Rod Lyall 27/04/26
A piece of Dutch cricket history was rewritten at the Hazelaarweg on Sunday, when David Rushmere, Hermes’ new overseas, posted the highest score ever by a player on debut, plundering 169 from a hard-working but ineffective VOC attack.
27-year-old Rushmere, who played a couple of List A matches for South African provincial side Boland half a dozen years ago, came to the crease at 9 for one, and was watchful at first but then hammered a series of boundaries, including three in one over from former Dutch international Ahsan Malik.
Joined by Olivier Elenbaas with the score at 71 for three, he reached his half-century from 48 deliveries, and his century, the 18th time a player had achieved this in his first top-flight innings in the Netherlands, from 101 balls, by which time he had struck 16 boundaries.
Batting with supreme assurance and well supported by Elenbaas, he now expanded his range of shots, surpassing Tim Zoehrer’s debut record of 153 as the Hermes total reached 250 with seven overs remaining.
A tired Rushmere eventually fell to Malik when he was on 169, made from 140 deliveries with 26 fours and two sixes; his partnership of 184 with Elenbaas was a club record for the fourth wicket.
Elenbaas’s role had up to this point largely been taking singles to get Rushmere back on strike, and he reached his fifty, from 83 deliveries, just before losing his partner.
Now, however, he went on the attack, so effectively that when the final over began he had gone on to 84; Nick Statham gave him the strike with five balls left, but he could only manage 12 from them, and was left stranded on 96 not out, facing just 24 deliveries after passing fifty.
Hermes’ total of 328 for five always seemed likely to be beyond VOC, and although their new overseas Caleb Montague made 59 and they reached 94 for one in the first 15 overs of their reply, thereafter their challenge subsided, and they were all out for 192.
The pick of the Hermes bowlers was Sahil Kothari, whose four for 41 accounted for almost the whole of the VOC middle order.
There had been plenty of interest as well, some of it statistical, in the three matches played on Saturday.
Transformed over the winter from Punjab to Rotterdam CC, Sikander Zulfiqar’s side ran up the third-highest total in the club’s Topklasse history, their 338 against VRA Amsterdam at the Zomercomplex built around opener Musa Ahmad’s composed knock of exactly 100.
While he anchored one end, a succession of partners hammered the Amsterdammers’ bowling: coming in at 44 for three, Saqib Zulfiqar plundered a 60-ball 90 which included nine fours and five sixes, his brother Sikander compiled a relatively quiet 37 (but with three fours and two sixes), and then Burhan Niaz topped it off with a 42-ball 77, hitting five fours and six sixes to add to VRA’s misery.
Vikram Singh and Viraj Thakur each claimed three wickets as Rotterdam were all out off the last ball of their 50 overs, but former international (and Musa’s brother) Shariz Ahmad went wicketless, conceding 60 off his seven overs.
VRA were certainly not intimidated by this big total: skipper Teja Nidamanuru (55) and Singh (70) put on 134 for the first wicket in 20 overs, Singh smacking six sixes as he answered the Rotterdammers’ aggression in kind, and Johan Smal kept up the momentum with a solid 46.
But 105 were still needed with ten overs remaining, and by this time six wickets had fallen; it was now up to Udit Nashier, back with his old club, to finish the job, but although he made 59 from 43 deliveries the Rotterdam attack was able to hang on, and VRA finished 29 runs short of their target with the last pair together.
A fine all-round effort by Pierre Jacod, who made 52 and then claimed four for 30, was the key to Kampong’s successful start to the defence of their title, as they overcame HBS by 81 runs at Craeyenhout.
Young Joris van Oosterom had given the Crows a great start when he had international opener Max O’Dowd caught in the covers off the first ball he receeived, but a solid second-wicket stand of 72 between Damien van den Berg (42) and Scott Edwards (70) laid the foundations for a big total by Alex Roy’s Utrecht side.
Overseas Kent Goedeke and local seamer Benno Boddendijk bowled 20 overs on the trot as HBS skipper Tayo Walbrugh seemed content to let Kampong consolidate, only Van den Berg and Lorenzo Ingram falling during that passage of play, but once Julien de Mey had removed Edwards the middle order faltered, and it took Jacod’s half-century, his fourth in the Topklasse, and a run-a-ball 32 from skipper Roy, to get them to 256.
Lehan Botha took three for 54 for the Crows, while Van Oosterom returned to finish Jacod’s innings with a crushing yorker.
Roy started with the medium-pace of Shashank Kumar and Ingram’s left-arm spin, and although neither claimed a wicket they bowled tightly enough to have HBS already falling behind the asking rate.
Then Roy himself removed Goedeke and Walbrugh before running out danger-man Botha, and at 61 for four in the 21st over the home side’s challenge was starting to fade.
Keeper Lucas del Bianco did his best to hold things together with a defiant 65, but Jacod’s four-wicket haul ensured that there was no recovery, and when Del Bianco was the last man out the total was just 175.
The closest of Saturday’s matches was at Westvliet, where Voorburg, helped by an unbeaten century by opener Cedric de Lange, went into the final over before completing a four-wicket victory over HCC.
Put in to bat, HCC’s innings never really fired against a disciplined Voorburg attack, the star of which was Mees van Vliet with five for 53.
The Lions’ top and middle order got a series of starts, but only Shirsak Banerjee was able to build a substantial innings; he made 54 before he was freakishly run out, seamer Don Glover getting a boot to a powerful straight drive by Clayton Floyd and deflecting the ball onto the stumps with Banerjee stranded.
That was a key turning-point as HCC battled to recover from 140 for five, Ryan Klein having delayed their progress with an impeccable ten-over spell which conceded just 23 runs.
Josh Brown and Daniel Crowley chipped in with a 41-run ninth-wicket stand which helped their side to 230 for nine, and when Hidde Overdijk and Teun Kloppenburg reduced the home side to 70 for four it seemed as if HCC might be getting the upper hand.
De Lange, however, was still there, and although Voorburg were still in trouble at 150 for six with 14 overs remaining, that brought 17-year-old debutant Aarav Swaroop in to join the opener, just a year his senior.
The two teenagers proceeded to add 82 in an unbroken winning stand, De Lange finishing with 112 not out – his second Topklasse century – and Swaroop 43 not out.
Kloppenburg was the most successful of HCC’s bowlers with three for 28.
TKcricket 