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Rod Lyall 15/02/20

The draw for the KNCB’s new-look Twenty20 Cup has thrown up some extremely interesting group-phase encounters for when the competition gets under way in July.

Based on a seeded national ballot rather than the regional groups which have been used throughout the Cup’s 13-year history, the pools will bring new instances of some old rivalries, not the least of which is the Schiedam derby between Excelsior ’20 and Hermes-DVS with which Group A will open on 11 July.

The abandonment of the regional principle has necessitated a move from Friday-evening pool matches to a Saturday-afternoon programme, played between 11 July and 15 August, with the quarter-finals on 22 August and the traditional finals day, involving two semi-finals and the final, on the following Saturday, the day before the final round of Topklasse matches.

The seedings were based on the results of last year’s finals day, when VOC Rotterdam beat holders HBS Craeyenhout in the final, and on the 2019 standings in the Topklasse, Hoofdklasse and Eerste Klasse.

The outcome of the draw was:
Group A: Excelsior ’20, VRA Amsterdam, Quick Haag, Hermes-DVS, Ghausia Feyenoord.
Group B: VOC, Voorburg, Punjab Rotterdam, Rood en Wit Haarlem, Bloemendaal.
Group C: ACC, Dosti Amsterdam, Kampong Utrecht, Salland Deventer, Groen en Wit Amsterdam.
Group D: HBS Craeyenhout, HCC, Sparta 1888, VVV Amsterdam, Qui Vive Amsterdam.

In addition to the Schiedam derby, therefore, local fans can look forward to the Group B meeting between Rood en Wit and Bloemendaal (arguably the oldest surviving local derby in the Netherlands) on 18 July, the visit of holders VOC to promoted Topklassers Punjab in the same group on the same day, and the Amsterdam clash between ACC and Dosti in Group C on 1 August.

Group D not only features a meeting between HBS and HCC on 1 August, but also an encounter on 18 July between former Amsterdam neighbours VVV and Qui Vive, the latter newcomers to the competition by virtue of being the highest-placed first team in the Eerste Klasse last year.

While one aim of the restructuring was to ensure more even groups than have sometimes applied in the past, the mathematics inevitably meant that two pools would feature three Topklasse sides, with only two going through to the quarter-finals.

Those facing the tougher challenge are VOC, Voorburg and Punjab in Group B, and HBS, HCC and Sparta in Group D.

Victories by lower-division sides over their Topklasse rivals have tended to come few and far between in the T20 Cup, and have often been the result of top-flight clubs fielding weakened teams; if the new format succeeds in producing stronger sides, then, we may be in for even fewer upsets, although they are the essence of such a cup competition.

Rod Lyall 23/01/20

There are disturbing indications that the KNCB Board may be contemplating a curtailment of the 50-over men’s national championship in order to make more room for more Twenty20 matches.

These fears are inspired by an e-mail sent to all clubs last week by competitions co-ordinator Bart Kroesen, proposing significant changes to the programme from as early as the 2020 season.

The mail outlines a radically restructured T20 Cup, intended to address the widely-accepted problems with the existing format: the widespread lack of interest in the Friday-evening group matches, clubs’ difficulties in putting out full-strength sides for these games, and the disparities in strength between the four regionally-based groups.

Under the new proposals there would be four five-team pools, with a ballot largely based on last season’s 50-over rankings to determine their composition.

Since these groups could comprise teams as far apart as Deventer and Schiedam it would obviously be impractical to play the matches on Friday evenings, and Kroesen therefore proposes that the Cup be played on Saturday afternoons in July and August.

Clubs were given eight days, that is until Thursday, 23 January, to respond to this idea.

Although one might think this timescale was unreasonably short, especially in the middle of January, these proposals seem in themselves to offer a clear improvement in the T20 competition.

The sting, however, comes in the tail.

Clubs were in fact asked to choose between three options: the status quo, the proposed new-look T20 Cup, and a much more radical scheme, whereby the Top- and Hoofdklasse (the two top 50-over divisions) would be cut, ‘for example’ to a nine-match home-or-away first phase in place of the present 18-game home-and-away round robin, followed by play-offs among the top four and bottom six and a final.

This is presented as a way of avoiding double weekends with a T20 match on a Saturday and a 50-over league match on the Sunday, but its implications go much further.

We know from the Board’s consultation with the clubs back in September that there is anxiety about how the domestic competitions can be reconciled with an increasingly demanding national team schedule, not to mention the looming prospect of a month-long Euroslam T20 tournament.

So far-reaching are these challenges that the Board has established a Taskforce to consider all aspects of the future structure of the competitions.

Yet rather than waiting for that Taskforce to bring forward its recommendations – a process which is admittedly taking an inordinately long time – it appears that the Board has now decided to press ahead with a partial restructuring of its own.

The new-look T20 Cup may in itself be desirable, but a fundamental shift away from 50-over cricket towards a greater diet of T20 is another matter entirely.

It would do an injustice to the national team’s success in the ODI format, but much more important, it would ignore the importance of longer formats in the development of young cricketers, and it would threaten the longer-term future of the clubs, for whom the 50-over game is vitally important.

Coaches agree that an unrelieved emphasis upon T20 is bad for player development: if you haven’t learned the basic techniques in the longer formats you are, in most cases, unprepared for the much greater demands of T20.

Not everyone can be a David Warner, and young Dutch-produced players already find it difficult enough to make the transition to the international stage: there are many reasons why the national team contains so many players who learned their cricket elsewhere, but one of them is that they had the benefit from a young age of playing two-day club cricket.

So if the trend is to be less longer-format cricket in the Netherlands and more T20 the Board may as well come clean and abandon its declared objective of a national side with a greater proportion of home-produced players.

It’s easy to overestimate the attractions of T20: played at a level below that of the very best it can be a pretty hollow spectacle, and even in Australia there are signs that its appeal is waning.

Figures published this week show that attendances at the Big Bash have been declining for the past three seasons, even as the number of matches has increased, and this season are bumping along at barely 60% of the peak year 2016-17.

It may be that the suggestion of a reduced national championship is just a trial balloon, or an attempt to get the T20 Cup restructuring accepted by making it appear the less radical proposal, but we must hope that the good sense of the clubs will have made clear that it’s a non-starter.

And the Board should in any case do what it set out to do nearly a year ago: wait for the recommendations of its Taskforce and then come up with a comprehensive plan for the future of the Dutch domestic game.

Rod Lyall 23/09/19

What do we want the top divisions of the Dutch domestic competition to do?

Ideally, they should be a testing ground for the best young local cricketers, offering highly-competitive match situations and providing a showcase for the Dutch game.

That is, of course, an extremely idealistic view: for the clubs, the objective is to win the national championship – or at the very least, not to be relegated – and, wherever possible, to make a profit over the bar.

So there is inevitably a tension, between giving their young players a chance to shine and strengthening their squad by bringing in potential match-winners from overseas or from other clubs.

There’s a great deal of pious talk about the need to develop home-produced players, but when it comes down to it there are few clubs who would not give a key role to a star bowler or batter rather than invest in a young player who may or may not immediately be worth his place in the side.

And that was exacerbated this year by the collapse of the KNCB’s attempts to regulate the number of overseas players clubs are able to fly in for part or all of the season.

The main argument deployed in 2016 to justify the re-expansion of the top divisions to ten teams was that if the threat of relegation were reduced, with one team in ten facing the drop rather than one in eight, clubs would be more willing to pursue a proper development policy, giving promising young players their chance.

In my view at the time, the first part of the argument weighed much more heavily in the minds of club administrators than the second, and that has been proved right by subsequent events: there were actually more young Dutch players playing in the eight-team Topklasse in 2015 than in the ten-team competition this year – or, for that matter, in 2018, before the open-door policy on overseas players.

The truth is that some clubs were mostly interested in creating a cushion between themselves and the relegation zone by bringing in a couple of clubs who were weaker than they were, while others, lower down the rankings, could see that in three ten-team divisions they would have a better chance of moving into a higher bracket.

Still leaving the vexed question of the national team’s commitments and their impact upon the competition out of account for the moment, we return to the two objectives with which we began: which structure produces the best cricket, and which best fosters the emergence of talented young Dutch cricketers?

And it turns out that they are, in fact, closely related.

I remain convinced that there are simply not enough Dutch players of any age available to sustain ten competitive sides in the top flight.

Just take the statistics from the season just past: of the 45 batsmen in the Topklasse who achieved an average of 20.00 or better, 20 came from overseas, leaving 25 Dutch players who managed that basic level, and while the bowlers, as usual, did rather better – 32 of the 46 who had an average below 30.00 were Dutch – that still means that, throwing in a wicketkeeper for good measure, there was an average of three or four players per team who were essentially making up the numbers.

It will probably be argued in reply that this year’s Topklasse was the most competitive for years, and with four sides in contention for the title for the first dozen rounds or so and the relegation battle going down to the final round, that is undoubtedly true.

But did that indicate that the quality of Topklasse cricket has risen since the expansion to ten teams, or does it reflect a levelling down effect?

Even with the advent of an expanded cohort of overseas players this year, much of the cricket played was frankly disappointing, with several sides relying to an excessive degree on the performances of a small number of big-name players.

And that is surely linked to the relative paucity of youngsters who are pushing their way into their clubs’ first teams.

There are, of course, some notable exceptions: VRA’s Vikram Singh, who made his international debut last week, is a case in point, as are, to a somewhat lesser extent, ACC’s Shirase Rasool and Aryan Kumar.

But you can count such examples on your fingers, and as long as the present situation prevails that is unlikely to change.

There are numerous reasons for our being where we are: too few clubs have a coherent youth policy or even a youth section at all; the level of youth coaching Is at best uneven; the collapse of the under-19 competition and the current difficulties of the under-17 one mean that the opportunities for young players to develop their game against their peers are becoming ever more scarce.

In a healthy cricket environment, clubs’ second teams would be full of highly-motivated youngsters making runs and taking wickets and forcing themselves onto the selectors’ attention.

That is, however, hardly anywhere the case, and as what should be pathways disappear into the undergrowth the demotivating effects lead to more and more talented young players simply giving up.

That’s what’s so interesting about the Board’ idea of creating a separate development competition for the leading clubs’ second teams: if the clubs were to embrace this as a key part of their youth strategy (and I concede that’s a big if), the combination of a few experienced players as mentors and a bunch of talented youngsters could be the seedbed for stronger, home-produced first teams in three or five years’ time.

Along with that, though, there is a strong argument for reverting to a Topklasse comprising the best eight sides facing strong opponents almost every week, with the next best taking part in an equally hard-fought Hoofdklasse.

That would be a fair, realistic reflection of where Dutch cricket now is, with fewer than 2000 senior male cricketers of all ages playing at all levels, and it would give us the best chance of achieving that other objective of a national side in which Dutch-produced players are able to earn their place on their merits.

Rod Lyall 26/08/19

While Topklasse champions Excelsior ’20 performed their lap of honour at Thurlede on Sunday, most of the interest outside Schiedam centred on Capelle aan den Ijssel and Voorburg, where Sparta 1888 and Quick Haag were fighting to avoid relegation.

Having lost the toss at Sportpark Bermweg, Sparta made a great start against HCC, removing Tonny Staal and, crucially, Bryce Street with just 19 runs on the board.

But Adam Wiffen and Boris Gorlee restored HCC’s fortunes with a third-wicket stand of 71, and after Gorlee departed for 34 Wiffen (64) and Bharat Itagi (51) carried the total on to 174.

Even so, it looked as if HCC might struggle to get past 200 until Douwe Walhain and Olivier Klaus added a brisk 40 for the ninth wicket to get their side up to 237 for eight, a pretty imposing target at the Bermweg.

Martijn Snoep took three for 40 for Sparta, including the key wickets of Street and Itagi, while Andrew Fletcher claimed three for 59.

Sparta needed a solid start in reply, but Street and Ali Ahmed Qasim quickly accounted for the openers, and it was left to Tim de Kok and Mudassar Bukhari to work the side back into the game with a third-wicket stand of 72.

Once De Kok departed for 29, however, only Bukhari stood firm, taking 67 deliveries to reach his half-century as partners came and went.

The asking rate had been creeping upwards, but Bukhari now accelerated the scoring as the wickets continued to fall, Street taking four for 30 and Itagi three for 45.

Bukhari reached his century, the fourth of his career in the top flight and his first for Sparta, with nine wickets down, and when he was last out, caught by Walhain off Itagi’s bowling for 103, Sparta were still 36 short of HCC’s total.

By that time, however, it had become apparent that the relegation threat had disappeared, thanks to Quick Haag’s defeat by Voorburg at Westvliet.

The home side had reserved one of their more convincing batting performances of the season for their final game, reaching 175 for two before collapsing to 210 for nine.

Noah Croes led the way, sharing stands of 80 for the first wicket with Tom de Grooth (41) and 91 for the third with Nic Smit (46) before, with partners and overs rapidly disappearing, he was run out for 97 just one over from the end, looking to retain the strike and give himself a chance of reaching his second Topklasse century.

Quick were handicapped by the withdrawal from their attack of Prathamesh Dake, suffering from a hamstring injury, after he had bowled only three and a half overs, and it was Jeroen Brand who was the main wicket-taker with three for 43.

Jay Bista took two for 22 in ten extremely tight overs while Edgar Schiferli, back in the top flight for the first time this season, bowled a double wicket maiden at the end.

Brandon Glover and Viv Kingma produced hostile spells when Quick replied – the latter’s marred by a succession of no-balls – and even Jay Bista was unable to get his side off to its usual commanding start.

Glover eventually had him caught behind for 34, and although Geert Maarten Mol (31) and Brand (26) almost doubled the total in a fourth-wicket partnership, once Philippe Boissevain and Nic Smit came into the attack Quick seemed to have no answer.

Boissevain finished with four for 20 and Smit three for 16 as Quick were dismissed for 143, a result which ensured that they would be playing in the Hoofdklasse next season.

Far removed from any anxieties about relegation, Excelsior ‘20 completed their campaign with a 59-run victory over VRA Amsterdam at Thurlede.

The Amsterdam side had, of course, spent the first half of the season in the wooden spoon position themselves, but a rally thereafter had taken them to safety.

Sunday saw their opponents stage a rally of their own, when having been reduced to 112 for six, they were able to almost double their total thanks to a somewhat improbable stand of 90 between Sohail Bhatti, promoted to number six and celebrating the occasion with a maiden half-century, and David Woutersen, who made 32.

Bhatti was eventually dismissed by Brandon Graber for 54, but it was Ben Cooper who was VRA’s most successful bowler with three for 51.

VRA were never really in the hunt as they tried to chase down Excelsior’s 221 for nine, and although Vikram Singh made 28, Cooper 35 and Peter Borren 40, they were dismissed for 162, Lorenzo Ingram taking three for 19 for the champions.

There was another rally and another maiden demi-centurion at Hazelaarweg, where VOC Rotterdam’s tail staged a considerably more remarkable comeback against HBS Craeyenhout.

Berend Westdijk, Zak Gibson and Julian de Mey had combined to reduce the Rotterdam side, who had perhaps celebrated their previous day’s T20 Cup final victory over the same opponents a little too thoroughly, to 92 for eight, but then Bobby Hanif, in company first with Corey Rutgers and then with David Mullett, managed to get them up to 183 before Sharn Gomes removed him for a defiant 56.

Hanif then removed danger-man Tobias Visée for just three, but although two wickets for Ramdas Upadhyaya had HBS briefly in trouble at 37 for three, a fourth-wicket partnership of 138 between Zac Elkin (77 not out from 66 deliveries) and Gomes (71 from 55) took the Craeyenhout side to within nine runs of victory, and they completed the six-wicket win with more than 25 overs to spare.

At Het Loopveld ACC retained third place on the table by beating Dosti United by 35 runs.

Saqib Zulfiqar top-scored with 67, sharing a third-wicket stand of 77 with Shirase Rasool (36) and then brother Sikander held the middle and lower order together as Kuldeep Diwan cemented his position as the league’s leading wicket-taker with four for 15, bringing his tally for the season to 36 in just 14 games, and Saber Zakhil chipped in with three for 29 as ACC were dismissed for 196.

Rahil Ahmed and Vinoo Tewarie gave Dosti a great start with an opening stand of 84, but once Tewarie was trapped in front by Saqib Zulfiqar the innings again subsided alarmingly.

Four ducks, three of them the work of Brady Barends, saw Dosti slump to 101 for five, and when Ahmed became Barends’ fourth victim and departed for 58, it was left to Diwan (26) and Arief Hoseinbaks (16) to carry on the battle.

The side was eventually dismissed for 161, Barends finishing with four for 34 and Saqib Zulfiqar claiming three for 29.

Rod Lyall 19/08/19

Excelsior ‘20 clinched their third national championship in four years – and the twelfth in the club’s history – at Sportpark Drieburg on Sunday, and they did it in utterly convincing fashion, bowling out a greatly weakened Dosti United side for 61 and going on to win by 7 wickets.

Tom Heggelman’s side had fought their way to the brink of the title in recent weeks by defending modest totals, but this time they took immediate command of a match after Vinoo Tewarie had won the toss and elected to bat.

The game had been reduced to 45 overs after a morning of rain, but Excelsior needed only 31 and a half overs to run through a Dosti team in which Kuldeep Diwan was the only survivor of four overseas players and which was further depleted by the absence of injured key allrounder Anees Davids.

Rens van Troost did much of the early damage, taking four wickets for 11 in nine overs, and then Heggelman himself ran through the tail to finish with three for 11.

Only three Dosti players – Rahil Ahmed, Saber Zakhil and Waheed Masood – managed to reach double figures, Masood top-scoring with an unbeaten 16.

There was a brief stumble when Excelsior replied, two quick wickets followed by a third when 23 were still needed, but Brenton Parchment and Lenert van Wyk saw their side safely home with more than 27 overs remaining.

HCC consolidated their position as runners-up by beating VOC Rotterdam at De Diepput, but they had some nervous moments as they chased a seemingly-straightforward target of 158 and finally won by just two wickets.

Olivier Klaus, who had earlier taken three for 32 as VOC were dismissed for 157, was the hero at the end, hitting a four and a six to steer his side to victory.

Corey Rutgers top-scored for VOC with 46, while Matt Hay and Bharat Itagi picked up two wickets apiece.

The latter pair then shared a half-century partnership for the sixth wicket after HCC were in difficulties at 89 for five, Itagi matching Rutgers’ score and Hay making 35.

VOC were kept in the game by a surprising spell of bowling from Scott Edwards, better known as the national team’s wicketkeeper, who removed both Itagi and Hay and claimed three for 14 despite Klaus having the final word.

Apart from Excelsior’s title-winning effort the most significant match of the day was at Nieuw Hanenburg, where relegation-threatened Quick Haag were at home to their nearest rivals, Sparta 1888.

Batting first, Quick were given a great start by Jay Bista, who hit a 35-ball 54 which included five fours and four sixes.

Bob van Gigch was almost as effective, making 58 from 43 balls with four fours and four sixes, and a third half-century, from Jeroen Brand, saw the home side to 218 for four at one stage.

But then Sparta skipper Joost Martijn Snoep struck back, taking four for 21, and with Mudassar Bukhari claiming four for 47 Quick subsided to 258 all out.

Sparta’s response began steadily, and the innings was largely held together by Andrew Fletcher, whose 92-ball 78 was his best score of the season, but with wickets falling at the other end he was unable to keep his side up with the required rate.

Then Bista, having previously had Atse Buurman caught behind, settled the issue, bowling Fletcher and taking four more wickets, three of them outstanding catches off his own bowling to finish with six for 30 as Sparta were all out for 194.

The most exciting finish of the day came in the Amsterdamse Bos, where it took a two off the final delivery to give Voorburg a three-wicket victory over VRA Amsterdam in a match they had seemed certain to lose.

They were chasing VRA’s total of 218 for seven in a game reduced to 43 overs, a total which the Amsterdammers owed very largely to opener Vikram Singh’s 51 and captain Peter Borren’s 72-ball 87 not out.

When Haseeb Gul Mia ripped through Voorburg’s vulnerable top order and Borren chipped in to reduce the visitors to 47 for four a VRA win appeared the likely outcome, but Nic Smit answered Borren’s innings with an unbeaten 87 of his own, taking just five more deliveries, and sharing a stand of 77 with Philippe Boissevain (37).
Boissevain fell with 31 still needed, and although Smit and Viv Kingma stood firm 16 were needed from Borren’s final over.

Smit took nine off the first three balls, and then, unperturbed, Kingma hit a succession of twos to see his side home by the narrowest of margins.

At De Diepput’s second ground ACC moved back into third place by virtue of a 15-run victory over HBS Craeyenhout, thanks to 57 by Brady Barends, promoted to open the innings, and a stand of 108 between brothers Saqib and Sikander Zulfiqar, who made 80 not out and 70 respectively.

This took ACC to 249 for four from their 44 overs in another rain-reduced game, and that proved just enough to hold off HBS, who had Tobias Visée back in the side but missed Wesley Barresi.

Aryan Kumar removed Visée for 17, and although Zac Elkin made 34 it was left to Navjit Singh to keep HBS’s hopes alive with his 59.

But then Devanshu Arya clinched the game for ACC by removing Singh and running through the rest of the batting, ending with four for 36. Sikander Zulfiqar took three for 29 and HBS were dismissed for 234 in the 40th over.

The highlights of next week’s final round will be the matches between Sparta 1888 and HCC at Sportpark Bermweg and between Voorburg and Quick Haag at Westvliet, the outcomes of which will determine which of Sparta and Quick will play in the Hoofdklasse next season.

Rod Lyall 12/08/19

Excelsior 20’s continuing exercise in escapology was again in evidence at Thurlede on Sunday when, having collapsed from 105 for four to 169 all out against HBS Craeyenhout, they struck back to dismiss their opponents for 107 and move to within a single victory of claiming the Topklasse title.

The last remaining challenge comes from HCC, whose 42-run win over ACC at Het Loopveld gave them at least the mathematical possibility of overhauling the leaders, but to do so they would need not only to beat VOC and Sparta but to see Excelsior lose to Dosti and VRA.

The toss proved to be a crucial factor at Thurlede, since Tom Heggelman was able to give his batsmen first use of conditions which were most favourable in the first hour and which became steadily more perilous thereafter.

Tim Etman and Roel Verhagen, assisted by some wayward bowling from the HBS seamers, took full advantage, racing to 52 off the first ten overs despite the loss of Etman himself and Lorenzo Ingram, and then Brenton Parchment made a solid 49 before his dismissal triggered the loss of four more wickets for just 14 runs.

Farshad Khan was the pick of the HBS seam attack with three for 16, while Wesley Barresi claimed three for 24, including the crucial wicket of Parchment.

Parchment and Heggelman struck back immediately when HBS replied, removing both openers in the space of the first eight deliveries, and the Craeyenhout side never really recovered.

Sharn Gomes worked hard for his 34, but as Excelsior’s bowlers revelled in the increasingly difficult conditions for batting it soon became evident that the cause was hopeless.

Rens van Troost took three for 25 and Parchment and Ingram collected two apiece as HBS were dismissed in just 40.3 overs.

Given a great start by skipper Tonny Staal (43) and Adam Wiffen (44), who put on 85 for the first wicket, HCC posted the highest total of the day with 301 for seven.

Both were eventually dismissed by Devanshu Arya, who went on to claim two more wickets and finish with four for 38, but a fifth-wicket stand of 103 between Bryce Street and Hidde Overdijk put HCC back on top.

Overdijk’s 64 came from just 47 deliveries with seven fours and three sixes, while Street was still there at the end, finishing on 113 not out from 110 balls, with eight fours and three sixes.

ACC’s reply seemed to be foundering at 92 for five, but then Brady Barends joined Sikander Zulfiqar, and their stand of 79 kept the home side’s hopes alive.

Barends went for 43, but Zulfiqar continued in company with the tail, making 96 before he was last out, caught by Overdijk off Street’s bowling, with ACC still 42 behind; he faced 95 deliveries and struck five fours and four sixes.

Sparta 1888 improved their chances of remaining in the Topklasse with a 62-run victory over VOC Rotterdam at Sportpark Bermweg, but the match took a dramatic turn when VOC’s Dirk van Baren collapsed while bowling and was taken to hospital suffering from chest pains.

He was subsequently able to return to the ground, but the incident caused the game to be reduced to 44 overs a side, and Sparta, 82 for two at that point, reached 206 for six, setting VOC an adjusted DLS target of 213.

Sparta’s total came in large part from a stand of 86 for the third wicket between Tim de Kok (40) and Mudassar Bukhari (71), boosted by 37 not out from Manminder Singh in the closing overs.

Former international Bukhari then further proved his value by grabbing two early wickets, including that of Max O’Dowd, and although Pieter Seelaar made 58 VOC, with Van Baren unable to bat, were all out for 150.

Bukhari and Max Hoornweg shared the wickets, taking four for 36 and four for 32 respectively.

Sparta’s main rivals in the relegation battle, Quick Haag, gave VRA Amsterdam some uncomfortable moments at Nieuw Hanenburg but ultimately lost by three wickets thanks to an unbeaten 80 from Vikram Singh.

Quick were again given a flying start by Jay Bista after Daan Vierling had elected to bat first, the Indian opener smacking a 48-ball 51 before he was caught by Quirijn Gunning off Haseeb Gul Mia’s bowling.

With solid contributions from Geert Maarten Mol (32) and Jeroen Brand (37) Quick managed to reach 211 before they were dismissed in the penultimate over, Leon Turmaine the most successful of VRA’s bowlers with three for 31.

Singh then guided his side to victory with a maturity which belied his years, sharing valuable stands of 55 with Ben Cooper (who made 43 of them) and 77 with Turmaine (36).

But Eric Szwarczynski, Peter Borren and Emile van den Burg all went cheaply, and with two run-outs and Quirijn Gunning nursing a suspected broken hand, it was left to Singh to finish the job in company with Brandon Graber.

At Sportpark Drieburg Dosti United were much too strong for Voorburg, bowling them out for 137 and winning by a massive 146 runs.

The Amsterdam side’s total of 283 for eight was built on 89 from opener Rahil Ahmed, assisted by 46 from Abhinav Bali, and then a middle-order collapse was reversed by a remarkable innings from Kuldeep Diwan who, coming in at eight, hammered an unbeaten 76 in the closing overs.

Voorburg were soon in trouble in reply, Diwan removing Clayton Floyd and Nic Smit to reduce them to 29 for three, and although Noah Croes made a defiant 53 and Conrad Greenshields hit an unbeaten 42, the innings ended in just 35.2 overs.

Asief Hoseinbaks had his best return of the season with four for 34, Diwan finishing with two for 16 and Bali two for 31.