Rod Lyall 19/08/24
With one round-robin round remaining there are still issues to be resolved in the Championship Pool of this year’s Topklasse, ensuring that there will be plenty of excitement all the way to the finishing line.
Punjab-Ghausia and HCC all but made sure of the top two spots on Sunday, but VRA Amsterdam could still upset the applecart by beating the Lions in the Amsterdamse Bos next week and squeezing past them on net run rate, while HBS Craeyenhout, currently fifth, would overtake defending champions Voorburg were they to beat Hermes-DVS and Voorburg lose to Punjab.
Leaders Punjab certainly hammered home their advantage at the Zomercomplex on Sunday, dismissing HBS for 152 and then cruising to a nine-wicket victory in just 21.4 overs.
Converted into a batting allrounder, Lucas Del Bianco was the only HBS batter to look comfortable against the Punjab attack, making a solid 59, and then bowled with genuine pace when the home side replied.
But the rest of the Crows’ line-up had no answer to the nagging accuracy of Suleiman Tariq and Khurram Shahzad, while Shoiab Minhas cleaned up the tail with four for 15.
Minhas then shared an opening stand of 132 with Jonathan Vandiar, who smacked a 51-ball 62, including seven fours and four sixes; Minhas was more restrained, his unbeaten 69 coming from 67 deliveries and seeing Punjab to the win in company with Asad Zulfiqar.
HCC were scarcely more troubled in completing a six-wicket victory over Hermes-DVS at De Diepput, a result which ended the promoted Schiedammers’ last faint hope of reaching the semi-finals.
Murid Ekrami, another makeshift opener in the absence of Daniel Doyle, made an aggressive 66 at the top of the Hermes innings, sharing an opening stand of exactly 100 with Ash Ostling (34), but the rest of the batting crumbled against an HCC attack in which Hidde Overdijk was the star with four for 38.
Sebastiaan Braat did his best to keep his side in the game with three for 36 when HCC replied, but with Tonny Staal contributing a hard-hitting 75 and Jed Wiggins making a composed 55 not out, the Lions made sure of the win with almost 20 overs to spare.
Battling with national team commitments and their second team’s relegation struggles, Voorburg went to the extreme lengths during the week of flying in Otago left-handed allrounder Oliver White, but he was unable to change the outcome of his new side’s match against VRA at Westvliet.
The Amsterdammers posted the highest total of the day with 235, largely thanks to Elijah Eales’s 73, with smaller contributions from Johan Smal (39) and Luke Scully (30), Mees van Vliet taking three for 62 for the champions.
Voorburg were soon in trouble against the left-arm pace of Ben Fletcher and Ashir Abid, but it was the off-spin of Leon Turmaine, who claimed five for 36, four of his victims dismissed leg-before, as the home side collapsed to 145 all out.
It might have been even worse but from a defiant 36 from Tom de Leede, batting at nine, who ensured that 54 runs were added by the last two wickets.
All three Championship Pool matches followed the form book, but the day’s big surprise came at Het Loopveld, where already-relegated ACC pulled off their first win of the competition, beating VOC Rotterdam by five wickets.
The bowlers played their part by restricting their visitors to 194 for nine, Jason van der Meulen top-scoring with 40, but the victory was crafted by Ben van der Merwe, who reached a richly-deserved century when he took the winning single, finishing on 100 not out.
He had shared a solid third-wicket stand of 126 with Izhaan Sayed (54) which had laid the foundations of the win, but thereafter he dominated the innings, only 17 of the remaining runs coming from his partners, who were largely content to hold up one end and prevent the mid-order collapse which has caused the Amsterdammers so many problems this season.
The other Relegation Pool match was a strange affair, reduced to 40 overs a side because of issues with the mat at the Bermweg.
The game between Sparta 1888 and Excelsior ’20 was just five deliveries old when there was a delay because of a dangerous hole in the pitch, causing a reduction of eight overs a side, and after a further, briefer interruption for more repairs another two overs were lost.
Cameron Fraser and Martijn Snoep put Excelsior under early pressure, but a 110-run stand for the third wicket between Derek Mitchell (71) and Lorenzo Ingram (62) gave their side a basis for a decent total before Khalid Ahmadi engineered an extraordinary collapse, four wickets falling in six deliveries as the Schiedammers went from 171 for six to 171 all out.
Ahmadi claimed three of them, finishing with four for 31, Max Hoornweg picking up the other for figures of two for 26.
Sparta were soon in desperate trouble at 11 for three, but Juandre Scheepers held the innings together, adding 82 for the fifth wicket with Fraser (35) and finishing on 92 not out as the Capelle side won by four wickets with 26 deliveries to spare.
TKcricket 