The Tournament began at 09:00 with the Home team, Sporting Alfas Cricket Club taking on the Bear Shooters, a team that had travelled from Finland and the UK to join forces for this weekend of fun cricket. The Bears batted first and scored a very respectable 150 from the 20 overs bowled. Quadir reached 59 with Sharma 24 and Junbay 26 the three main batters. Clinton Martiz the pick of the Alfas bowlers with 2 wickets for 24 runs off his 4 over spell. Chasing down this total was achieved in 13.5 overs, mainly due to a very attacking opening partnership from ex Spanish international Gary Crompton and present Spanish skipper Christian Muñoz Mills. The elder player taking the game away from the Bears by attacking from the outset, he reached 82 runs at an incredible strike rate of 190.7, Christian was well held by Quadir in the deep on 37 striking at 168.18. Maylon out for 10. Ashraf finished the game with Crompton with Rao being the pick of the Bears bowlers his 3 overs only costing 23 runs.
Match two for the Alfas players started at 5:45 PM with New Bradwell CC the opposition. SACC winning the toss and electing to field first. NBCC went along steadily, but Sunderland was in control his mixture of rapid and the intermittent use of the deadly slow ball meant his 3 overs only cost his team 10 runs and he picked up the wickets of opener Tim caught superbly by Muñoz Mills at slip and clean bowling Mc Millan for 2 gave him the bowling trophy for this match, all the other bowlers went for 6 runs per over, Quinlan also picking up 2 wickets for 24 from his 4 over spell. 128from 20 overs, this was a phenomenal performance all round by the bowlers. Chasing down this total appeared to be well with in the grasp of the SACC team so full of confidence after their early morning victory, but, has always, the game is designed to test out technique and Muñoz Mills went after facing only 4 balls for 1 run. Fortunately, Crompton at the other end was buzzing along at a not quite as impressive strike rate of 140, so, although the wicket fell the team were on 32 going along at 10 runs an over. Maylon strode out and continued his run of form this time reaching 13 at a run rate of 100%. Crompton on 62 of the 91 runs on the board was caught by Hobson off Day´s bowling in the 10th over, wow could a come back be on for the New Bradwell team. Sadly, for them it was not to be, Ashraf and Quinlan strolling along to win it with 4 overs spare, 2 wins from 2 matches SACC on top, but Saturday will be a new day.
Day 2.
SACC won the toss and elected to bat first on this occasion, some of the home team suffering from the effect Benidorm can inflict on the younger minds of our squad. Madrid CC, this time the opposition, with the knowledge that playing regular cricket down here on the Woodbridge Oval on Boulevard Dels Musica in L´Albir, Alfas Del Pi. could cause SACC a few problems. Problem is the Madrid players also enjoyed a night out and could not find an answer to the opening batsman from SACC Christian Muñoz Mills was disappointed with his performance last evening so along with the in-form Gary Crompton took the score to a very impressive 217 from the 20 allotted overs. Christian ending on 103 with Gary reaching 95 very unlucky not to reach his century also. SACC bowling was by now in a steadier position with regular tea and coffee being drank out of our ´shed´. Openers Sunderland and Jamshaid proofing far to accurate for the travellers, Sunderland taking 2 wickets for 5 runs from his opening spell and Jamshaid equally impressive with only 8 coming from his 2 over spell. Sporting Alfas are as always very sporting, so the ball was given to a couple of lads yet to bowl in the competition, Iqbal and Agirrezabalaga, better known as Aitor, Iqbal going for 2 4´s off his first two balls but returned figures of 1 - 13 - 2 and Aitor getting 0 - 39- 4. Time for the newest SACC superstar to get his chance and Clinton Martiz yet again supplied the goods taking 4 wickets for 9 runs from his 3 over spell. Madrid CC reaching 122 with Galliano the only player giving much resistance to the SACC attack he was amongst the victims of Martiz.
Match 2 day 2
Winning the toss SACC in a rich vein of batting form decided to bat first again and it proofed to be the correct decision with the home side reaching 204 for the loss of 4 wickets Muñoz Mills again the main run getter with 85 before being caught in the deep. Crompton missed one and was bowled for 27 Waqar Ashraf the other main contributor with 45. Old Merchant Taylors CC never really got going against the SACC bowlers and with Sunderland and Jamshaid again displaying the accuracy we have come to expect the visitors stumbled along to 116 Mr Wides the main contributor with 36 helped along by Madan 29 and Tokania 20.
SACC through to the final on Sunday due to start at 16:00.
New Bradwell made it through Sundays matches and were ready to go head-to-head with the home team. A good crowd had gathered to watch the final and SACC managed to win the toss and elected to bat first.
As was now the norm on this weekend, Crompton and Muñoz Mills strode out to the middle and took the task to the NBCC bowlers going along at an equally high run rate and both looking like reaching the 100 mark again, sadly for Crompton he fell on 57 caught by Rizwan off Hitches in the 15th over with the score well set at 125, replaced by Maylon who cleverly kept Muñoz Mills on strike for the last few overs, giving his skipper on the day the opportunity to reach his second 100 of this tournament. SACC 204 for 1 from 20 overs.
NBCC never really got in front in the final and although it looked at one point that the total was in reach when Waqar removed the hard hitting Azam out for 45 the game settled and the inevitable result became easier to predict, Anderson reached 35 not out, Hashmi 21. SACC clear winners by 58 runs in a very well contested tournament final.
The tournament organiser John Woodward from MCC gave his thanks to all for supporting this money for charity event asked the tournament referee Mr Gordon Ashford to pass out the trophies to the 3rd 2nd and 1st placed captains. It was great to see the players get called up for individual awards for best Bowler - C Martiz with 11 wickets and C Muñoz Mills for the highest run total of 330.