Estonia Tours La Manga - Madrid CC's T20 Solidarity Tournament 2011

Estonia Tours La Manga - Madrid CC's T20 Solidarity Tournament 2011

Estonia Tours La Manga - Madrid CC's T20 Solidarity Tournament 2011

Estonia Tours La Manga - Madrid CC's T20 Solidarity Tournament 2011

'Estonia? Cricket? Tour? Well its true and Estonian Cricket is going from strength to strength. The Tallinn Cricket Club travelled a roundtrip of 7800km from Tallinn in Estonia to La Manga, Spain, with a party of 13 players including 7 National team players, young native Estonians, a mix of Ex-pats and some great social cricketers. It was also the first tour with an Estonian in a leadership role. Congratulations to Marko Vaik as Vice Captain. The mix in the team is indicative of Estonias diverse cricket background and its committment to development regionally and internationally.

The tournament. A big thanks must go to Madrid CC for organising the event and for also having a fantasticly close first match against us. They needed 2 runs off the last ball to claim victory. As they scampered through for the second run we knew this tournament was going to be close and would provide loads of learning experiences that we'd have to implement quickly to have a chance of progressing to the finals.

We certainly did learn something from the first match as we managed to scrape home against Woodford Wells who were looking good all the way through but couldn't get 5 runs off the last ball for victory, much to our delight.

The third match of the Round Robin stages saw us pitted up against a mix of La Manga locals. A loss would mean no finals. A win would mean a crack at a top 4 finish. Another nerve rackingly close game resulted in Tallinn CC turning up victors with a 14 run win. We were in the Finals!!

Our semi final was against Valencia Green and we were thoroughly outplayed in a rain restricted match. However to have the opportunity to play such quality opposition was something that certainly gave us something to think about. We'll be better prepared for them next time!

Having lost to Woodford Wells in the 3rd and 4th playoff, we ended finishing a reasonable 4th. Not bad for a team that nobody has ever heard of, but now you all have!

So Estonian Cricket is looking forward to more tours, more fun, more exciting games, more competitions and more cricket in the future. We have Senior Mens, Ladies, Youth Teams, Beach Cricket, Ice Cricket and Indoor, so look out for us. I'm sure you'll bump into us be it here in fantastic Estonia, La Manga, or somewhere else on this small cricketting world of ours!

For more information on cricket in Estonia, please click here: http://www.kriket.ee/eng and to contact Maret - email her at maret@kriket.ee.