Kilometres and runs
The wheels kept on turning and the kids kept on running in the latest adventure of Comenius Cricket Club. 2552 kilometres was the number on the dial when the minibus was taken back – the engine still sounded fine, but somebody should hide the keys for a week. And compared to a similar tournament in Prague in November 2007, the players also deserved a rest for their active cricket style and enthusiasm to both hit and run whenever they could.

Back in June, the invitation came from Germany for Comenius to send a team to the 1st International Open Schools Indoor Tournament in Schloss-Holte in the north-west of the country. CCC almost never turn down a challenge, so a team was selected and travel arrangements made for the big trip. As always, Comenius School was more than happy to help and new sponsor Anita-Hungaria agreed to put in some money. The Germans also donated 300 euros, free accommodation and food to help the team take part – we were the only foreign team to accept the invitation.

After stopping overnight in Prague, we arrived at our destination at 2pm on Friday afternoon. The nice lady in the GPS machine was a star and we were never lost for more than a few minutes (unlike in February, when we drove aimlessly for hours sometimes en route to Oldenburg!). We soon found out our opposition – mainly boys, including lots of Asians brought up in Germany – so we knew how difficult the matches would be.

Things got even more difficult on Saturday morning, when Adrienn was sick and had to go back to bed. We finally turned up at the sports hall 3 hours late, but we still had time to prepare for our first match, against the best team in the tournament, Köln. They blew us away, but there were some positive signs already – Nika smashed a ball high onto the ceiling in her first cricket match for 18 months, David bowled accurately and everyone was running and fielding like mad men!

The second match was against Münchberg, a match we just had to win. Brigi started us off with 3 wickets in the very first over, but the Germans kept on going and we didn't bowl so well, helping them to a total of 66. Nika and Mirtyll started confidently, then Brigi came in to fire an unbeaten 20 to take us to our target with just 3 balls to go.

We believed we could beat the mainly English boys team from Kings College (a school for army kids), but they had other ideas and bowled us out for just 55, not enough points to defend. That left us in a funny position – win the last match to come third in the five-team group, lose a close match to come fourth, lose badly to come bottom. Pressure on!

This time it was Nika who came good with the bat, justifying Andy's long-held belief that she has the natural talent to be a great batsman. She hit two big straight sixes that everybody in the hall cheered to get to the retiring score of 15 and then everybody else chipped in with some runs to take Comenius up to an imposing target of 86. That meant the President's 8 (a mix of boys from Hessen, Münchberg and other towns) needed 100 to take third place. Three wickets from Claudia and a great catch from Nori at third man, however, meant that they never came close and we won the match by 20 runs to end up third in the group – the perfect result and exactly where we should have finished.

Saturday evening was spent eating and chatting, with only one eye on Sunday's remaining game – the 5th/6th play-off against Tegernsee. Any hope in that match was soon snuffed out when the experienced German batsmen cruised to a score of 100, despite Brigi bowling Steffi with the very first ball! Our batting was clever and active, but Nika was run out without scoring and Brigi's perfect cover drive went a few centimetres too high. The star Tegernsee bowler blew everyone away with his speed and although Nori, Soma and Claudia added some late runs, it was too little too late.

Sixth place left us exactly in the middle. A fair result based on solid performances and everybody doing what they had to do.

Comenius students have now travelled and played abroad a combined total of 17 times in 6 different countries (England, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Germany, Austria and Slovakia) over the past 3 years. Impressive numbers that show their commitment to the sport and the opportunties for them both here (few) and elsewhere (plenty).

And the Hungarian junior cricketers' reputations go before them. Everybody knows what to expect – smiling, happy youngsters, always willing to wave and pose for the cameras. And not too bad at cricket either!