Sunday the 19th July 2020 promised to be a beautiful day for a game of Zomi cricket. The forecast looked great for a proper game, with temperatures in the low twenties, just a hint of a breeze and some cloud cover that can only be described as flock of lambs in the sky. VCC Zomi were going to play ACC Zomi in Amstelveen. With the return of Guus Beekhof from his self-imposed bio bubble, the team appeared to be strong on paper. The omens were good and when captain Kobus Nel even won the toss after failing to do so for the last twenty eight times, it looked like the cricketing Gods were about to repay us for the loss of Victor van Koolwijk and John Coppock due to injuries incurred over the last Zomi matches. John had put the mockers on us in the group’s app that his scoring ability against ACC was going to be sorely missed. Just after that won toss, the election to bat and the filling out of the batting line-up, we all joked that surely sorely John was not going to be missed!
The batting order consisted of Rutger, Marek Molenbuur (thanks for joining), Guus, Kobus, Jacob Nel (thanks for joining), Gaurav, Lennaert, Richard, Stefan de Graaf (thanks for joining) Colin and Deepak. A strong and deep batting line up that would almost definitely give us a good total. Alas, your reporter will be brief about the outcome, which was almost as brief as the VCC innings: All out for 77 after 26 overs. The only real contribution to this total was made by Rutger with 31, the highest score was made by Mr. Extras with 33. There were run outs and poor batting choices, etc. We good blame this all on the interruption of play due to the fact that the fielding party had to remove their bicycles from the side of the outfield and park them in the designated bicycle hatch (only in the Netherlands), but that would be lying to ourselves. Because the only obvious explanation was that we sorely missed sorely John’s scoring ability!
After the (not so) socially distanced lunch and a shot of disinfectant we returned to the field. Captain Kobus rallied the troops and mentioned that we could not change the amount of runs we put on the board, what we could do was to give it our best effort and bowl and field as best as we can. That is what we did! Stefan, Gaurav, Jacob, Kobus, Marek and Deepak gave it their all with the ball in hand and the fielding was, for the most part tight. Yes, there were two dropped catches, but overall the Zomi could be proud of that fielding performance. As a wise man once said: “cricket is not about the last ball, but about the next”. ACC made 81/3 runs after 29 overs. Gaurav, Kobus and Stefan all took a wicket.
A beer was had and we talked about the game and the upcoming games. Another glorious (cricket) day went by. See you next time!
