Zuoz International Cricket Festival 2003 - Graham Kelsey reports
There can't be many things more extraordinary than waking up on a beautiful summer's day in early July, opening the shutters to the sound of cowbells resonating along the valley slopes, breathing in the lush green odours of recently cut and well watered grass and looking down into the well of the mountainous valley in the shadow of the snow-capped peaks, to perceive beneath one an enormous expanse of well-trimmed grass on which four-yes 4-matches of cricket are being simultaneously played, next to each other, on juxtaposed pitches. And yet this is what any late-riser in the tiny village of Zuoz would have beheld on the first Sunday of July this year, as indeed on the first Sunday in July of any of the last fifteen years past.
No, this is not New Delhi, Karachi or any similarly heaving centre of the Indian sub-continent, I said green' and well-trimmed grass', and, no, it's not one of the many large playing fields in England, I spoke of mountains, snow-capped. Nestled deep in the high mountains of eastern Switzerland, overlooking the upper reaches of the river Inn, the same which will subsequently flow past Innsbruck down to the Danube, Zuoz is a small medieval village in the peacefully secluded Engadine valley, just downstream from the rather more celebrated St Moritz, where at the start of the last century a small international school was established-the Lyceum Alpinum-and where at the start of the 1920s a new sports master, Gordon Spenser by name, no doubt escaping from the terrible carnage that had ripped most of central and western Europe apart, had had the weird idea of introducing the summer sport of cricket to the school's pupils.
Today the school celebrates this curious connection with the culture of a yesteryear England by maintaining its cricket tradition-already something special in this world of rapidly changing values-and by organising year after a year an International Tournament which brings together eight full eleven a-side teams-six invited from outside the school-to contest three thirty over innings matches each, over the first weekend of July. This year, besides the School XI and the School's guest team (in recent years organised by the one time sports master at the school, Bob Felce) the tournament brought together teams from the German clubs of Munich and Munich International, the Italian clubs of Milan and Lodi, and the Swiss clubs of Winterthur and Cossonay to compete for the cup which in 2002 had been won by the elegant youngsters of the United Arab Emirates national Under 17 squad.
In recent months the lush meadow so long used for cricket has been circumscribed and impinged upon by a new golf course which stretches along the valley floor-once again a sign of the money orientated changing times of this modern leisure age-but fortunately, a development which seemed likely to thoroughly bunker the oldest of team sports has today been integrated into the restricted valley floor space and aside from the occasional rather disconcertingly unheralded appearance of a small white object not many feet away from one's own, the two sports manage to lead their own lives apart.
And so to the actual tournament, organised this year by the two new cricket masters at the school, George Campbell and his assistant Doug Foster. The draw, held in the old internal swimming pool, today converted into a large reception room, produced two Italo-Swiss encounters and two games which would match the school elevens against the clubs from Munich in the first round. While Milan comfortably beat off the challenge of the Swiss Cossonay club, a last ball six saw Winterthur squeeze through against a demanding Lodi total of 194. Munich CC fought back from four down for hardly more than a dozen and a half runs to finally overhaul the 150 target set by Bob Felce's invitation eleven, this year entitled "The Last Chance", as 2003 would be Bob's last appearance at the Trophy which he has dominated with his presence-as school master or guest team organiser-for the past decade or more, while the school XI found it hard going against the Munich International team.
The second round, where the teams divide into the first day winners-for the Cup-and the first day losers-for a theoretical plate', saw Munich CC coast home against their Bavarian rivals, the Munich International club, after setting an impossible 285 target [9.5 an over!] while Milan beat Winterthur to put themselves into the final. Among the losers', Lodi managed to overhaul the imposing 233 target set by Bob's "Last Chance" XI while an enthusiastic School XI were comfortable winners against the Cossonay side.
A quick lunch snatched between matches, more suntan lotion plastered onto arms and faces-as even in the heights of mountainous eastern Switzerland the sun's effects are soon felt -, and so onto the last round, with tired limbs pleading for a respite. Lodi managed to outlast the School XI to be the best of the first round losers while, in the final, facing a Milan total of 179, the Munich club rarely looked in danger of failing to add the Zuoz Lyceum Alpinum' Trophy to the Golden Duck' Trophy that they had won just three weeks earlier at Lodi.
But, in any description of this tournament, pride of place must go to the School XI, a team composed of boys born in several different countries none of them with any tradition of this strange medieval bat and ball frolic which was so transformed in 18th and 19th century England as to become the national sport and thence to be passed around the world. Boys from Germany (Fabian, Max, Martin and Leo), Italy ñ(Federico), and Switzerland (Alain, Sergi and Etienne), but also from further, much further afield, like Diego the opening bowler, who hails from Mexico and Mike who's from the Caribbean, though he has Swiss nationality too. Even for cricket the world is getting smaller.
And so to the same time next year when the tournament will precede the celebrations of the school's one hundredth anniversary.