The mail train has returned from Galle, the Lanna players have completed their exhausting tour of Sri Lanka and Richard Young appeared in Bangkok with some notes on the back of an envelope he found in his bag. The team had a wet start to their tour with attempts to play at Bloomfield CC in Colombo coming to nothing but Padukka had come to the rescue in a more rural location to the east of the city and the players had gained some useful practice for their trip to the south coast.
The team played four matches arranged by the charity Foundation of Goodness which was established after the tsunami had caused terrible damage to the Sri Lankan coast and has raised large sums in sponsorship so they have been able to look after thousands of deprived women and children.
This made for some wonderful cricket between two teams both committed to support junior cricketers and the first match was played on a grass wicket at Hikkadua and Foundation of Goodness won by eight wickets as Matt top scored with 25 in a total of 107.
The next game was played at Seenigama, described as a village in the Wake of a Tsunami, which provides an authentic village experience for a multitude of tourists in the area affected worst by the tsunami of 2004. The best match of the tour saw Lanna score 169 with Martin Cardno hitting 43 and Chirac 32 which they defended to win by six runs with the opposition needing a maximum off the last ball to tie.
The last day of the tour saw a return to Seenigama to play a pair of T20 matches against a team that involved several women and juniors given a chance to play cricket by the charity, just as Jun, Chaiwut and Champ had been developed thanks to the program of coaching in schools carried out by CMSCA. Foundation of Goodness won the first match by eight wickets and the second by six wickets but the trip to Galle and the coastal villages had been a fantastic experience for adults and juniors alike.