Forget Dubai and the Caribbean, La Manga Club is pushing to become county cricket's go-to pre-season destination

IVO TENNANT AT LA MANGA CLUB: A less sizeable venue is not in itself a disadvantage – think of some outgrounds in England – and the venue at Vale do Lobo in Portugal’s Algarve which was used by England in the 1990s when Keith Fletcher was coach

A marked tendency in recent years has been for county clubs to travel to Barbados or Dubai for outdoor matches and net practice in springtime.

They were assured of hot weather, decent facilities and, in the Caribbean, a rum-soaked happy hour. The pitches were hard and true and encouraged firm-footed driving. Then the players returned to reality in April: mizzling rain, beanie hats in the field, hot chocolate drinks breaks, lateral movement, low bounce and still lower scores.

In other words, first-class cricketers had prepared themselves for conditions they would not experience in verdant, seam-friendly England. The county treasurer would add up the cost of such a trip: the airfares, the hotels, the departure tax. Why not practise closer to home in pleasant but not baking conditions, where the pitches can be cut to replicate Derby or Bristol, and where every requisite facility is incorporated in one resort?

So directors of cricket have turned to La Manga Club in southern Spain. The resort was constructed in 1972 and had long attracted golfers, footballers and tennis professionals. There was a picturesque cricket ground, overlooked by Calblanque National Park and Las Lomas village, where players were billeted. What had altered was the construction of outdoor nets and newly laid pitches, followed by the arrival of a groundsman from a Test venue.

^{La Manga Club is hosting five counties this spring}

The upshot is that five counties - Glamorgan, Gloucestershire, Hampshire, Middlesex and Northamptonshire - have been out this spring. They have purposefully overlapped so that 50-over matches could be staged. Then, from July 29 to 31, the most ambitious competition yet to be staged for club cricketers across Europe – the European Cricket League – will be held at La Manga Club. The domestic champions from eight countries will participate in this T10 competition.

This is the brainchild of Dan Weston, an Australian hedge fund manager who plays for Munich CC. He was once a promising cricketer seeking to succeed the great Adam Gilchrist as Western Australia’s wicketkeeper. He is not, of course, the first individual to try to elevate the game in Europe to a higher level. Who could forget the learned Dr Simone Gambino opening the bowling for Italy off a couple of paces in his pantalones di cricket?

That was in the 1980s and the European game, as with La Manga Club’s sport, once overseen by Pat Pocock, the effervescent Surrey and England off spinner, has moved on. The newly appointed groundsman is Stuart Antell, who worked at Ageas Bowl under Nigel Gray. He was drawn to the sunshine, the facilities and the chance to leave an imprint that he would have been unable to do on an established Test ground (as well as not being offered the opportunity to succeed Gray). He has worked without a day off for the past month.

The European Cricket Performance Centre, as it is known, has been designed for the use of cricketers from international to school level. There is an electronic scoreboard. Ireland and Scotland have been out since the nets and newly laid pitches were opened in 2017.

LA Manga bound pre season 😁 pic.twitter.com/7NXLnq3zOg

— Benny Howell (@beennnny) March 19, 2019

Weston reckons there are 23m cricket fans in Europe, constituting the biggest social media base after India, and in Germany and elsewhere, the game is attracting a new player: the poor migrant. Expats from India and Pakistan have long bolstered the game in various countries but significant immigration in recent years should only add to overall numbers.

It has not rained in southern Spain for the past two months, so the need for maintenance of the ground and a square of six grass pitches and two artificial surfaces needs no embellishment.

To replicate England in April, Antell deliberately left some grass on the pitch he cut for Hampshire’s first 50-over match against Northamptonshire. There was a little movement as well as consistency of bounce – and it was rated by Adi Birrell, Hampshire’s new coach, who is a former groundsman at St George’s, Port Elizabeth.

Off the field, there are fewer distractions than in, say, Barbados. La Manga Club, which is three times the size of Monaco, does not sleep late. There are good restaurants and bars aplenty but this is essentially a venue for golf, football and tennis as well as cricket. Liverpool FC were out last year. Hence in addition to three 18-hole golf courses, a 28-court tennis centre and eight football pitches (one with its own press box), there is a 2,000 square-metre fitness centre.

^{An aerial shot of the facilities in Spain}

The question now is whether La Manga Club develops the cricket ground – the straight boundaries are a little short of ICC playing regulations – by extending into a car park, or whether a new ground is built on nearby scrub land at a cost of €500,000.

A less sizeable venue is not in itself a disadvantage – think of some outgrounds in England – and the venue at Vale do Lobo in Portugal’s Algarve which was used by England in the 1990s when Keith Fletcher was coach, was smaller.

Yet if La Manga Club is to be used regularly by visiting countries, as appears likely, or even becomes a European centre for the IPL (Newclose on Isle of Wight has also been mooted in this regard) additional space will have to be created. Besides, it needs to keep a step ahead of Desert Springs Resort in Andalucía, who have also constructed a cricket ground and attracted England’s ODI team in 2017.

The competition in Spain for attracting the best cricketers has intensified, for sure.