Our first away game of the season, on the familiar ground of Qui Vive, where we had won our championship game last season. We were coming off a good win against Centurions last weekend. Spirits were high and we arrived around 10:00 in de morning on this lovely sunny Sunday in Amsterdam. Last time they probably did mow the grass at Qui Vive was last month (as the grass was as high as my knees (-:), so the only option to score run was by hitting sixes or a lot of singles. After winning the toss we decided to have a bat. After a good warming up, Laurens and Alyan were sent in to have a bat, unfortunately, both of them couldn’t make an impact and before we knew we had a collapse and were struggling at 19-4.
I went in with the mind to survive as much as we can and score runs, Qui Vive were bowling very tight lines and swinging by pitching it in good areas. Nirav joined in and we both had a partnership of around 18 overs! Scored 45 runs. Which was the first step in rebuilding and putting on a respectable total. Nirva faced some 60 odd balls and showed great maturity and was determined to stay on and not give away chances. I myself faced also around 100 balls. After the rebuilding phase Iftikhar came in at 8, and made sure we had a respectable total at the end. With 5 massive sixes (few of them should have been counted for 12!) he scored a quick-fire 65. And we finished our innings with 146 all-out, with still 6 overs to spare. A total we could defend with the bowling attach we had (that’s what I thought).
After a good Indian lunch (Chickpeas Curry and rice), maybe not the ideal food to have during a cricket match. We started with the fiery pace of Sajjad and Iftikhar, sometimes too quick for them which led to a couple to edges and unfortunate mishits which went for the boundaries. A couple of missed chances also didn’t help our course. We tried to get back into the game by putting on two spinner’s at both ends, Alyan and Ariff both bowled good consistent spin, but the damage was done by some crucial drop’s and not too many runs we had to defend, at the end Qui Vivi chased it down with 6 wickets to spare in 29th over.
The positives to take away from the game was the good energy shown by VCC and well-composed innings played by Nirav. The match was played in a very friendly environment and hospitality from Qui Vive was commendable. This week we will work on our mistakes and come back next week harder as a team with a long drive to Eindhoven, and learn to bat out 50 overs.
Signing off captain of VCC 2, Rehan Waheed.
Scorecard:
