With only 8 players our U15 Blue team did travel to Amsterdam to play against Qui Vive. Earlier in the season the difference between VCC and Qui Vive appeared to be minimal, but eventually Qui Vive did win. Coach Steff could not attend but did give the team clear instructions how to play: keep looking at the ball while batting, hit the easy ones hard and defend the wicket on the difficult ones. Keeping this in mind Miraj and Manoj started batting very solidly. They did not become into trouble and started to get a score on the board. As if they wanted to give others a chance to bat as well they both lost their wicket half way. New pair Ger and Philip continued where Miraj and Manoj stopped. Slowly the score went up. Would it be our first match of the season not going all-out? When Ger and Rosalie lost their wickets the pressure returned. But after a slow start of the season Atharva showed he is on fire and added some boundaries. End score 139/4.
The first milestone was met, but the score was not too high so it would be essential to bowl clean. The first over we got immediately 2 big opportunities to take a wicket. But a dropped catch and a ball just missing the stumps did not result in a wicket. Nevertheless, our bowling was good. 20 overs played and only 70/5 on the score board for Qui Vive. Statistically it would be hard for Qui Vive to beat the score. But statistics don’t count when the best batters bat last . . . After 28 overs wicket number 7 was taken but the score went up already to 129. Two over left 11 runs for Qui Vive to win. Last over to play, 2 more runs to go for Qui Vive. A dot, one run made, 138 for Qui Vive. They did take over pole position to win the match. Next ball, a run is made, the equalizer near bye, but then Ger had the action of the match. He did take the ball from the ground and from far threw the ball toward the wicket and hit it fully: run-out and end of the match. VCC won with 1 run difference! Congratulations to VCC for this spectacular match!
