The game in Spain will not gain without pain, officials maintain, but they don't complain! (21 Dec 1999)

19 December 1999

The game in Spain will not gain without pain, officials maintain, but they don't complain!

One of the great pleasures for anyone who writes is speaking to someone who truly believes in what they are doing.

So it was last week in speaking to Ken Sainsbury, the President of the Asociacion Espanola de Cricket (AEC).

I rang Ken last Friday without notice to get back-up material for this article on the end of the Spanish cricket season.

Not having ever spoken to Ken before I expected 'official-speak' - polite but unenlightening talk from an official wanting to put the best spin on things.

What followed was an honest and heart-felt appraisal of cricket's future in Spain - a blue-print while not probably made for cricket's spin doctors, seemed to provide a good guide to how administrators in other countries can provide long term foundations.

"Cricket here is on a knifes-edge - the trouble with basing things on expatriates is that if half a dozen of them either quit, die, move on, go back to England or whatever, then cricket here could roll over," Ken said.

"So we are trying to take it into the Spanish scholastic system.

"Over the years there has been very little interest expressed - now we our getting into the schools. Recently we ran our first national Kwik Cricket competition with over 60 Spanish children involved," Ken enthused.

Officials of the AEC have been actively approaching schools, getting the game introduced.

"We have been having demonstration games at the schools, talking to teachers and showing them what it is like. The key is for Spanish parents and teachers to get to know about cricket."

"Kwik Cricket is an excellent medium for introducing the game to the youngsters as Spanish kids like action and it is fast-paced enough to maintain their interest."

"Here the Town Halls are like gods and it is essential to get them on-side. The Town Halls employ monitors and the Town Halls have allotted us three monitors to teach the kids the sport."

Such is the commitment to junior development that cricket officials in Spain do not bother sending a national side that would basically be an expatriate team to international events such as the ECC Trophy.

"We can better use that money on development," Ken explained.

Due to Spanish cricket being based on the random spread of expatriates, distance between centres is a huge impediment to a healthy league competition.

"From here in Barcelona to the Costa Del Sol is 12 hours travelling - the nearest game is 100 miles away.

"Because of this there are clubs which survive entirely on tourist teams (from England) -t means they don't have to travel. For a club like Majorca, it can cost the equivalent of $2000 to have a game.

"Again for this reason the clubs prefer the Royal Sun Alliance Knockout Cup."

Ken sees the sponsorship by Royal Sun Alliance as vindication of its policies.

"The sponsorship was originally negotiated with an Englishman. When we had to negotiate a new term, we were dealing with a Spanish fellow. This is recognition of our game that cricket exists."

In the recently completed League season, Costa Blanca clubs took the top three places: Javea (1) 99pts, SACC 72pts, Javea (2) 54pts, Marbella 31pts, Mijas 27pts.

The report covering the Royal & Sun Alliance Spanish Cricket Cup was lifted from the official AEC site: https://www.cricketinspain.com/

"The Final of the Royal & Sun Alliance Spanish Cricket Cup was held at the Columbus Oval, Albir in October. It produced an excellent game of cricket that did justice to the occasion, and provided the large number of spectators with an exciting finish.

Javea C.C, who had defeated Marbella C.C. on the previous day, lost the toss and were invited to bat by the Sporting Alfas captain.

Copeland and Matthews made a good start to the innings as they added 46 in the first ten overs, before the introduction of Bacon into the attack accounted for the former with his first ball.

The incoming batsman, Stanfield showed his intentions by striking the next ball for six. Matthews (37) and Stanfield continued to score freely before Matthews became Bacon's second victim, and at the halfway stage of the innings the score stood at a healthy 97-2. The next nine overs produced fifty-three runs and the Alfas team were beginning to regret the missed chance offered by Stanfield in Marriner's first over. The re-introduction of B. Fletcher for a second spell soon brought results, as Stanfield (56) was well caught in the deep by S. Burchell.

When B. Burchell entered the bowling attack, the tempo of the game changed. Runs began to dry up as he completed an excellent spell of seven overs to claim 3-14, and turned in the best bowling figures of the day, as well as effecting the run-out of Fisher.

Apart from Ward (29) the latter Javea batsmen were unable to add greatly to the total and the final score reached 186-9 at the end of the allotted 40 overs. Sporting Alfas had made an excellent comeback from a position that at one time seemed they would be facing a score well in advance of 200.

The response by Sporting Alfas was very positive and 24 runs were struck from the first two overs. Myers and Braithwaite gained some control by claiming three wickets in the first 11 overs to reduce the home side to 51-3, of which Dovaston had contributed an aggressive 37. By the 24th over a further two wickets had been lost and with the score at 93-5 the prospect of a win by Javea seemed the most likely outcome of the match.

However, B. Fletcher who proceeded to play in his usual uninhibited way joined Taylor who acted as the anchorman. These two took the score to 177 at the start of the penultimate over. .

This over proved to be eventful, as only three runs were added and a further two wickets fell, including that of Taylor (50), which left Sporting Alfas requiring seven runs from the final over to win the game.

When two runs came from the first ball, the target was reduced to a run a ball. With three runs needed from the last three deliveries, Fletcher ensured a victory for his team by striking a boundary, to record an undefeated 57 from just 37 deliveries.

The match was an excellent advertisement for cricket and one that was enjoyed by a large number of spectators that included representatives of the Royal & Sun Alliance S.L., to whom all the players are indebted for their continued sponsorship of the National Cup competition, Officers of the Asociacion Espanola de Cricket and the sponsors of Sporting Alfas CC, Ian and Pauline Hammond."

2000 is set to be a big year for cricket in Spain with the holding of the European Indoor Championships in Javea and a tour by the MCC.