Slovakia ‘village side’ finds Twenty20 welcome in the hillsides

Jul 19 2008 Liverpool Daily Post

VLADIMIR CHUDACIK is playing cricket at Carmel CC in North Wales. He pauses for a moment and considers the wonderful view over the Clwydian range to Moel Famau.

Then it’s back to work, for Chudacik has a lot on his mind. He is captain of the Slovakian national team and they are playing the host club. But there is one other factor which makes this match special: it is the Slovakians’ third ever game on a grass wicket.

Royal Birkdale, you see, is not the only venue in the North West where the performances of international sportsmen are being applauded this week. At Carmel an eight-team European Twenty20 tournament has been under way since last Sunday. It is one of the most unlikely cricket events ever held in the United Kingdom – but it may also be one of the most precious. For the past six days, teams representing Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Russia, Croatia, Estonia, the Cricket Board of Wales, Carmel, and also a Polish XI have been playing a series of 20-over games. The final will be held at the host club’s beautiful Pen-y-Gelli ground at 4pm tomorrow.

The genesis of this extraordinary tournament lies in the club’s tour to Eastern Europe in 2007. “We played in St Petersburg, Moscow and Tallinn,” said chairman Charlie Bass. “And we were the first overseas team for 14 years to win the Helsinki Sixes. Some of our opponents asked if they could come over here, and we’ve managed to stage this for them.”

The overall organisation of the event has been the responsibility of journalist Tim Abraham, who has a passion for playing cricket in unlikely locations. “We were so well received when we visited Eastern Europe last year that we wanted to do something to help the development of cricket in those countries we’d visited,” he explained. “We hit on the idea of organising and hosting a tournament at our club.”

And, as if organisation was not enough, Carmel also agreed to underwrite the expenses for the tournament, a commitment in which they have been helped by Flintshire County Council, private sponsors and club members. Groundsman Tony Ryles, for example, raised £1,200.

Chudacik caught the cricket bug when he studied English in Gloucestershire in 1997. Returning to Slovakia, he began to establish the game in his home village of Hajske from where the current national team is entirely drawn.

“I found it very difficult to find a sport based on such a spirit of fair play as cricket,” he said.“Slovakian cricketers come from one village but we are the village that beat Poland and Hungary. What we need now is a proper cricket ground where we can play and to which families can come.”