Rod Lyall & Bertus de Jong 04/09/23
RL: Once again it’s time for us to select our Topklasse Team of the Year. This year we need to specify that the selection is based on performances in the 50-over competition, and once again we will restrict ourselves to two overseas players in the eleven. So, first the openers. Voorburg’s Michael Levitt certainly stands out, with four centuries in his 655 runs, including a fine 102 in the grand final, and there’s a strong case, too, for Vikram Singh of VRA, although it’s true that 155 of his 548 runs came in one extraordinary innings at Craeyenhout. Still, he did make two other hundreds, and on his day he is capable of destroying an attack like nobody else in the Dutch game. Max O’Dowd (VOC), another brutal batterer of bowling, had a comparatively quiet season by his high standards after hammering 186 against ACC, and another honourable mention should go to Shirase Rasool, often Singh’s opening partner at VRA. But I’d go with Levitt and Singh.
BdJ: A fair shout I’d say, in what’s otherwise been a comparatively lean summer for openers the two youngsters certainly stand out. Another shout out is probably due Ratha Alphonse, who played some more than useful innings at the top of the order for his new club, but the numbers aren’t there for him to challenge Singh or Levitt. Fair to say they benefit from Tayo Walbrugh having dropped down the order for HBS, as have the Crows themselves – to the tune of almost 1,000 runs. With 988 at 61.75 Walbrugh topped the runs table by a distance, with Sparta’s Garnet Tarr more than 200 runs behind in second place. Both merit a place in the team of the year top order for my money, even at the cost of both of our overseas slots. Walbrugh’s weight of runs simply can’t be ignored, while Tarr taking the gloves for much of Sparta’s season saves us an otherwise tricky discussion on the subject of wicketkeepers.
Unless they’re secretly holding Dutch passports, that leaves room for neither VRA’s Johan Smal nor VOC’s Lane Berry, though both comfortably broke the 600-run mark this season. By the same token, ACC’s Heino Kuhn is ruled out despite being in large part responsible for the club’s mid-table finish in what was looking a tough year. Conversely, Voorburg’s Sybrand Engelbrecht is overseas no longer, and his return of 549 runs at 54.9 (coupled with the small matter of captaining his side to the title) certainly gives him a strong claim. Punjab’s Shoaib Minhas and Mohammad Riaz both also finished the season with 50+ averages, but to my mind finished it rather too soon to be considered for inclusion here. If one were minded to include another specialist bat then a case might be made for Scott Edwards, who racked up 509 runs at almost a run-a-ball, or perhaps for VCC’s Musa Ahmad, though his best returns have come in the shorter format this year. I’d be more inclined to go with a genuine all-rounder at here though, and Saqib Zulfiqar’s 534 runs at 44.5 are more than enough to warrant a place in the top six even before considering his 29 wickets.
RL: A top six of Singh, Levitt, Walbrugh, Tarr, Engelbrecht and Saqib Zulfiqar works for me. If we’re going to slip our keeper in as a top-order batter, though, I’d also want to give a shout-out to Voorburg’s Noah Croes, whose 18 catches and seven stumpings was a not inconsiderable factor in their success. (I’d acknowledge, however, that a bowling unit like Voorburg’s is bound to be healthy for any keeper’s statistics.) If we have room for a bowling all-rounder at number seven, then the choice seems to me to lie between Hidde Overdijk, whose 32 wickets at 20.62 made a big contribution to HCC’s reaching another grand final and who also averaged 24.42 with the bat, and Sikander Zulfiqar of Punjab, who only took 18 wickets but who made 411 runs at 41.10 and played several very significant knocks to keep his side in contention longer than they might otherwise have been. Forced to choose, I’d go for Overdijk, but I’d be happier still if we could find room for both.
BdJ: I’d hesitate to call Sikander a bowling all-rounder at this point, given he’s generally occupied the number four spot for Punjab this season, and while 18 scalps is a decent tally those wickets have come at an average of almost 30 and an economy rate over a run a ball. If we were to go looking for another seam bowling all-rounder, I’d say that Kyle Klein, whose contributions with both bat and ball have been indispensible for HBS, arguably has the strongest case after Overdijk, though not an overwhelming one.
Turning to to the spinners, one name comes pre-printed on the sheet. With 47 wickets at 10.66 Voorburg’s googly-merchant Shariz Ahmad has been instrumental in their title run, his wrist-spin partnership with the more conventional Philippe Boissevain crucial to their near-perfect run through the competition. With Saqib Zulfiqar already inked in there’s little room for another leggie, but two left armers do stand out among the finger spinners for their parsimony. The evergreen Lorenzo Ingram bowled 120 overs for Excelsior at the cost of just just 383 runs and claimed 26 wickets into the bargain, yet the veteran has been eclipsed this year by fellow West Indian Daniel Doram, the Sint Maartener taking one more wicket while matching Ingram’s economy of 3.13. Right arm off-spinners have had tougher time this season, with the notable exception of VOC’s Arnav Jain. Despite struggling with a shoulder injury Jain took 23 wickets opening the bowling for VOC at an average of just 16 while going for just 3.5 an over, head and shoulders above rival right arm tweakers.
RL: I’m not sure that Ingram, despite his long and distinguished service with Excelsior, doesn’t still count as overseas, but I completely agree that Doram, in a very different way from Shariz, has been a stand-out spinner this season. If we include these two spinners and Overdijk as a fast-bowling all-rounder, we have two places left for specialist pace bowlers. Voorburg’s Ryan Klein only played 12 matches, but he claimed 27 wickets at 11.56, with a strike rate of 17.93 (second only to Shariz among the regular bowlers) and an economy rate of 3.87. Who should join him is a tougher call: Ahsan Malik and Khalid Ahmadi of Sparta were excellent before the break but did not reappear after it, and, as Bertus noted earlier, Kyle Klein’s 21 wickets at 27.24 don’t constitute an overwhelming argument even when his batting is taken into account. My inclination would be to go for one of the genuine servants of the domestic game in Sparta’s excellent captain, Joost Martijn Snoep, who took 22 wickets at 19.23, with an economy rate of 3.63. In the absence of Malik and Ahmadi and Mudassar Bukhari struggling with injury, he bore much of the burden as well as proving a dogged number eleven with the bat.
BdJ: Well it seems we find ourselves in furious agreement here. In light of expectations at the start of the season, coupled with the difficulties posed by the unavailabilities and injuries that dogged the Spartan seam section, I’d argue that Snoep leading his side to a top-four finish is a more impressive accomplishment than Voorburg’s deservedly claiming the silverware, and one that warrants the armband this year for Sparta’s skipper-chair. With ball in hand he was not only Sparta’s lead wicket-taker, but also the second most economical seamer in the competition behind only VCC’s Vivian Kingma who deserves a mention here as the only quick to go at less than 3.5 an over this season. At the other extreme we’d be remiss not to make some mention of Eduard Visser’s tally of 31 wickets, second best of the seamers and third overall behind only Overdijk and Ahmad by that metric, but the 752-run price tag attached puts him behind Klein for mine too, even before considering the latter’s title-sealing performance in the Grand Final.
RL: So, TKcricket’s Topklasse Team of the Year is:
Vikram Singh (VRA), Michael Levitt (Voorburg), Tayo Walbrugh (HBS), Garnett Tarr (Sparta), Sybrand Engelbrecht (Voorburg), Saqib Zulfiqar (Punjab), Hidde Overdijk (HCC), Shariz Ahmad (Voorburg), Ryan Klein (Voorburg), Daniel Doram (HCC), and Joost-Martijn Snoep (Sparta, captain).
12th man: Arnav Jain
TKcricket 