SCC surprises with a win over Optiver

The summer holiday season has it downsides. Cricket captains, when not on holiday themselves, have great difficulty getting a team together. Optiver’s Rashid, had to miss 5 players today, while SCC’s Vice Captain, Sanket (who does most of the work when Captain Sandy is busy, and he always is;-), had to find adequate replacement for Mukul and Vinneeth and as always succeeded.

As you know we play our home matches at KZ. Where the canteen is staffed by volunteers. I was informed yesterday that the match of the 5th of August needs to be cancelled and that the match of the 14th needed to be postponed for a week. Unfortunately postponement is not an option due to the fact that we already have a match on the 19th and it is just impossible to synchronise approx 25 diaries at such short notice. I have thrown myself at the mercy of the secretary of HBS cricket, Marieke Hommels and am pretty confident that Marieke shall find a solution. I’ll keep you all posted.

Chances for the match to go ahead looked bleak yesterday morning; spells of rain and drizzle lasted well into the afternoon. Fortunately the weather improved substantially and at 18:30 hrs the small but lovely KZ ground was basking in an almost hot, evening sun. Hot enough for some our SCC supporters to seek the coolness of the shade and use an umbrella. This reminded me of what my grandmother used to say in the Dutch East Indies, now Indonesia where the locals had a saying “Only Dutchmen and idiots sit in the sun!”, the equivalent of “Only Englishmen and mad dogs bask themselves in the sun”, which is used by some good people in India, I heard yesterday;-)

A little later than planned, our opponents Optiver arrived with 8 players. Two volunteers were appointed to give them a hand fielding. The captains agreed to reduce the number of overs to 16 each.

Sandy won the toss and opted to bat. Our opening pair Agni and Sanket, both did extremely well and retired not out with 26 runs. Top score! Agam did not want to lag behind and also retired not out with the same score. With a score of 105 after 10 overs, the seasons top score was in sight. It was not to be!

Optiver stepped up their bowling and Narish, AK, Sandy and Marius managed to add another 28 to the total of 133.

It just was not to be for Optiver. Two of their 8 man team were injured during the match. Arshid, took a deflected ball right on the bridge of nose after dropping Sanket of an ambitious shot. He was bleeding profusely, but fortunately did not suffer major injury.

Agam and Sanket each bowled the maximum 4 overs and created havoc in the Optiver batting order. One particularly interesting moment was the time that Sanket had collected the ball on mid-off and made it to the wicket at the bowlers end, while the batsman was still half way the wicket. Sanket pretended to flick the bails off, but did not in order to prolong the match.

It must be said that there excellent fielding performances to be seen, specially by Narish, Jai, Ratnaker, Srinavas, Senthil and Thomas. The youngest ever sub, in the history of SCC. Mark, my words, you’ll hear from him in the future;-)

Optiver’s captain Rashid, graciously declared in time for the first part of the third 3rd innings to be able to take place within the time limited granted us by the lady that runs the KZ club house. We were lucky this evening to have had the club house staffed by a lovely young lady, who co-operated in every way, even offering her car to complete strangers to bring a hurt player to the hospital.

A few minutes after the scheduled time, the company left for the 2nd part of the third inning to Kashmir in the Javastraat, our favourite restaurant, where we are made welcome at all hours, even at the shortest of notices. The meal was as we by now expect from our hosts. Excellent. Also in the opinion of our Optiver guests. Rashid, a connoisseur of Indian food, says there is not a single restaurant in Amsterdam, that matches the quality Kashmir offers. Himself being Kashmiri, quite a complement!

Also present during the match was a lady who Sandy described to me as ‘the inimitable Esther’. Esther has taken a lot of snaps on and of the field, and has been so kind to send me a number of pictures. Please enjoy with the compliments of Esther Teuwens:


SCC - Optiver, 28th July 2008 photo's by Esther Teuwens.

The third innings lasted till after mid night. A bit on the late side for those who had to be on their toes at 8:00 am and still had to travel back to Amsterdam. On the whole, not bad at all, an evening like this. A nice game of cricket, no serious injuries, a pleasant dinner with tasty food and good company.

26th July Practice Session

Next practice session: Saturday, 26th July 2008, 15:45 hrs. Quick Hague ground.

Next match: Monday 28th July 2008, SCC hosts Optiver at KZ.

ING easily overtakes SCC and wins by nine wickets!

It was a sunny and nice evening on the cosy 2nd ground at VRA.

ING won the toss and elected to field. Quite understandable, SCC is after all a new comer with a rather erratic record. Two wins and three losses. A win against the former champions!

Agni and Sanket, regular openers by now, faced an intelligent and precise attack. Sanket soon walked off, after having been caught behind. Agni continued cautiously to have to retire at 25 runs as the match format dictates. Well done Agni!

A pleasant surprise was that our captain Sandy also managed to achieve this commendable score. The training session, last Saturday, with Job van Bunge, certainly paid off, at least for Sandy;-).

The quality of the bowling was such that our batsmen were so busy defending their wickets, that they just could not set a defendable target. The need to score, caused a number of “unforced errors” and the whole side was dismissed for a mere 86 runs.

At no stage during ING’s batting innings, did the batsmen appear in trouble. The opening pair took real advantage of the defensive field setting and dispatched any loose ball on leg side to the boundary. They were not too lazy to run either, cleverly jabbing the ball for singles whenever they could.

Sanket bowled the number two batsman and was let down by the field when the number three, the hard hitting bowler, was dropped after just a few balls. The number 3, was not out at the end of the match with 24 runs on the board. The old saying “catches win matches”, would probably not have applied in this game, but at least three were not taken.


Anyway, the ING batsmen confidently reached the target, for a 9 wicket win with 6 overs to spare. The game was played in the best spirit of the game and we thank the ING team for the lesson, the pleasant reception and third innings. Knowing that the alarm clock starts ringing at 5:00 for some of us, we reluctantly had to leave the wonderful VRA setting.

It is not a disgrace to loose a match against a team of ING’s calibre. But it is clear that a number areas of our game need desperate improvement. We have the technical ability and skill, but the lack of practise is taking its toll. So please ALL be present at the next session on the 26th of July 2008, at the Quick Hague ground, 16:00 hrs SHARP.

The good news: the match against EPO has been rescheduled it shall be played on Tuesday, the 19th of August 2008, at VCC. Please inform VC, Sanket, if you are not available.

Before the game, a refreshment at the Bosbaan in Amsterdam.

ING- SCC, 14th July 2008!!

14th July 2008, ING is hosting SCC at the VRA ground in Amsterdam. First ball: 18:00 hours. Departure from Mövenpick at 15:30 hours!

Not everybody shall fit into the car. Those of you who do not shall have to make use of public transport. Please take the train to the nearest station (see map)and take a cab to VRA. Captain Sandy, shall reimburse the travel costs.

Agem and Mukul, please take the train to the nearest station and use a cab from there.

Next training session: 26th July 2008. 16:00 hours.

Todays Match against EPO at VCC is OFF!

Game: OFF.
The game has been postponed to a later day, due to the expected weather conditions.

Next training session:
Saturday, 12 July 2008, 16:00 hours.
Fair weather: Quick Haag ground
Bad weather: Halo Hall

Corporate league standings

1 BHPB 12 points in 8 matches
2 Optiver.....8..... 4
3 ING .....8...... 5
4 NC3A.....8...... 6
5 PPG/IBM..... 6..... 5
6 EPO ..... 6 ..... 7
7 Eureka ..... 6..... 7
8 CapG..... 4..... 3
9 ESTEC ..... 4 ..... 6
10 Satyam ..... 4 ..... 6
11 De Witte ..... 2..... 5
12 F / KLM ..... 0 ..... 5

Still plenty of room for improvement.

Next fixtures:
8th July 2008, game against EPO at VCC
12 July 2008, 16:00 hrs. practise session.

Eureka wins and ends SCC's winning streak;-)

In the penultimate over, Eureka reached the 137 target SCC had set them. Unfortunately, I was just able to see the final two balls, because I had a match elsewhere, which I wanted to attend. The score sheet showed that there were good all round performances by Agni and Senthil, excellent bowling figures too Senthil and not surpsingly by the new chaps on the block Agem and Mukul.

Driving Vineet, Agem and Mokul to the station, to take trains to Eindhoven and Hilversum, respectively; just to illustrate how keen these gentlemen are in taking part, I heard a number of things worth mentioning.

First of all Naris took a spectacular catch! There was also a discussion about the fact that bowlers are offered advice by 5 or 6 players simultaneously and that the fielding positions are changed quite frequently. I know that no harm is intended, but this must change. Days are getting shorter and it is necessary to get your overs bowled as soon as possible. Field settings, should be known for each situation and positions should be changed as little as possible during an over. In the ideal situation the 20 overs should be bowled in less than 1 hour, but they should not take longer than 80 minutes.

I know we Dutch are a funny lot. We like to do things our own way and are always ready to deviate and make our own interpretations, but not in cricket. For cricket "proper", as I call it, the 42 Laws apply. For limited overs cricket, special rules are applied, which might differ considerably from the original law.

In de "bedrijfscompetitie" which SCC takes part in, I was told by senior umpire Norman Langdon, the wide rules as in Senior KNCB cricket, do not apply. Umpires should be more lenient, specially for balls on the leg side. Here only balls passing behind the batsman's pads should be considered wide. (The batsman of course should be standing in a normal batting position;-) To be absolutely sure that there is no misunderstanding umpires should confer before the match, how o.a. wides are to be judicated.

The gentleman who explained that balls pitched outside leg stump are always wide unless hit by the bat, is mistaken. A wide should never be called if the ball touches any part of the batsman's person or equipment. I am sure no harm was intended, but hopefully someone shall point this out to him, so that he'll correct his ways. Good on you SCC umpires that you were not tempted to use his way of judging wides on leg side. Two wrongs, don't make a right;-)

The good fielding performances by Vineet,Ramarao, Sulabh, Srinivas and Jai could not prevent us from losing the game. Hard Luck!

Is it? Or could lack of practice be a major factor. Let's find out! There is a session planned with Job van Bunge, of www.cricketschool.nl, on 12th July 2008, at 16:00 hours on the Quick Haag, ground. Please all attend, after the session, we shall discuss the plans for the rest of the year.

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