News

Rod Lyall 23/06/2023

With four or five round robin matches to play in this season’s Topklasse T20 Cup, the contest to reach the semi-finals day is beginning to take shape in earnest.

VRA, Punjab, HCC and VOC have gained the inside running, and for those below them in the table the challenge will be to put together a sufficiently consistent winning streak to ease past one or more them.

Excelsior ‘20, for example, will have a chance to gain ground on VOC when they welcome them to Thurlede on Saturday, and to reinforce their challenge when they take on Sparta 1888 later in the day.

VOC go into their Thurlede encounter three points ahead of their hosts, partly by virtue of their rained-off game against Sparta, and Excelsior will need to make sure of the points to give themselves a realistic chance of finishing ahead of them in the final table.

You could say that Voorburg lost their match in the Amsterdamse Bos last week rather than Excelsior winning it, but there were some positives, notably Michael Hart’s half-century and the bowling of Roel Verhagen, who claimed seven wickets for 33 runs across the day’s two games.

For VOC, a highlight of last week’s victory in Deventer was the part played by debutant Peter Recordon, and it would not surprise if he were to become a regular member of the Rotterdammers’ at times rather wobbly batting line-up.

Sparta, Excelsior’s second opponents, remain somewhat enigmatic, personnel issues no doubt contributing to their relative lack of success so far after having performed well in the longer format, but they will be hoping that their own win at Salland will set them up for a much-improved latter half of this competition.

Voorburg, seeking to recover from a deeply disappointing tri-series in the Amsterdamse Bos last week, will face another difficult assignment when they travel to the Zomercomplex to take on high-riding Punjab, although they may feel more confident when they play Salland in their second game.

Without not only their internationals but also such stalwarts of the 50-over side as Sybrand Engelbrecht and Karl Nieurwoudt, Voorburg’s youthful batting line-up twice failed to post triple figures last Saturday, and in their current constellation far too much devolves upon Musa Ahmad both with the bat and the ball.

Punjab appear, of all the sides in the competition, to have a combination ideally suited to the T20 format, and two wins this week would virtually guarantee them a place in the semi-finals.

For Salland, on the other hand, the challenge is to get themselves off the bottom of the table and away from the threat of relegation, but although Venkat Ganesan and Talha Ahmed were in good form with the bat last week there was otherwise little sign of an upward turn in their fortunes.

Among the pursuers ACC have the most daunting task of the weekend, taking on leaders VRA Amsterdam and third-placed HCC, admittedly both at Het Loopveld.

They put up a spirited fight against Punjab last week, but it will be a source of concern that their bowlers have twice conceded 200 in successive games, and both VRA and HCC have the batting power to take full advantage of any weaknesses in opposing bowling.

Thomas Hobson and Anis Raza continue to perform consistently with the bat, Raza also doing well with the ball, but the rest of the side seems unable to give them the support they need in either department, and they will need to do so if they are to come away from Saturday with points from either game.

Even without Singh, Dutt and Nidamanuru VRA have emerged as genuine title contenders, although their top-of-the-table position on NRR owes a good deal to their comprehensive thumping of Salland a couple of weeks ago.

But their attack, the seam of Ashir Abid, Aaditt Jain and Eduard Visser balanced by the spin of Udit Nashier and Leon Turmaine, is well suited to the format, and with Johan Small in good form with the bat they have a very good chance of at least reaching the semi-finals.

The same applies to HCC, the top-order collapse against HBS last Saturday notwithstanding: Ratha Alphonse has proved a model of consistency, and although Jonathan Vandiar has yet to cut loose at his most expansive, he remains a looming threat.

Hidde Overdijk, too, is a key figure with both bat and ball, and Daniel Doram’s control with the ball causes plenty of problems for opposing batters.

Form would suggest that both VRA and HCC will keep up the pressure on Punjab, but T20 being what it is, it would be rash to rule out a surprise.

My picks: Punjab, HCC; VOC; Voorburg; VRA; Excelsior; Punjab.