First in - ACC:  188/8 after 35 overs
HCC:  189/4 after 33 odd overs
As is our habit, ACC Zami convened at the FEBO (known for its culinary delicacies) to flock like birds of feather to The Hague.  The unanimously decided goal:  to trash HCC.  Sounded easy enough.  What else is vanity and over-confidence good for?

On arrival it was made clear that our cricketing skills were less valued than those of the U-18 teams (justifiably so judging from the ACC scorecard afterwards).  The antics of Zami cricket were demoted to the corner for beginners, the astro hockey pitches hid away at the back-end of the club.

With rain being forecasted for later in the afternoon it was decided to bat (this might not be the real justification for our choice, but still, sounds logical, right?).  After a single over the score had rocketed from 0 to 18 in about 300.4 seconds, partly due to some dodgy bowling and colonial-style batting.  Within two overs from time t=0 the scorecard however read 20/1, the consequence of dreadful pull stroke.  Batsmen two and three continued in good fashion with occasional boundaries and regular singles/twos.  That is until catching practice was resumed at point (at least two chances have to be given per position).  The top order unfortunately failed miserably to ascertain their dominance and flopped like fishes in an ever shrinking pond.  Fortunately Nagesh, JW “Cave” Beuker and Hasrat redeemed ACC’s reputation somewhat with some glorious boundaries, including a smashing six over long-on by Nagesh.  Hit the rubbish I say.  On a pitch were 250+ should easily have been scored, in combination with mostly wobbly bowling, ACC managed to scrape together the sum of 188 runs after 35 overs, a score deemed more than defendable for the cricket-minded among us.

After a hearty lunch reminiscent of the good ol’ times at mom’s place, we resumed our battle with the Hagenaars.  With the clouds snarling more ominously towards us, we started bowling like a combination of terriers and windhounds – doggedly and pacy.  With the opening bowling spell of Nagesh and Irfan winds of hope carried us forward, almost literally.  With no help whatsoever from his fielders, Irfan decided to get the job done on his own.  A brilliant lbw decision was awarded to him.  Couldn’t have agreed more from my vantage point at gully.  With tenacious and determined batting, their star batsmen Mr Crichton accumulated steady runs for HCC.  Then the rain hit.  More like settled.  After 25 odd overs, with a relatively good grip on the match still, we were swimming between our positions between overs.  The bowlers had a terrible time trying to grip, rip and flip the ball while also trusting their skiing skills on landing.  Daniel Fesenthal would probably have taken 8 wickets (his own words) if the sky hadn’t cried with such gusto.  Gutsy performances from all the bowlers however was unable to defend the score of 188, with HCC scoring a few lucky boundaries at the end.  With an over and a bit to go the game was sealed with a slog over covers.   We were weighed, measured and found wanting.

For his controlled innings the ACC team would like to humbly congratulate their top-scorer of the match, the gracious Mr Beuker, even outscoring the extras by 1 run.  With his score of 33* we all salute him!

(Like to make more sense of the numbers, see the KNCB site)