VCC v VRA at Voorburg, 25 May 1997 - Report
Hoofdklasse 1997, Round 6
VCC v VRA
Voorburg
25 May 1997
Result: VCC won by 136 runs
After winning the toss captain Nota decided to bat first. Batsman
Vroom had recovered from his backinjury and opened the batting with
Zulfiqar. In the first over Vroom decided immediately to take on the
off-spin bowling of Russel Kern. With two fours and a six the score was
at sixteen after 6 balls. But in the 3rd over Vroom (16) pushed his luck
too far and was caught at mid off by Houben in an attempt to hit a six
again on Kern's bowling. Nota, who has broken his finger in the match
against Hermes DVS, had more difficulties in scoring runs than Vroom due
to his broken finger. But Zulfiqar took the iniative to score the runs at
a faster rate. Especially when Leemhuis started bowling, Zulfiqar
accelerated. But after having scored 40 runs he misjudged a good lenght
delivery when he came out of his crease and was bowled. De Leede, back at
number 4, then worked on a good partnership with Nota. They scored their
singles and picked the loose balls for their boundary shots.
In the 36th over, 2 minutes before the lunchinterval, De Leede hit the
fifth ball of Groeneveld's bowling for six and then tried to hit the
sixth ball for six as well but was caught at long off boundary by De Man
for only 19 runs. So VRA took a very important wicket just at the start of lunch
with still only 117 runs on the board.
After the lunch Nota's (36) wicket fell too, so therefore van Bunge and
Bins, two youngsters, batted for the first time together in the
Hoofdklasse. With these two talented youngsters a quite interesting
partnership seemed to begin but after having scored 13 runs van Bunge was
given caught behind although he himself believed that the ball had not
hit his bat at all.
By that time Boerstra and Bins had to bat more aggressively because
there weren't so many overs left. They did that very well. With some
attractive batting they lifted the score to 193 runs for the loss of 8
wickets. Especially the batting of Bins (20 runs of 29 balls) was very
enjoyable.
At the last ball of the innings, L. de Leede was run out in an
attempt to take a second run. Boerstra was not out with 25 runs.
The attack of VCC started with some aggressive bowling by De Leede who
saw how Thampignan was dropped in the slips at the fifth ball of the
over. But Nota took this wicket in the second over with a very good
one-handed catch (while running backwards) by P. de Leede at backward
point. From that moment one there was an enormous pressure on the VRA batsmen.
This was mainly caused by the bowling of Zulfiqar and Vroom and the
very tight fielding of the VCC-side.
Only former VCC-player Houben seemed capable of withstanding the
pressure. But the fall of wickets at the other end and the defensive
batting of coach Neil Venter (brother of former VCC-coach Martin Venter)
slowed the scoringrate down and built up the pressure to such an
extent that Houben (18) couldn't withstand and was caught by Vroom at mid
off on the bowling of Zulfiqar. Venter kept on blocking the balls and was
not able to take the necessary singles and the middle-order batsmen
didn't produce any runs. Only late-order batsman Groot did an attempt to
break the VCC attack down. But after he hit a six on his fourth ball at
the bowling of Boerstra, he was caught with one of the best catches of
this season by Bins: at the bowling of Vroom, Groot tried to hit the ball
for six but Bins, fielding at long on, sprinted and caught the ball
one-handed at the boundary. This catch led to a big applause by the
homecrowd and the final collapse of the VRA innings.
The tailenders of VRA produced only one run and left themselves on 57
all out with spectacular bowling figures for the VCC-bowlers Vroom and
Zulfiqar (3 for 10 in 11 and 3 for 10 in 8). The figures of the other bowlers
were impressive as well:
De Leede (10 runs in 5 overs), Nota (1 for 11 in 6) and Boerstra (3 for
15 in 9). The good fielding resulted in cathes for L. de Leede, van Bunge
and Scott.
Contributed by Guus R. A. Beekhof (070046gb@student.eur.nl)