Rood & Wit vs VCC4 (0-2) on 17.6.18
We arrived in Haarlem raring to go after our first victory from last week. We lost the toss and were asked to field. Dinesh & Pieter opened our bowling attack. Their openers were making about four runs an over and after about the 8th over, their scorebook turned into a Sherlock Holmes mystery novel and hence my report is based on my feeble memory.
Guus replaced Dinesh with Charu who managed to get one of their batsmen out for 23 thanks to a superbly judged catch by Lailesh. He made a lot of ground running backwards on the long on boundary and catching the ball over his shoulder. Lailesh, all fired up by now, then bowled the other opener (24). Charu did the same with their number 3 batsmen who went cheaply for 5.
R&W were scoring at 5 runs an over after 16 overs. The run rate began to fall as Charu and Lailesh tightened the screws forcing the opposition to take risks with quick singles. Dinesh was brought back on and continued the stranglehold. Finally, on Marc’s first ball they went for one single too many, which allowed Dinesh and Richard, to combine and run out their No 5 batsmen.
At this point, their No 4 decided to up the anti and started to hit out. With hard-hitting and strong running he quickly amassed 106* runs by the end of their innings. Their total score was 199 for 4. Dinesh was economical (7 overs for 15 runs) as was Lailesh who finished on 7-1-21. The other bowlers suffered at the hands of batsmen No.4.
After a delicious lunch, VCC began the chase with Guus and Rob. However, Rob and Dinesh both had an off day and were back in the pavilion for ducks. Victor, in his first match, scored 4 before being caught with the score on 22 for 3 after 7 overs. Rutger joined his brother and between the two they brought us back into the game with a century plus partnership. Guus played sensibly with the highlight of his innings being a soaring 6 straight over the bowler. Rutger was more aggressive and played some glorious shots particularly on the off side. Guus fell first being caught for a defiant 48 with the score at 137 after 24 overs.
Rutger was caught behind 15 runs later having scored 58 valuable runs. At this point we needed another 50 runs at about 6 runs an over. The game was finely balanced with most of the recognised batsmen out. Enter swashbuckling Nota. Marc began hammering the ball all over the field. He brought the scales in our favour by hitting 21 runs in the 27 th over. Richard and Pieter supported him and by the 31 st over we had reached our target with Marc unbeaten on 42. Victory number 2 was in the bag. Well done lads.
-DJ
Scorecard (an attempt from R&W side based on their book)
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