hard to get within 3 runs finishing with 256, it was a game full of excitement thanks mainly to the noise coming from the supporters of the Mae On. On the other pitch, Huai Keao batted first and scored a competitive total of 249, the Sibonyeun challenge seemed to falter before the last pair of Fon and Sally got it going again and finished only one run behind on 248, another really close game.
So with the group games completed, in the final Muangkwak v Ban Jam, Buakcroknoi v Huai Keao for 3rd / 4th place play off and Mae On v Sibonyeun to fight it out for 5th / 6th play off.
5th / 6th place was yet another close game, Mae On scoring 261 and then restricted Sibonyeun to 254 to finish in 5th place, Sibonyeun didn’t have the depth in the team to compete successfully but went happy quite happy despite finishing last.
In the 3rd / 4th play off, the more experienced Buakcroknoi team just managed to come through, scoring 240 and then bowled well enough to hold Huai Keao to 232 to win and finish with the 3rd place trophy.
The final was a repeat of the one off Lamphun Girls competition last month, the two teams are quite well matched. Ban Jam batted first but the girls struggled with the accurate Muangkwak bowling of Nok, Dao, Foei and Aree, only Ni was able to score freely. In reply the Ban Jam bowling was also very accurate and up to the 6th over the scores were almost level, despite it being a low scoring game it went down to the wire, but the last pair Nok and Toy kept cool to see Muangkwak through to a good win, finishing 12 runs in front for a well deserved victory.