In this case I think it’s fair to say that we were guilty of a bit of overkill in this game. It was not so long ago that my concerns during tossing the coin would be can we bat 40 overs or do I have enough bowlers but that is all in the past now. Last Sunday in Haarlem the fourth team won their seventh match in a row. This one was against Red & White.
I won the toss again and of course since we are now a team full of scary monsters, we have mutated from David into Goliath, I elected to bat. Haney Zaidi and JW Beuker opened the batting, I was very pleased to welcome JW Beuker since he is giving me and Patrick some competition in the fatman department. The opening pair put on 25 then Haney, not for the first time this season, found a fielder with a square cut. Fraas did not stay very long at the crease but spent an hour sulking in the dressing room for his 2 runs meanwhile the scoring rate needed to increase so umpire Haney gave JW out lbw which brought the formidable pair of Umer and Richard Matchett who put on 135 with Umer eventually run out for 128 and Richard caught for 70. Our tail wagged enough to put on another 60 or so runs and we finished on 297 for 8.

Now to be fair Red and White did not look very competent in the batting department and with very dark clouds gathering it was important that we wrapped the game up quickly. One hour later Red and White were all out for 35 with Hans Smout taking eight out of the ten wickets, a textbook lesson in straight bowling. Matchett and Wolfe took the other two wickets. So there it is season over unless we play the last game against Qui Vive who have already won the pool with ACC4 second.

My thanks to everyone who has shared in the ACC4 experience this year – it has been a pleasure to lead such a talented bunch and let’s try to preserve our team spirit for next year.

Captain MacDonald