It was raining when I woke up and by the time I arrived at United, the sky was clearing up.
Regarding motivation nowadays and in my time (sound old). The motivation to play cricket was always there, rain snow ice, nothing mattered.

Remember playing cricket in the winter (2000) outside with my brothers, that's how eager we. We just created a dozen tape balls just to get the ball to bounce and have a go.
The Vondelpark used to be our "main ground" with plenty of grass pitches available. Stopped playing there when we realized that we were much more of hitters and a park full of people, not spectators, is not a good combination. Thereafter our venture into club cricket began.

Back from memory lane. We knew from other teams that playing against United would be difficult and I'm not talking cricket performance wise. So the toss was important. I won and decided to field first.
Seemed an excellent decision when in the second ball the opener edged Zee's fast delivery towards 1st slip. The ball went past keeper and slip so fast that they didn't even have time to move. A strategy used to Zee's bowling is to block him or leave him and thus denying him wickets he deserves.
Ali has a tendency to become berserk when a player hits him for a boundary. His response is usually the ball hitting the batsman's stump. The only thing he doesn't do is ask the batsman which stump he wants to loose. A joy to watch and the legstump of their opener flew towards the boundary. This all happened in the 1st 8 overs. 8/1
Let's fastforward to over 26. This is where the 2nd wicket fell. It was a good length straight delivery towards middlestump. The batsman tried to cut Asif away but it was a bad shot selection and a wicket-maiden was the result. 168/2 in 25.
Over number 30. Again it was Asif's delivery that did the trick and the batsman got caught by Ali. 198/3
Four overs later, a mix-up by the batsman made them endup at Amir's (keeper) end. My sharp fielding skills (......) at mid off made sure that the ball was thrown at the right end.
Ali was standing there already with this hands in position to take the catch and whip off the bails. He took the catch but didn't take off the bail and was already celebrating. Glad he realized it a few seconds later and went back, took of the bail with the ball still in his hands. 220/4. A few boundaries here, a six there and they totalled at 250. Thanks to again Amir's keeping skills on such a small field (reminded me of Vondelpark) we should be glad not be chasing an even bigger total.

Bowling figures:
Zee: 10-1-41-0
Ali: 10-56-1
Asif: 6-1-40-2
Omar: 4-22

After a good prepared and nice lunch we started with the usual top 5.
Zeddy and Asif were hitting the bad and the good balls all over the place and after 6 overs we were on 38. Another bad ball was smacked hard towards me (square leg umpire) but the fielder took a good catch to safe me and send him home. 41/1
Saqib came in and from the first ball middled everything. Both took the score to 91 in 18 overs. In between rain showers passed by and the pitch was like a sponge.
Zeddy was the first victim with a ball staying low and hitting the stumps. 94/2
A few runs later, the same happened with Ali and even less runs later Saqib departed. All bowled. 102/4. Rain was really heavy now and we all went inside. To kill time we put on some music. We had different type of music playing from the phones from all round the room.
The most peculiar collection was Ali's. He had dance, latest Bollywood but also old folk tragedy songs (don't know why Ali put on Ataullah Niazi....). With special Mithai (sweets) from UK brought by Mehran it couldn't get any better. I was glad it rained, the opposition wasn't. With just four overs to go for result, they tried everything to lure us out of the dressing room. We tried everything to stay in dry.
In the end, it dried up and I had to go in.
Even though we were 102 in 20 overs, but with four main batsmen down and rain, this wasn't looking good. I welcomed the bowler with a first ball 6 over long on.
That was the only inspiring shot I played because the rest wasn't timed. During my batting, I also ran out Mehran on what seemed not to be a run at all. He already saw me coming and by the time I was half way, he also ran just to keep me in and sacrificing his own wicket. When I tried to hit another one over long on, from out of nowhere the fielder held on to that one and left me stunned. 125/5
Now on the crease were Khurram and Amir. Both were just told to enjoy as much as possible and see out the remainder of the overs.
With positive cricket both played their game, hitting boundaries, running singles and doubles. When they were about to accelerate, the bowlers started to complain about a too wet pitch to bowl on.
Skidding through etc. The senior players requested to stop play because it was getting a bit dangerous. I agreed and mutually we decided to stop play further. We shook hands and they won on runrate.
We fought in the end but we gave away too many runs which made it difficult to chase. 174 in 31 wasn't quick enough.
The only thing which makes us forget this game asap is their captain. As we decided to stop play, he wrote down in his book that I decided to stop and thus forfeiting the game.
Winning a game is one thing but this isn't the way. Too bad there are always captains who are just named captain and bring down a team even if the rest of the players are a nice bunch.

Batting figures
Zeddy: 34 (4x4) (67.4)
Khurram: 32* (2x4) (123.1)
Saqib: 31 (1x4) (56.4)
Asif: 19 (3x4) (105.6)
Abid: 14 (1x6) (107.7)
Amir: 12* (1x4) (52.2)

Man of the match: Khurram 

Abid Malik