Kampioen! ACC 5 close out 4C where their season’s only wobble beganACC 5 close out 4C where their season’s only wobble beganACC 5 close out 4C where their
VIERDE KLASSE 4C · SPORTPARK EINDENHOUT · SUNDAY 6 SEPTEMBER 2026
Some seasons fade out. ACC 5 finished their season with a flourish, with a 37-run win and a championship.
There was something tidy about the opponent. On 10 May, De Kikkers 2 beat ACC 5 by two wickets, one of only two defeats all summer. On 6 September ACC came back to their ground and settled it, closing the season exactly where its early wobble had begun.
Put in, and in trouble
De Kikkers won the toss and asked ACC to bat. For an hour it looked like a smart call. Suresh and Jagadeesh had to earn everything, and after five overs the board read 16.
Jagadeesh found the middle once, a straight six in the sixth over, before going for 11 at 32. Suresh dug in for 34 balls and made 19. Then Hamza changed the weather for a few minutes, a six and a four in the thirteenth, fifteen runs off the over, 16 from 13 balls, and just as quickly he was gone.
When Matt was caught behind in the sixteenth, ACC were 74 for 4 and the championship party felt some way off.
The rebuild
What followed took two men, and one of them was playing his first game for the ACC-5 XI.
Abu has been at ACC for twenty years but had not turned out for this side all season, and he walked in at 74 for 4 with a title on the line. He played as if none of that had occurred to him: two fours and a six in 24 from 22 balls, and the innings had a pulse again. He and Mikhail added 52.
Abu went at 126. Bobby, the captain, made 6 and fell at 160. Ammar played the sensible hand, 15 from 20, and stayed until 224. Through all of it Mikhail Atkinson simply would not leave, 48 from 76 balls, with two boundaries, and every run of it needed.
Forty-one from the last four
ACC were 193 for 7 after 36 overs. The last four overs brought 41.
Nagesh made 23 not out from 20 balls, with some huff-and-puff running, including a four and then, off the final delivery of the innings, a six. Aman was at the other end to enjoy it. 234 for 9, a total that had looked well out of reach at 74 for 4.
A word for the De Kikkers attack, who ran in hard all morning and presented ACC with 37 wides. We accepted them politely and said nothing.
The squeeze
Chasing 235, De Kikkers began like a side that fancied it. Their keeper hit three boundaries inside three overs and they were 25 after four.
Then ACC turned off the tap. Between the fifth over and the seventeenth, thirteen overs, De Kikkers managed 43 runs. Pardeep, Matt, Ammar and Mikhail gave them nothing at all to hit. It is the least glamorous passage in cricket, and very often where the result is decided.
Aman made the first breakthrough, the keeper caught by Hamza with the score on 60. Mikhail had the other opener caught by Jagadeesh, 17 from 53 balls. Aman then bowled two more, and at 99 for 4 De Kikkers needed 136 from 97 balls.
Mikhail’s afternoon
Their number four counter-punched for 43 and kept the chase alive. Mikhail ended it, caught by Hamza, his second of the innings behind the stumps. Two overs later Mikhail struck again, with Ammar taking the catch. Two overs after that he knocked over their number eight.
Four wickets for 34 from his eight overs.
With 48 already made, Mikhail Atkinson had the kind of day people talk about for years.
That left their captain alone, and he played beautifully, 57 from 45 with four sixes, three of them inside three overs. Long enough for a few ACC heads to start doing sums. But 47 were still needed from 14 balls when Pardeep Singh came back and bowled him, and the sums stopped.
De Kikkers 2, 197 for 8. ACC 5 won by 37 runs.
Champions of 4C
Played 14, won 11, lost 2, tied 1, 23 points, three clear of Qui Vive 7.
Who won it? Everyone did. But some numbers deserve saying out loud.
Pardeep Singh was the bowler of the season: 20 wickets at 11.90 apiece, an economy rate of 3.60, and 6 for 21 against Qui Vive 7 in May.
Nagesh Danturti played more games than anybody and took 19 wickets, opening with 4 for 23 in the very first match.
Suresh Balachandran made 448 runs, including a hundred against Bijlmer CC 2 in a ten-wicket win.
Captain Bobby Murtaza made 414 with a century of his own and held ten catches, more than anyone in the side.
Matthew Fernandes averaged 41 and made 116 in the 168-run win over VRA 8.
Around them, a squad that kept turning up:
Amanpreet Bakshi (12 wickets)
Mikhail Atkinson (11)
Saurabh Venkatesh (255 runs and 10 wickets)
Vaibhav Naukudkar (63 and 66 in only four innings, plus 3 for 53)
Hamza Ilyas (a stubborn 75 in the one-run defeat to VVV 6)
Rehan Muhammad (50 against Den Helder)
Ammar Malik (3 for 7)
Basir Hakimi (3 for 25)
Two defeats in a whole summer, one by two wickets in May, one by a single run in August. That is how close this side came to a perfect season.
Gefeliciteerd, ACC 5. Kampioen van 4C.
Scorecard: ACC 5 234/9 (40 ov), Atkinson 48, Muhammad 24, Danturti 23*, Balachandran 19. De Kikkers 2 197/8 (40 ov), Atkinson 4/34, Bakshi 3/38, Singh 1/31. Match 7677336.