SCC defeats Cricket Club De Witte by 6 wickets!

The 19th of May 2008, shall be recorded in the history books as the day that the newly formed SCC, booked its first victory!

Our host the Cricket Club of the prestigious The Nieuwe of Littéraire Sociëteit De Witte, plays its home matches on the lovely grounds of HCC. A really beautiful setting. For practical purposes, “De Witte” plays all its matches on an “artificial” grass ground. This ground is huge, two adjacent soccer fields with a pitch in the middle. Only hard hits would reach the boundary.

An hour prior to the start of the match, threatening clouds, had assembled over The Hague, but fortunately a strong wind drove the clouds away from the cricket ground and when the game started it was sunny and chilly.

Our hosts batted first and lost their first two wickets at 16. The rules in this league, state that batsmen retire not out at 25 and the gentlemen Vissra and Koets both reached this excellent target. It must be noted that Mr. Koets had played his last match 15 years ago! Mr. Peters, also had a good knock. Having first gone out for a duck, he was allowed back in and scored a confident 13, before being run out. Most of the dismissed hosts were run out, which either says something about our fielding or their running or a bit of both;-)

Last Saturday, the weather had forced our coach Job to revert to an indoor training while he had planned batting and fielding practise outside. It was more than fortunate that he managed to do so at such short notice, for we surely should have lost, had this training session not taken place. Anyway, we dropped 6 catches. Some extremely difficult ones. The saying goes “Catches, win Matches”!

De Witte, collected 102 runs of their 20 overs. Our most efficient bowler was Vineet, conceding only 18 runs of his 5 overs. Agni followed closely with 20 of the same number of overs.

Our opening bats Agni and Naresh, both played a splendid innings, both retiring at the maximum score of 25. Naresh, at one stage fell while taking a run and lay prostrated, flat faced on the ground, as the ball rolled to short mid wicket. Seeing this, he valiantly dashed to his crease, barely making it in time. Hilarious!

Our run rate was equal to that of our hosts; there was a match on!

Vineet, who had bowled so well, played a commendable innings and quite rightly was eying our umpire, for being too lenient on wides. Just prior to this over, one of our hosts, had requested him to ask some of our boys who were blocking the view of the score board to move. 97 runs after 17 overs it read.

The umpire, who last played cricket when the majority of the SCC side had not been born, shares the view of his slightly older colleague Norman Longdon, with whom he had stood against Estec, that in the judication of wides in this league, specially those on the leg side, the bowlers ability should be taken into consideration. The bowler was working hard and bowling to the best of his ability and the batsman was going for the ball and missing it, well within reach: not a wide was his reasoning. The same batsman, by the way, who had prevented a number of wides from being scored by dispatching balls, which had landed outside the pitch, to on and off side. But the rule in normal Dutch Limited overs, does not take the batsman into account. A ball that misses the stumps outside leg stump is wide!

The umpire got the fright of his life when in the next over with 4 balls to go and a score of 99 on the board, a wicket was taken by John Fullard, an old hand, but still an excellent and accurate medium pacer. The umpire heard some member of the opponents urge his bowler to continue in this fashion, there were just 4 balls to go. He glanced at the score board which still read 17 overs, it had not been updated.

Next man in was Marius. Taking the place of Thijs vd K, who had pulled a muscle while sprinting to get to a ball which had been hit in the air while we were fielding. Hard luck Thijs, get well soon and I am sure you’ll get a chance to hit a couple of sixes. One is never too old to learn, you have the build of a menacing fast bowler and Job and Sjoerd, could surely give you some pointers, if you are that way inclined.

Marius, who had amused as all, in his first ever match, when he was bowled by a full toss.

It must have been obvious to the opposition that Marius lacks batting experience for they all moved in. John Fullard, ran up in determination and bowled at good pace right at middle stump, Marius did not blink an eye and clipped it firmly to the off side and ran 2.

The next ball, was bowled similarly, took an edge and allowed the batsmen to complete the winning runs.

What happened next, is highly irregular in Dutch cricket, elated visitors swarming the field, cheering their team mates and clapping them on their backs. Our hosts, took it graciously in good sporting spirit and took no offence. No offence was meant; but in “Rome do as the Romans”, wait for the batsmen to step out of the field, give them a hand show your appreciation by giving them a hand, do the same for the fielding side. Words of encouragement and sympathy are also acceptable; then shake hands and thank you opponent for the game.

Our hosts offered us ample refreshments and “broodjes” and after the third innings, we collectively went to Kashmir. That Indian restaurant in the Javastraat in The Hague, where the proprietor was willing to accommodate us even at this late hour (22:30 hrs) and served a buffet meal, which was quite agreeable to our pallets, as usual one might remark!

The meal ended just after midnight.

Cricket is a team effort and you were all men of the match. Specially those of you who did not get a game, but made yourself useful as scorer, spectator or even batsman and fielder with the opposition. But in this game a “Man of the Match” was appointed by Paul at the request of our Captain Sandy.

He gladly awarded the honour to Agni Nagaraj for his general conduct, as player and umpire. Bowling very well and batting an excellent Innings.

I conclude by determining that although it was a win by 6 wickets, in fact it was an extremely close game. An enjoyable one at that. We thank our hosts for their sportsmanship and hospitality and should eagerly reciprocate!



De Witte - SCC, 19th May 2008