Madrid Cricket Club started weekly training sessions for juniors at Colegio Spinola last October in two sessions, 6 to 9 year olds at 5:15pm and 10 and over at 6:30pm.
Some children were new to the game while others could already play a bit. Thanks to Club de Deportes Spinola, when the weather turned cold and wet, training continued indoors. The gym is a bit small, with longer bowling run-ups starting in a corridor, dodging the cleaners, and continuing through the double-doors, but it enabled cricket to be practised and played throughout the winter.
Six months later, on Saturday the 21st of April, the older group of Madrid Spinola Juniors took to the field for the 1st time at La Manga Club, playing against La Manga juniors. “The cricket field is huge!” commented one of the Madrid team on seeing a cricket ground for the first time, but was relieved to see that the boundary was to be brought in for the match.
The team arrived 2 hours before the start of play to enjoy a net session at the excellent La Manga Club cricket facilities, led by Kent junior coach Liam Cook who had come to play in Madrid’s annual charity tournament, being held on the same weekend.
Lance Bernardos-Sweeney, captain of Madrid juniors, won the toss and elected to bowl first. The match consisted of 16 4-ball overs, with 8 of the 11 players each bowling 2 overs. Some tight Madrid bowling restricted La Manga to a total of 45 with some smart fielding and good keeping. Madrid then batted and after a slow start, reached the total with an over to spare. After Lance lifted the winner’s trophy, best batter was awarded to Elliot from la Manga, best bowler to Darshita from Madrid and best fielder to Natalie from La Manga.
A big thanks to CD Spinola for letting us train every week in Madrid, Cricket Espana for giving us tons of kids cricket kit and La Manga CC for providing the quality opposition and an excellent location to play. Finally, a big thanks to the parents who drove down from Madrid, a round trip of over 900km, so that their children could take part in the match. We hope it’s the first of many.
Lewis Clark
Madrid CC Junior Coach.
