Quadrangular Over 40s Tournament – La Manga
Following the La Manga T20 a week earlier, it was the turn of the Spanish over 40s to make camp at the la Manga resort. This year it was Spain’s turn to host the Quadrangular Tournament and compete against Dansk XL from Denmark, SGS from Holland and The XL Club from the UK.
This historic and competitive tournament sees the international over forty players compete in two competitions comprising of 45 overs, and T20.
With the pitches at La Manga going through a facelift, for once the wickets were not up to their usual high standard, however with some hard work and juggling fixtures around, the tournament went more or less to plan.
There was good and bad news for the Spanish team. The bad being that though they played well and battled hard in the 45 over competition, the opposition always seemed to have the edge over them. Despite posting good scores, including a ton from Kevin Laundon (101) and good batting from Geoff Evens (59), Graeme Cooper 50, they couldn’t seem to finish on the winning side. The opposition always managed to raise their game when playing the hosts, one example being when setting Dansk XL 257 losing just 3 wickets, a brilliant 111 not out from Ian Moore superbly supported by Alan Mathews (80) got the Danes to the winning target in just over 42 overs. Mind you, on that day the Spanish players should have gone to Specsavers, dropping 10 catches!!!!
The 45 over competition was won by The XL Club from the UK with SGS coming runners up. Other individual highlights during this competition were, R Karan SGS (64), Stuart Faulkner XL Club (67), John Thornton XL Club (70No), Robert Kottman SGS (53) and Nigel Angus XL Club (95).
Now to the good news. The Spanish team dominated the T20 competition with 3 comfortable wins out of 3, and after four years playing in this tournament, having travelled to Copenhagen, Rotterdam and Newport in previous years, they had finally won their first trophy and on home soil, well done boys!!!!
Stuart Simkins led the way in this competition with a breath-taking 146 No off 77 balls against Dansk XL followed by a 55 in his next match against SGS. Left hander David Williams was not to lose out, scoring 102 of 60 balls also in the match against SGS.
Against the XL Club, a man of the match performance from Graeme Cooper scoring 55 No and taking 3 for 27 of his 4 overs saw the Spanish boys win comfortably by 50 runs.
The T20 competition also saw good batting performances from, Manish Moorjani SGS (90), Stuart Faulkner XL Club (77) and Simon Gerring XL Club (54).
The Quadrangular Tournament is not just about playing competitive cricket, it’s just as important for all teams to unite together after the game and share good stories and laughs together. The Spanish team has made many friends during its 4 years being involved in this tournament, and having been well looked after when they travelled to their friends countries, the team and the organisers did Cricket España proud in returning back their kind hospitality, arranging after game events to ensure everyone from players to spectators had an enjoyable and memorable time. Teams now will start to plan and prepare for next year’s tournament to be held in Rotterdam where the Spanish team will no doubt be hoping to add to their trophy cabinet.
The organisers would like to thank all the players, umpires, scorers, caterers and ground staff for making this such an enjoyable and special event.
V. Phull
