Bertus de Jong 23/05/24
Defending champions Voorburg CC are among the clubs most heavily affected by the national team’s absence, if not quite as heavily might have. Former skipper Sybrand Engelbrecht will be Stateside, as will prolific opener Michael Levitt pace spearhead Vivian Kingma, and with Fred Klaassen ruled out late Ryan Klein has also been called up as travelling reserve, though he’s not expected to fly out until after the first round of Topklasse fixtures. The trio’s unavailability will further fathom the depth of the Voorburg bench, already tested by the depatures of brothers Musa and Shariz Ahmad, the retirement of Karl Nieuwoudt, and Flip Boissevain’s move to New Zealand.
New skipper Noah Croes, who only narrowly missed out on national selection himself, will likely find himself captaining a rather callow team for the first half of the season, though many of VCC’s youngsters show great promise and some have already stepped up during the T20 season. Nehaan Gigani and Floris de Lange have impressed since stepped into the senior side spinners section, while Mees van Vliet has proved an effective foil for Kingma. The batting is more of a concern, with youngsters Cedric de Lange and Michael Molenaar short of form, as is captain Croes himself.
Yet if Voorburg can weather the early season absences without slipping too far down the table, their chances of defending their title look decent. If the young understudies can grow into their roles Voorburg may well finish the season with an appreciably stronger squad then they started.
Meanwhile the selecors had left Punjab-Ghausia unscathed, only for Daniel Doram’s late injury to rob them for the services of Saqib Zulfiqar for the duration of the Dutch World Cup campaign. Though Saqib’s batting and legspin will be missed, Punjab remain a stronger side than they’ve shown in the short format thus far this season.
The return of Jonathan Vandiar bolsters a top order already strengthen ed by the arrival of Musa Ahmad from Voorburg, with three of four Zulfiqars and Shoaib Minhas also in the line-up it’s fair to say Punjab retain a fairly stacked batting card.
Mohammad Shafiq’s left arm spin has also proved very effoective in the short format, while Sajjad Kamal’s arrival (also from Voorburg) ruounds out a solid seam attack also featuring Sikander Zulfiqar, Samiullah Salarazai and newcomer Burhan Niaz, who switched from VOC, as well as the wiley former skipper Sulaiman Tariq.
All told there’s few obvious weaknesses in the Punjab side and despite the late loss of Saqib Zulfiqar to national duty they look set to challenge for a top-table position, especially if they can take advantage of thit rivals’ more substantial availability issues.
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TKcricket 