Chiang Mai Cricket Club

At last a fine day and some Cricket as Chiang Mai Cricket Club gets their league season under way.

After two weeks of rain the first match of the season was in doubt but thanks to the dryer weather on 7th and 8th Nov. the first league game started on time.

The newly formed CMCC Colts made up of students from the Chiang Mai Schools Cricket Association and the Prem Centre Cricket Academy put out a very strong team. A fair few of these boys have represented Thailand or Bhutan at Under 19 level and some play for their full international sides. CMCC Citylife although missing a couple of key players got stuck into the game and having lost the toss batted first on a wicket that provided plenty of help for the bowlers.

Thinley Jamtso from Bhutan bowled with real pace and aggression keeping a very tight line and conceding only 11 runs in his 6 overs but it was his slower opening partner Jack Lemond who got the early break throughs ending with figures of 3 wickets for 7 runs.

Later in the innings Captain Jigme Singye claimed 40 for 3 with his leg spin leaving Citylife all out for 150. Mango top scored with 25 and Dom and Martin chipped in with 19 and 16.

Unfortunately due to the slow over rate the Colts where docked 7 overs from their innings. Early wickets fell with Mango removing both openers in his first three overs, however this was at a cost of 27 runs.

Wickets came regularly in the next few overs and when Ben bowled star batsman and Captain Jigme the Colts where struggling on 69 for 5. This brought Anchu and Jack Lemond together, batting with real maturity on a difficult pitch these two put on 79 runs before Jack was out to Wahab with Colts only needing 3 more runs. Sid came in and quickly knocked off the remaining runs with 9 balls to spare. This left man of the match Anchu on 70 not out.

The Chiang Mai cricket season got under way with a Twenty/20 round-robin series on the weekend of the 18th and 19th with games at both Gymkhana Club and Prem Centre, Three Bangkok teams and two Chiang Mai sides played a series of matches at both venues starting at 10 am and 2 pm each day and some exciting cricket was witnessed. Bangkok was represented by the Siam Parrots, Bangkok Blues and Southerners with Chiang Puak and Ramakian flying the flag for the locals. Both Chiang Mai teams included a number of Thai boys who have been introduced to cricket by the coaching programs over the past years. Bangkok Blues ran out as undefeated winners on 16 points with Ramakian following with 12.