I have always been a firm believer that the glass is always half full, rather than half empty. The door is always half open rather than half closed and if I catch her eye and smile and she smiles back it means she is interested rather than she is laughing at me. In otherwords, I am an optimist and try to find the positive in everything.

The fourth team have now lost five in a row which I have to admit is trying my patience. Although I did have the impression that it was more than that and I am already feeling more positive to discover that our run of losses is only five. My optimism has been further fueled upon examination of Groningen's record which is only one win compared to our two (one of our three wins was as a result of a no show). Groningen is the team against we have judged ourselves for so long that the comparison is still valid.
 
The first difference I have found playing in third class compared to fourth is that when I lose the toss, the opposing captain has put us into bat everytime. In fourth class I won something like 14 tosses out of 16 and always elected to bat first and we almost always made enough runs to pressure the opposition into sacrificing wickets for run rate between overs 15 to 30. This has not happened this year except for our first game where we posted a total of 210 and won the game. Admittedly, we did chase down 263 at Hercules, and scored 190 to lose a high scoring game against Sailland two weeks ago. Apart from these three games we have failed to score over 140 in the rest of our games. So what am I doing wrong Ryan? Just because we have lost our last two games by 8 and then 7 wickets, does that mean if we had fielded first we would have lost by a similar margin? I think not, the mentality of the chasing team is very different if they are confronted by a 200 plus total than if they are confronted by a total of less than 140 and I will rethink my strategy after the coin toss in our remaining games. We are a bowling team and, an everybody takes part team, but that is difficult to fulfil if the opposition get the runs after only 28 or 29 overs. Therefore, for the sake of giving everybody a fair crack of the whip, which is the role of the fourth team as I see it, we will be fielding first from now on.
 
Now, onto the positives from the game. This week's game was against Kampong 3 who did not fulfil the season's earlier fixture but they are an excellent bunch of lads to which this skipper's very late departure after the game is testament. As I was discussing why the earlier fixture was not fulfilled, one of their team admitted that the grief in Sunday cricket was the reason Kampong have two Zami teams this year. We exchanged stories about bad experiences with Zeist and I made the point that if all the fair cricketers in Sunday cricket play on Saturday then what does that say about our resolve to defend the game we know and love (I hope someone with far more influence than me, in the KNCB, is reading this one but one idea I can think of is floating observers!!).
 
We started with our old opening patnership of Haney Zaidi and Robert Wolfe but Haney is not playing regularly and it shows when you have to decide whether to leave a ball outside the off-stump. If you are only playing 2 or 3 games a year I suppose you want to get on with it, so Haney decided to get on with it after only four balls and was caught behind off a ball that his partner, Robert Wolfe, would have left alone. A net or two might just be a good idea Haney! That brought Max Keen to the crease, who had the faintest of glove contact off his first ever ball in Dutch cricket and walked. Respect Max!!! From now on Max will be known as Mustard or even Colonel - work it out!! Slamdunk McKnob a potential new member dragged out of bed to fill in for Tim Lewis then came in and was bowled by a straight one and the score was 33 for 3 and my plan A was in tatters. After Bob Wolfe spooned one to mid-wicket to make it 35 for 4, plan B was also discarded. Nagesh and Paddy threatened to solidify things until Nagesh failed to middle a bad ball and the score was 66 for 4. Then when Akshat Jain, another new player, took one in the chin and had to go to hospital for a stitch (from a very good looking nurse by all accounts!!), I was rapidly running out of letters of the alphabet. I tried to support Paddy as best as I could but could not get off the mark and was forced to wear, and later umpire with, our newly re-discovered tour duck. The tail did not wag very much, however, Ganesh thankfully relieved me of the aforementioned duck. The innings closed on 132 for 9 off 40 overs with Patrick still there for an uncharacteristically stoical but very necessary 43 not out. Credit also to the Gimp for supporting Paddy through the last few overs.
 
Over lunch which was food, I decided that since we have failed to defend a similar score four times this season, we would attack it!. Three slips and opening with our fastest bowler from one end and a leg spiner from the other worked intitally when we had them at 18 for 2 and even at 61 for 3 I still thought we were in with a chance but with such a total there is no margin for error and a few miss fields and dropped catches saw Kampong reach the total after 28 overs. Special mention to Philip Spierings who is blossoming onto a real problem causing bowler who, with bit more luck, could have had far better figures than 5 overs 1 for 21.
 
ACC 4 - 132 for 9 off 40 overs.
Kampong 3 - 136 for 3 off 27.3 overs.
 
Kampong 3 won by 7 wickets.
 
The old king aka old mcdonald depending on the state of his surroundings