VCC U11 played like Tigers at the Dutch Championships U11 Tip & Run organised parallel to the T20 Finals Day at Exclesior’20 in Schiedam on Saturday July 15. They performed with the bat, ball and some excellent fielding in all the league games and the final! Yes – the boys reached the finals of the Tip & Run competition with all wins and won the finals too – comprehensively beating Salland by about 30 runs.
The day started with some excellent weather for cricket and a great atmosphere at the Exelsior’20 grounds – the NL 20-20 (semi-) final matches on the main pitch providing an ideal learning ground for all the young kids from 9 teams participating in the Tip & Run competition. VCC U11 started their campaign for the day playing against Quick. Our team won the toss and batted first – Cedric opened with a bang with some lusty shots on the onside. He was followed by some good batting by Tom, Carlijn, Tom but the cream of the batting came from Daniel – he creamed the Quick bowlers over square leg for successive Sixes – the canal was the landing place for all the sixes! After setting a huge score to chase, VCC U11 started the bowling with Rohan & immediately wickets started falling with some excellent diving catches on the field. Opposition was bundled out within 10 minutes or so ! First win – easy.
Second match was against VRA. For this match, we rested Cedric and Daniel and brought in Farhaan and Paul. VCC started the proceedings with some good batting from Farhaan, Paul, Sarang. The batsmen got a good hang of the how to play smart with some fine placement and running between the wickets. A few reverse sweeps from Farhaan and lusty blows over the in-field led to bug score. It was a treat to watch our bowlers tease the VRA batsmen with some fine legspin bowling – almost 3 batsmen got out missing – round the legs or spinning away from the offstump! This match was closer than the first one – nevertheless result was the same – easy win.
With 2 quick wins, team got a break and watched the 20-20 senior. matches – some excellent fast bowling but some lusty hitting on the main ground! Our 3rd match was with ACC1 – probably the closest match for the team. Good bowling from ACC1 resulted in quick wickets – our main batsmen fell cheaply but some good scoring by Paul and Cedric helped put up a defendable score. But the opposition hadn’t tasted the bowling coming from VCC – legspin, googly and whatnot! A close match contributed by some rash running by ACC1 batsman handed the match to VCC.
3-0! Next game against Hermes DVS – VCC won the toss & chose to bat. Some excellent hitting and runnning by Farhaan, Daniel, Cedric, Tom led to a good total. A couple more sixes over square leg by Daniel, some lusty shots by Farhaan over mid-off and on, was a treat to watch. A big total to chase and bowling to fear – it wasn’t easy for Hermes to win as became clear in the first over – immediately wickets! Excellent catching by VCC fielders leading to quick fall of wickets and end of match. I must say – our players commitment to win was superb – you could see everybody diving around on the field, taking some near impossible catches!
4-0! and into the finals against the other best team Salland.. This team was playing some very smart cricket – touch & run, bowl an excellent sometime unplayable line. VCC batted first and charge was led this time by Tom, Farhaan and some late finishing touches by Sarang. Paul and Carlijn with their touch and play were very effective in scoring some steady runs in every match and this one too! A very good defendable score not as big as other matches – therefore a slightly tense start to our bowling. Salland started well with some quick runs but then came a some excellent bowling by Tom – fast and sharp, followed by some legspin by Farhaan got us couple of wickets. Sarang kept it tight with a wicket & suddenly Salland looked in trouble. A late flourish by their young batsmen seemed to take the match away from us, but good bowling got us a few quick wickets and the championship – with a fairly good margin of 30 runs!
VCC U11 team was clearly the best team of the championship – we have some excellent players – ready to step into the U13! All of us can be proud of our team and their comprehensive victory. Three cheers to VCC U11 for winning the Tip&Run and ending the season on a high.