2023 - La Manga
Match report - La Manga day 1
By Tom Cason
After a few early Friday beers and a few late arrivals Saturday delivered a glorious Spanish morning, with the temperature around 40 degrees warmer than it was at Gardermoen 24 hours earlier. The coin was tossed and won and the Aliens headed out to set a total. A bit of swing brought about Milton's early downfall, but a stroke of insight from the batting captain brought about the best Scottish-Australian partnership since Billy Connolly toured Australia in 1995.
Tom and Dave put on 162 before Tom (75) fell to a wily leggie and the lingering effects of the aforementioned early beers and searing heat. This brought Dennis to the crease, which didn't improve matters for La Manga, as he quickly found his form and sent La Manga chasing the rock all over the ground on his way to 82 n.o (4 sixes). Dave continued his almost faultless innings until he was picked up for 77, and Dennis and Damon (19 n.o.) steered the ship from there, bringing up a total of 293 from 40 overs.
After a sophisticated lunch of sandwiches and cordial, a cooling breeze arrived and it was out onto the field to try to keep La Manga under 7.4 an over. What followed was a solid all round effort more suited to 1st class cricket than a warm up match by a Spanish beach. Damon (1/0) was hooked from the attack after his first over wicket maiden, and then a series of tweakers, swingers and seamers caused a steady flow of wickets prevented any meaningful partnerships from forming. The home side were restricted to all out for 177, with Damon and Dennis taking a pair of catches each. Best figures were Peter's 3/29 off 6, with the remaining wickets split between Alan (2/27), Benin (1/22), Aaron (1/33) and Milton (1/31)
Game 2, 12.03.2023 – Sunday
By Benan John Mathai
Aliens were back to the picturesque ground to play their second and final game of the tour. Having won pretty comfortable the previous day – by a margin of 120 runs – batting skipper Pete decided to bat first having won the toss and reversed the batting order. “Bowlers” turned “batsmen” and weren´t they excited. Bran boy and Benan got strapped up, eager to get out there and have a whack. Both didn’t waste much time and got on with it. Benan hit a delicious lofted on-drive for a boundary and followed that up with a sumptuous flick over the square leg boundary for the first six of the match but a non-existent second run led to his demise an over later for 18 off 14 balls. Branson looked good for his 17 runs that included a fabulous square cut. Aliens were in a spot of bother soon with wickets falling at a rapid pace aided by some incisive bowling from the La Manga bowlers until Milton decided to show up. Milton sewed up a partnership of 80 runs with Tom (one of the heroes of the previous day). Both of them scored quite quickly but fell short of well-deserved fifties. Milton powered himself to a 50 ball 46 (2*4, 2*6), whereas Tom struck a 38 ball 42 (5*4). Dave remained not out for a blistering 25 ball 35 that included one heck of a six over long off, played on the up. Aliens ended up on 188 and at one point they looked to get folded under 100. Some great batting by the lower-middle order set us up.
Aliens began their defense in fine fashion with Dennis bowling La Manga opener cheaply for 5. Eisen and Wood provided some resistance and scored their way to 32 and 28 respectively but some disciplined bowling from Aliens made sure that La Manga never got the momentum to propel themselves to the target. Peter continued his fine form with the ball, from the first game, snatching 2 wickets and finished with 5 wickets for the tour. Dennis, Alan, Dave, Milton, Branson and Tom, each chipped in with a wicket apiece. Aliens won the game comfortably in the end with La Manga falling short of the target by 43 runs. Milton deserved MOM for sucking up the pressure early on and playing a gem of an innings. Tom and Dave played superbly as well and carried Aliens to parity.
