[by Ammar Zaidi] Our U17 team got their first win of the season against Quick Haag on a sunny day at Het Loopveld West by 8 wickets. Shirase Rasool top scoring with 53 and ending it MS Dhoni style with a six. This win gave our youth team a lot of confidence going forward in the competition and would love to continue these winning ways.
Our skipper lost the toss and we were sent into bowl first on a wet outfield. Due to this, the bowl got very wet, very quickly but our opening bowlers (Beau te Boekhorst and Arghem Khan) did extremely well to grab 3 early wickets in the first 5 overs with giving only 21 runs.
Our road to restrict them to a low total was set but then came in the experienced boys of the Quick Haag team, Govert Trappenburg and Tuen Landheer. They held the innings together until the 17 over and kept the scoreboard ticking on a regular basis. However, a mix-up in the running department and some exceptional work from Beau and Jamieson behind the wicket made sure that the bug man (Tuen) was sent back to the clubhouse without making any further damage. This was the moment in which we grabbed the game into our hands and never let go.
Then, 2 overs later Govert was bowled by Gopal Kandiyoor (who bowled a very economical spell, 5-1-9-1) and after that it was flurry of wickets by Gopal and Shirase to restrict the opposition to 126 in 30 overs and the boys in red and white knew that we could grab our first 2 points of the season. An honorable mention goes to Mees van Vliet who played his first ever U17 game and was always energetic on the field and even got to bowl an over which gave only 1 run. Well done boy!
Then we moved onto the batting department. Our top 4 batsmen did such an amazing job that we only took 21 overs to make 126 with the skipper making 53 not out and leading from the front. The openers had a strong stand as we made 60 from 8 overs by their help before Arghem was trapped in front by Govert. Then came in Aryan Kumar to play the balls of an in form left arm quickie but did well and played a bit of a supporting role for the captain but however, he perished as well when he left a ball coming into him and the wickets went out of the ground. Right now in a spot of worry, number 5 and number 6 batsmen started to pad up thinking they might need to take their team to the finish, however, Shreyas Potdar played a strong knock of 12 with the skipper once again to break through a fiery spell from Govert and take on the less reliable bowlers for the opposition.
That last ball was a beauty from the captain. The team needs 2 to win for victory and Skipper needs 3 for that 50. Well, why not do both? He smashed a loopy short ball over midwicket to get those runs for victory and those runs for that 50 to finish the game in style.
This is only the start for us and more memorable performances from our team are to follow as we will definitely bring the title home to Het Loopveld once again like we did in U12 and U14.
NOTE BY EDITOR: thanks for the excellent report, Ammar!