Pattaya’s cricketing season has been too quiet for too long and it began with some enormous thonks, thwacks and howzats at the 6th Koh Chang Beach Cricket Tournament held at Shambala Beach Resort from 21-23 August 2020. Notwithstanding Covid-19 regulations preventing Malaysian or Hong Kong team’s participation, there were 16 teams from Chiang Mai, Lamphun, Bangkok, Pattaya, Koh Chang and Phuket – a tournament record I believe.
PCC were placed 4th last year and had hopes of improving their position this year and decided to send 3 teams – The Stallions captained by Simon Philbrook, The Thoroughbreds captained by Bernard Lamprecht, and The Carthorses captained by Clive Rogerson. You can work out for yourselves which teams contained the best and fastest players and which contained those who used to be good and fast; well some of them, perhaps.
The 16 teams were divided into 4 divisions and played 3 divisional games to determine their relative place and thus which semi-final they would play for one of the trophies – toothpick/chopstick for 7th and 8th places, eggcup/wooden spoon for 5th and 6th places, plate/teacup for 3rd and 4th places and lastly the Koh Chang Cup and Runners-up Cup for the finalists. There were additional prizes for the best bowler which went to Chaitree from Lanna CC and best batsmen which went to Jainish of PCC (more on that later) and Man of the Tournament went to Guy from the Palmy Army.
I will provide detailed reports of each of the 3 PCC teams over the coming days, but in brief, the Carthorses were last in their division having failed to win a game and lost in the semi-final for a place in the toothpick/chopstick match. So, they returned to Pattaya empty handed.
The Stallions, who by a quirk of the rules, all the teams in their division having won one game each, were last in their division. They then played the best cricket of the tournament in their semi and went on win the Chopstick to finish 7th.
The Thoroughbreds were 2nd in their group and won their semi against The Black Parrots (winners for the last two years) and then beat the Palmy Army to win the Plate and come 3rd. An excellent effort.
The tournament was won by the Lanna Kids.
The game was played in a great spirit except for an unfortunate incident where a player took exception to being No balled for an illegal bowling action. Luckily this did not spoil the game or the weekend. There was a sumptuous BBQ and more beer after the prize giving. Everyone took the opportunity to thank the sponsors, organisers, scorers, umpires and resort staff. A fantastic weekend.
The indoor cricket league will start in about 3 weeks.
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