On a beautiful Sunday morning U15 Blue was facing for the first time Hilversum. The weather conditions were excellent to play cricket. Mild temperature, hardly any wind and unlike two weeks ago when we played on the same field the grass was short this time. Therefore, the pitch was much faster this time. This was not really in our advantage. Hilversum has some excellent batters who did find the boundaries easily. Although we missed some bowling power as Stefan was injured, the team showed quite some improvement in their bowling. The number of extras reduced a lot compared to the first matches. But Hilversum did not need extras to get runs on the score board. The first three batters alone managed to get almost 150 runs on the board. But by good bowling of our new comers Nihal and Atharva, supported by our “oldies” Miraj and Ger we managed to take some wickets and did take some control back. Nevertheless, the target of 216 seemed to be a mission impossible.
After a small break and a pep talk from our coach Steff the team started batting with full energy. Atharva and Aarush were opening. But in the first over not only Atharva went out, but his replacement Rosalie as well. This match was becoming a nightmare. Who should make the runs now that Rosalie our strong holder of the first matches was gone? The answer was easy, what Hilversum can do, I can do too. Was signed by Aarush. He went on retirement after 62 runs (including 11 boundaries!!!). This gave the team a boost. Steve was unlucky, he was just a meter short to hit the first sixer of the season. With scores of Ger and Steve, together with the numerous numbers of extras the gap became less and less. Slowly we were going toward the 200 as well. With Miraj still to go there was a spark of hope. Unfortunately, we lost our last wickets too easy and we ended with 172. It was not sufficient to win the match, but compliments for the team as they did not give up and kept fighting till the end.
Hilversum was just a bit better and as such they deserved the win.
Fortunately a delicious lunch was waiting in our club house. Next match: June 4 in Amsterdam against VRA.
