The Spanish National side took part in a tripartite tournament against Belgium and Catalunya last weekend at La Manga resort. Both Spain and Belgium used the Twenty20 event to try out new players and systems, and it proved a good learning curve for both nations.
The plan was for each team to play each other twice, once on the Saturday and once on the Sunday. Rain interrupted proceedings Saturday and the game between a Cataluyna XI and Spain had to be postponed. Prior to that Belgium had managed to play two games earlier in the day against Spain and Cataluyna respectively.
First up Saturday morning at 9am was Spain v Belgium. Spain won the toss and elected to bat in overcast conditions. The hosts got off to the worst possible start when opener Tariq Ali was bowled for a golden duck. Things got worse when fellow opener Sajid Ali followed in the fourth over with the score on 18.
At this point Sporting Alfas batsman Gary Crompton joined the Spanish captain Jimmy Morgan at the crease. Morgan took the more aggressive role taking on successfully every Belgium bowler, whilst Crompton ensured the Spanish skipper had the lion shares of the strike by scoring singles and twos as required to keep Morgan facing.the Belgium attack.
This policy worked well for the Spanish pair and they had pushed the score onto 113 before Crompton was caught by Rehman off the bowling of Javed for a well controlled 13. Morgan continued unfased by this and ended up 92 not out, ably supported by Tanveer Iqbal at the end who scored a quickfire 12 off 6 balls. At the end of the innings the Spaniards had the challenging total of 158 for 3 posted on the scoreboard.
With the wet outfield slowing up the ball this score was always going to be a formidable one to chase down and a slow scoring start for the visitors did not help their cause. With the score on 13 in the 4th over the visitors lost their first wicket when Butt was caught by Tanveer in the deep off the bowling of Talat. Iqbal went cheaply for 7 but with opener Sebastian Shelk batting well the game was evenly balanced. Shelk, along with Mohammed looked to be turning the game the way of the associate nation but both batsman followed each other back to the pavillion with the score on 97 and 99 respectively.
A further mini collaspe amongst the Belgium middle over left them at 131 for 6 and requiring 28 from the last two overs. Tanveer was called upon to ball the 19th over and he leaked 12 runs from his first two balls. The dangerous Rehman looked like giving the visitors an unlikely victory but Tanveer came back with a vengeance to take two wickets in the next three balls to leave Belgium requiring 14 off the last over with 2 wickets in hand.
This order proved too tall for the tailenders of Belgium and they could only muster 8 runs from the over to fall short of the Spanish tally by 5 runs. An excellent start to the torneo with a game that went right down to the wire and could have ended with a victory for either side.
The second game saw a Cataluyna XI entertain a Belgium side who used the match to experiment with their batting, fielding positions and bowling attack. The Catalans took full advantage of this and came out comfortable winners in the second match of the tournament.
Unfortunately, the third match of the day fell victim of the rain and a no result was declared without a ball being bowled. Day one of the torneo ended with both Spain nd Cataluyna having 15 points from two games and Belgium holding up the table with no points from 2 matches.
Table after Day One
Spain P2 W1 L0 NR 1 15 points
Cataluyna P2 W1 L0 NR 1 15 points
Belgium P2 W0 L2 NR 0 0 points
Spain scorecard from Day 1
Spain won the toss and elected to bat
SPAIN
Tariq Bowled Waqas 0
Sajid Ct Sunny B Rehman 1
J Morgan Not Out 92
G Crompton Ct Rehamn B Javed 13
Tanveer Iqbal Not Out 12
M Spencer Dnb
T Ali Dnb
C Munoz Dnb
Farhat Dnb
I Khan Dnb
Akmal Dnb
Extras 40
Total 158 for 3 off 20 overs
FOW 1-0, 2-18, 3-113
BELGIUM
Waqas 3-0-19-1
Rehman 3-0-30-1
Faizal 2-0-17-0
S Mohammed 4-0-28-0
S Newport 3-0-29-0
Javed Iqbal 4-0-23-1
S Shukla 1-0-7-0
BELGIUM
S Butt Ct Tanveer B Talat 12
S Sheil Bowled Akmal 47
J Iqbal Bowled Tariq 7
S Mohammed Ct Spencer B Munoz 22
S Newport Stumped Shafique B Akmal 12
R Sehmi Bowled Tanveer 3
Rehman Ct Farhat B Tanveer 16
W Shafiq Not Out 7
M Hesh Bowled Tanveer 9
S Shukla Not Out 5
Faisal Dnb
Extras 19
Total 153 for 8
SPAIN BOWLING
Tanveer 4-0-24-3
Talat 4-0-25-1
C Munoz 4-0-19-1
Taiq Ali 3-0-29-1
Farhat 2-0-19-0
I Khan 1-0-11-0
Akmal 2-0-21-0
SPAIN WON BY 5 RUNS