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Rod Lyall 08/07/19

The Topklasse produced one of those days on Sunday on which all the glorious – some might say perilous – uncertainty of cricket was displayed to the full.

It was a day when the side leading the table was skittled for 75; when the bottom side pulled off a win against one of the top four; when the highest-scoring match yielded more than three times as many runs as the lowest; and when teams from opposite ends of the table managed to tie.

On a day of surprises the biggest shock came at Westvliet where Voorburg, having collapsed to 122 all out, dismissed leaders ACC for 75 and won by 47 runs.

It had all begun conventionally enough after Saqib Zulfiqar invited the home side to bat first: Tom de Grooth and Matt Smit put on 34 for the first wicket, and even at 73 for two with Noah Croes and Nic Smit at the crease everything seemed normal.

But then the middle order crumbled, four wickets fell for five runs, and it took some notable resistance from Viv Kingma and Brandon Glover to get the total up past the hundred.

Saqib Zulfiqar engineered the collapse with three for 31, while Anis Raza and Devanshu Arya picked up two each.

What should have been a routine chase soon turned into a rout: Rehmat Zulfiqar kicked off with 22 and brother Saqib made 16, but no-one else managed double figures as the Amsterdammers slumped from 62 for three to 75 all out, Viv Kingma running through the middle order to finish with three for 17 and Phillipe Boissevain cleaning up for three for 7.

Excelsior ‘20 were unable to take full advantage of events at Westvliet, but the one point they took from their tied match against Sparta 1888 at Sportpark Bermweg was enough to lift them clear at the top of the table.

Batting first, Sparta battled their way to 181 for eight, thanks to a dogged 72 not out from Andrew Fletcher – his most significant Topklasse innings to date – and an eighth-wicket stand of 59 between him and Sawan Sardha after Excelsior’s bowlers had reduced the hosts to 113 for seven at one stage.

Tom Heggelman removed both openers in a six-over spell, but it was Rens van Troost who dismissed both Mudassar Bukhari and Atse Buurman to put his side in the driving seat.

But Fletcher stood firm, seeing it through to the end, and at bowler-friendly Bermweg 181 seemed like a defensible total.

Tim Etman and Roel Verhagen started the chase promisingly with an opening stand of 50 and Verhagen went on to make 51, but Sparta’s attack whittled away at the batting, and when Heggelman was eighth out with the total on 139 it looked as if Excelsior, too, were destined to lose.

Van Troost and Umar Baker added 26 precious runs for the ninth wicket, however, and after Baker was out LBW to Fletcher Sohail Bhatti joined Van Troost in a last-wicket stand which brought their side to the brink of victory.

Eight runs were needed off the final two overs, six off the next meant that only two were required; a wide from Fletcher levelled the scores, but a succession of dots meant that one was still required off the final delivery – the batsmen ran, Fletcher gathered and threw, and Van Troost was run out.

If the bowlers were generally in charge in these two games, elsewhere it was the batsmen who prospered.

Nowhere was this more true than at Nieuw Hanenburg, where VOC ran up a massive 338 for six – the highest total of the season – against Quick Haag, and where Jay Bista then produced a superb century in a losing cause.

Bista’s effort was more than matched by Max O’Dowd, who continued his Bradmanesque run of form with a 124-ball 127 for VOC, hitting nine fours and six sixes and sharing in a fourth-wicket stand of 162 with Scott Edwards, who made 79.

Once O’Dowd and Edwards had departed, both victims of Prathamesh Dake who took three for 62, Jelte Schoonheim, Ashiqullah Said and Pierce Fletcher piled on the misery for Quick, Fletcher rubbing it in by hitting four consecutive sixes off Geert Maarten Mol’s final over of the innings.

Undaunted by the size of the task they faced, Bista and Bob van Gigch put on 111 in less than 16 overs as Quick replied, Van Gigch making 43 before he was bowled by Pieter Seelaar.

With wickets now falling steadily at the other end Bista continued in devastating style, his half-century coming from 42 deliveries and his hundred from 72; in all he hit nine fours and four sixes before falling to a catch on the long on boundary off Schoonheim when he had made 109.

The result was no longer in doubt, but Daan Vierling (36) and Thijs van Schelven (18) kept the fight going, and the total had reached 276 by the time Dake became Ashiqullah’s third scalp at a cost of 46 and VOC won by 62 runs.

In the Amsterdamse Bos VRA’s resurgence continued at the expense of HCC, who thus failed to take advantage of the two leaders’ lapses.

VRA’s win, though, meant that they rose from the foot of the table, overtaking Quick Haag and moving within sight of the other stragglers.

The architects of their 35-run victory were once again Eric Szwarczynski (71) and Peter Borren (66), whose 135-run partnership for the fourth wicket enabled them to reach a solid 230 for six after having been 60 for three at one stage.

With Adam Wiffen leading the charge HCC started strongly in response, but with wickets falling at the other end it took a stand between Wiffen and Boris Gorlee to give them a realistic chance of achieving their target.

The turning point came when Quirijn Gunning returned to the attack and removed Wiffen for 83; although Gorlee stood firm, wickets continued to fall and the required rate crept upwards, with Debrup Dasgupta taking three for 36 and Leon Turmaine three for 39 as HCC were eventually dismissed for 195, Gorlee the last to go for 66 – his highest Topklase score.

The biggest partnership of the day came at Sportpark Drieburg, where Zac Elkin and Sharn Gomes added 211 for the second wicket for HBS Craeyenhout against Dosti United.

Tobias Visée had gone early, falling to Dosti’s tactic of opening with spinner Kuldeep Diwan, but then Elkin and Gomes took over, batting together for 42 overs and pushing the total well past 200.

Gomes was the first to reach his century, with his partner following soon afterwards, and after Elkin was caught by Waheed Masood off Taruwar Kohli’s bowling for a 141-ball 104 which included seven fours and two sixes, Gomes pressed home the advantage with Wesley Barresi, whose first run took him past 7000 in the top flight.

Gomes finished on 123, made from 137 deliveries with ten fours, and Barresi on 25, which took him just ten balls, as the innings closed on 273 for two.

That proved too much for Dosti, despite another heroic effort from Kohli – he made 84 as wickets fell around him, and apart from an 80-run stand with Anees Davids for the fifth wicket he was unable to find partners who stayed with him for any length of time.

Gradually the required rate climbed out of reach, and eventually he was caught on the boundary by Julian de Mey off Berend Westdijk with 61 still needed and just one wicket remaining.

The innings ended soon afterwards on 213 and HBS won by 60 runs, the wickets shared among Westdijk, Wessel Coster, Zak Gibson and De Mey.

Rod Lyall 01/07/19

Like a ship struck amidships the Topklasse table broke into two on Saturday, as the gap between the top four and the rest extended to six points with only seven rounds still to play.

There is still plenty to play for at both ends of the table, however, with the leading four sides all winning to stay in contention for the championship and VRA’s defeat of VOC lifting them to within one win of potential relegation candidates Sparta 1888 and Quick Haag.

There were dominating performances by the co-leaders, ACC and Excelsior ’20 and by their closest rivals HCC, all of whom posted comfortable home victories.

ACC restricted Quick Haag to 164 for nine at Het Loopveld, a total which they had little difficulty in passing for the loss of five wickets.

Brady Barends was again the spearhead for ACC, trapping Jay Bista in front when he had made just four and cleaning up the tail to finish with five for 27, while Saqib Zulfiqar took three for 28, including the scalp of Bobby van Gigch, who had made 45 and shared a 50-run partnership for the third wicket with Geert Maarten Mol.

That left Mol to try to hold the rest of the innings together: his unbeaten 70 enabled Quick to get as far as they did but, Jeroen Brand apart, he received little support from the rest of the side.

Rehmat Zulfiqar then hit a splendid 84 not out to steer his side to victory, dominating a 97-run stand for the second wicket to which his partner, Shirase Rasool, contributed just 28.

Once Rasool was dismissed by Van Gigch the ACC chase faltered slightly, but Rehmat and his brother Sikander took them to within five runs of their target, and it was all over with more than 13 overs left.

Excelsior’s 90-run victory over Voorburg at Thurlede was almost equally convincing, although Voorburg did well initially to dismiss the Schiedam side for 192.

It would, indeed, have been a good deal less had Voorburg held their catches or even been less prodigal with their wides, but nevertheless there were excellent bowling performances from the new-ball pairing of Viv Kingma, who took three for 27, and Brandon Glover, and from Stef Mulder, who turned in a splendid eight-over spell without being rewarded with a wicket.

The Excelsior innings was disrupted early by the retirement of Tim Etman with back problems, although he returned later to be last man out for 37.

All the top order got a start, but the top score of 38 came from Joost Kroesen and no-one else looked likely to get on top of the bowling.

Voorburg found conditions even more difficult when they replied, and once Tom Heggelman and Brenton Parchment had reduced them to 27 for four the outcome was virtually settled.

Nic Smit stayed almost to the end, recording the only half-century of the match with a dogged 52, but otherwise only Philippe Boissevain managed to reach double figures as Heggelman and Rens van Troost cut a swathe through the batting, and the side were eventually dismissed for 102.

It was a similar story at De Diepput, where HCC, defending a total of 201, dismissed Dosti United for 157 to win by 44 runs.

Bryce Street was once more the mainstay of the HCC top order, making a 76-ball 64 to take his side to 155 for four, with skipper Tonny Staal contributing 35.

Thereafter Kuldeep Diwan cut through the middle order to finish with four for 22, and with two wickets each for Anees Davids and Taruwar Kohli Dosti seemed to be fairly well placed at the innings break.

Abhinav Bali led the way with 48 when Dosti replied, but with Kohli and Amitoze Singh again going for relatively modest scores the game was swinging the home side’s way, with Rahil Ahmed the only significant contributor thereafter.

Bharat Itagi ran through the lower order and when he dismissed Ahmed as well, bowled after making a defiant 42, the result was settled. Itagi ended with five for 22, his best figures for HCC.

HBS Craeyenhout had to endure some nervous moments before overcoming Sparta 1888, despite having once again posted the highest total of the day with 298 for seven.

The HBS top four again set a cracking pace, led by Tobias Visée’s 18-ball 37 and consolidated by Zac Elkin (70), Sharn Gomes (42) and Wesley Barresi (68).

But then Mudassar Bukhari put the brakes on somewhat in the closing stages, taking four for 50, and HBS closed just short of the 300 they had at one point seemed certain to pass.

Berend Westdijk set Sparta back on their heels by removing both openers in the first over of the reply, but first Garnett Tarr and Andrew Fletcher, with a third-wicket stand of 72, and then Tarr and Bukhari, who added 113 for the fourth, responded powerfully to the challenge.

Westdijk eventually removed Tarr for 83 with the total on 187, but Bukhari continued in tandem with Atse Buurman to bring the score to within 70 of the target.

Bukhari’s dismissal by Wessel Coster, the last of four catches behind the stumps for Visée, when the former international allrounder had made a 75-ball 87, marked the effective end of the chase, and although Buurman remained not out on 32 the innings closed 35 runs short.

Westdijk was the most successful of the HBS bowlers with four for 54.

There was another spirited chase in a high-scoring match at Hazelaarweg, where VOC Rotterdam failed by just 11 runs to match VRA Amsterdam’s 290 for five.

The foundation of VRA’s largest total of the summer was a fine 121 from Emile van den Burg, his second top-flight century, who after partnerships of 77 with Vikram Singh (31) and 46 with Ben Cooper, shared a stand of 140 for the third wicket with Peter Borren, who made a 67-ball 82.

For the second week in a row the VOC attack wilted in the heat, Pieter Seelaar trying ten bowlers, he himself the most successful with two for 40.

VOC were in trouble at 63 for three with Max O’Dowd one of those back in the pavilion, but then Seelaar and Scott Edwards mounted a fightback, their fourth-wicket stand of 180 equalling the best of the season and taking their side to within at least a distant sight of victory.

Ben Cooper, who had taken a total of only 11 wickets in four seasons before this year, now seized his moment, removing Seelaar for 93 with 48 needed and then, even more crucially, Edwards for 91 with VOC still 27 short.

The tail got them to within 16 as Cooper’s final over started, but he allowed only four runs and claimed another wicket to leave VOC on 279 for nine and finish with four for 57.