Match report Qui Vive – VCC 2 (July 10. 2022)
We arrived at Qui Vive to discover a field with nice long grass, a wobbly ground with anti-Houwitser holes. The field didn’t invite proper stroke play, needless to say, this field wouldn’t play in our favour. What would be a good score on this ground? 150 or 170 maybe? We didn’t know, a good day to win the toss and field first…
So we batted first. Long story short, this wasn’t our best day, or even shorter, this wasn’t our day. Wickets kept falling at regular intervals and in quick succession for all sorts of reasons (“Auwww that’s my big toe in front of middle, how about when I leave this ball, let’s go back to this ball, I wonder what will happen when I heave across the line, No, I don’t want to bat with my brother, etc, etc”). VCC 56 for 7 after 20 overs, you could say VCC seconds were in deep deep trouble. In fact, VCC seconds were in trouble on Marianentrog’s bottom level.
That was when Stijn de Leede teamed up with Ricky Ricardo, Stijn saw off the regular balls with determination and put the ball-in-the-slot away (’took the route either over long off or the route over Cow Hockey corner’). Ricardo took a few balls to find his rhythm but then he teed off with consecutive boundaries (‘clubbed it onto the roof of the Michael Mols canteen’), only to chop it onto his own wicket the very next ball. The partnership looked so promising. VCC 81 for 8 after 26.
In came Sajjad Kamal, and they started rebuilding. But oh no, Stijn chopped the white leather into his wicket as well. VCC 116 for 9 after 31.2 and in came Steffen Mulder.
The apotheose that followed was special, a partnership of 54 in 12 overs for the last wicket. It consisted of perseverance and concentration, strength and intelligence, no blood but all sweat …and a lot of dot balls, an occasional four & six and some smart running by the Sajjad (36) and Steffen (13). Every ball was cheered on by the crowd.
Maybe a bit too smart when one of them was run out at the non-danger end attempting a second run, you just don’t expect them to throw at the ‘wrong end ánd over the stumps’ do you. That was just moments after some firm hugging & kissing when celebrating their 50 runs together. No love was lost though between these two, I can tell you that.
Meanwhile, they had kept the opponent in the field till the 44th over, a milestone on its own. From the point of true desperation, they had gotten us back into the game and maybe even in a winnable position, the momentum was ours! Hooray!
VCC 170 all out and we were off to some delicious tomatoes, cucumber, cheese and worst.
Suggestions for the second part of the game were that we should bowl & field well… early wickets would be key so Sajjad bowled the opener on the fourth ball with a beautiful inswinging yorker. The next wicket took a bit longer (86 for 2), Bowling both sides of the wicket and some missed chances and misfields didn’t help us either. When Jakes & Flo took four wickets in quick succession (Flo trapped a batsman plumb and bowled the next batsman after Jacobus had floated two balls precisely enough to result in two catches) we thought we were in the game again.
We did what we could, we threw everything at them, well literally just a cricket ball. Verbally the batters counterattacked our bowling with some inspired chirping. Even slower than before the chirping Cricketers crept towards the target (all of them batters striked below the 50%) only to surpass our total in the 47th over.
So all in all we didn’t play well enough, although the show play of the Tripple S (Stijn, Sajjad & Steffen) relieved the pain somewhat.
The next match is against VRA 2 (lost the away game). We are still in the running for the Play-offs!
