La Manga 20/20 festival of Cricket
Last weekend La Manga Cricket club hosted a 20/20 tournament contested by 4 teams fromUK, and 2 from Spain. UK representatives were Spencer CC, Kensington CC, andKnebworth Park and VGCC, and Mojacar CC and La Manga CC. were the two Spanish clubs involved.
Saturday’s matches were played in very windy conditions with two of the English sides inflicting defeats on the two Spanish sides.La Manga lost by 35 runs to Spencer and Mojacar went down by a similar margin to VGCC.
On the Sunday La Manga were left with the difficult task of needing to win their game against Knebworth Park to proceed in the competition. Chasing the visitors score of 159 La Manga started well reaching 50 in first 7 overs.This platform was consolidated by Ruble 63 not out & Matt Sherry 44 who saw the hosts finish off the game by a winning margin of 6 wkts to qualify for Sunday’s Semi final against VGCC.
Sunday Semi Final
La Manga v VGCC proved to be a 1 sided affair as La Manga reached a huge total of 179 in 20 overs with the hard hitting Gurpreet leading from the front with a fine 61. In reply, once La Manga had removed the dangerous opener Banker courtesy of junior player Alfie Harris, then victory was never in doubt. The home side evetually ran out comfortable winners by 68 runs.
In the other Semi Final things were much tighter with Mojacar beating Kensington in the last over with some huge hitting by middle order to see them home.
An all Spanish final between La Manga & Mojacar prevailed with La Manga wining the toss and choosing bat but starting badly losing their first 4 wickets for only 35 runs. At this point the in form Ruble strode to the crease and proceeded to score 66 not out. With Ruble’s partners batting sensibly the home side posted a reasonable score of 144.
La Manga opted to open the bowling with one of their juniors Jordan which proved an inspired decision by the captain. The youngster took the first 3 wickets leaving Mojacar in trouble on 29 for 3. They never really recovered from this poor start, and with another junior Tom Vine completing a strong bowling performance by mopping up the last 2 wickets to see the locals home by 45 runs.
A big thank you to all the umpires and officals who kept the games flowing throughout the tournament, also to the touring sides from providing such stern competition.We look forward to seeing everyone back again next year.
20/20 WINNERS LA MANGA CRICKET CLUB
LOSING FINALISTS MOJACAR CRICKET CLUB
