The Girona league fixtures for this season have now been confirmed and will be classified as Cataluyna League C

Five teams will take part in this years league with the first match matching up Garrotxa CC and Girona Warriors. Next up are the other two teams Olot and Santa Coloma.

The final game is in July with the winners of the league going through to the play off stages.

All league games are to be played in Girona  at the ground that is being provided by the Ayuntamiento   

La Manga leapt to the top of the ECCL Premier Division with a maximum points victory over Madrid United.

Madrid United came into the game full of optimism after winning at Sporting Alfas recently, but they were soon on the back foot as the home side posted the intimidating total of  295 for 8 off their allocated overs. Garside and Mahmood both got out in the sixties and Atif Ali continued his fine form with a sparkling 47.

In reply the visitors could only muster 125 all out, just scraping a second batting point. Mahmood completed an excellent day taking three of United´s wickets.

The Cataluyna leagues A and B have now managed to play twenty league games and things are begining to take shape nicely.

In Group A Falco and Eagles top the league with two wins each although Falco have played a game more having lost to Cornella.

Bangladesh and Warriors still have to open their points account having both lost their opening couple of matches.

In Group B Cataluyna Gimkhana lead the way with 20 points from 2 games. City Lions do actually have five points more but they have also played two more games than Gimkhana.

The ECCL premier division kicked off last weekend with victories for Alcorcon and Madrid United over Madrid I and Sporting Alfas respectively.

The match at La Manga was a nailbiting affair with Alcorcon triumphing by just one run. The victory was in no small part down to a century from the Spanish national player Tariq Ali who continued his fine form start to the season after recently pickingup the player of the torneo at the Madrid Charity event last month.

Alfas were defeated somewhat suprisingly by Madrid United although another Spanish International, Gary Crompton but in a good performance with both bat and ball for the home side. Madrid were all out for 238 but Alfas could only muster 180 all out in reply.

Cataluyna Cricket has continued to promote its profile in the local press with two recent articles in the local newspapers

The newspaper article,in Catalan was published in El Punt Avul, whilst the link to the other article also in Catalan was in the recent publication of nouscatalans.cat

Currently there have been twenty one league fixtures played to date this season with 8 teams in two group sections.

Many thanks to Robert Masih and Muhammad Adnan Khan for these contributions

Victory for the Intellectuals at La Manga

By ICC correspondent, 11 May 2012

The Intellectuals’ skip winning the toss opted to bat knowing that the (nine-man) Madrid team had had a tiring and close fought match the day before; his thinking being that although Madrid were no doubt lifted by their victory against new-comers Cazadores they may well not relish the thought of a possible 40 overs in the field after a night’s celebration. His tactic proved to work. The Intellectuals started slowly, openers McGarry and Wasley ‘turtling’ along at two an over for the first ten or so but things ended with a flurry, with the team batting out the 40 overs and reaching a respectable 168 for 6.

La Manga proved way too strong for a spirited Madrid side to register a win in their first league game of this season.

Batting first La Manga lost Spanish Junior captain Joel Brook without a run on the board  but then Mcquillan and Sajid Ali put together a useful partnershipt to put the hosts in full control. With strong batting in the middle order the local side ended their allocated overs with a total of 217 for 5 runs.

A below par total with such a big outfield the game was well balanced at the interval. However, a tremendous bowling performance by La Manga saw the capital city visitors reduced to 117 all out with Farhat Mahmood claiming a five wicket haul.

Newcomers to the league Cazadores de Turre just missed out on winning their season opener when losing out to the Madrid second string by just eleven runs in the opening day fixture for both sides in the development league

Madrid batted first and they had useful contributions from the majority of their players to post a competitive score of 146 for 9 off their schedule overs

In reply Cazadores inched towards the required totalbut just missed out by a meagre 11 runs. A fine 55 by Kevin Milnthorpe looked to have won the game for Cazadores but after he fell leg before to Tooi the required Turre charge failed to materialise and the Almeria side had to be content with a worthy but losing performance on their league debut

Fuengirola stunned Combined Colleges in the latest league game in Andalucia. 

Fuengirola batted first and set about amassing a competitive score. The middle order batsmen did not fail the home side and they posted 292 for 9 off their allocated overs.

Combined Colleges stepped purposefully to the crease and Brian Barrett and Nushain Awais looked like putting the visitors into a winning position. Barrett (60) and Nushan (49) gave Colleges the required platform put unfortunately the other batsmen did not come to the party and the game started to drift away.

The Spanish Junior Academy won a tripartite tournament last weekend when defeating two public schools from England, Westminster and Emmanuel College in a Twenty20 competition held at La Manga. The day started with the two schools playing each other. Emmanuel posted a meagre total of 93 but Westminster lost their way in the middle of their innings and could not find the four runs to tie off the final ball of the match.

The Spanish Juniors played Westminster in th next match. The visitors batted first and accrud 127 for 2 off their allocated overs with Winder scoring 92 not out. On a lively La Manga wicket the score was par for the course and the Spanish openers Joel Brook and Christian Munoz-Mills got the hosts off to a flier. Munoz-Mills particularly took a liking to the bowlers and hit a quick fire 44. A few quick wickets gave the home supporters a few nervous moments but Brook 25 not out saw the Academy home with 2.3 overs to spare.