[By Taku] We have recently played two preseason cricket matches, one against Excelsior on Sunday the 3rd of April and the other against VCC this past weekend on the 10th of April. We have lost both games but have really enjoyed the process of preparing for the season ahead. The main focus with these games has been to try different combinations and plans, with an eye on the first game of the season, at home against HBS on Saturday the 23 of April. We have one more preseason game coming up this weekend on Saturday the 16th of April against Eindhoven Cricket Club. The first team would like to invite all ACC members to come and support us during this home game. Hopefully it will be a beautiful sunny day!
Game 1 Excelsior 40 Over game
Excelsior Batted First and scored 220, special mention from the bowling side must go to Mees Van Vliet who led a new look attack with great maturity. (Mees bowled 7 overs/ 34 runs / 1 wicket) This innings was a tough test for the players on debut and they will only grow and learn from the experience. Skipper Anis Raza was the best bowler on this day and put on a show with the ball, bowling tight lines and putting pressure back on Excelsior. (Raza bowled 7 overs/ 25 runs/ 2 wickets). On the batting front we scored 140 all out. The highlight of this innings was the debut knock from Navin Saran who scored a brisk 38 runs from 32 balls, this included 3 huge 6’s.
Game 2 VCC 40 Over game
ACC batted first and we scored 158 runs, we were at least 30 runs short but again the positives were that everyone got to spend some time out in the middle. The highlights of the batting innings were the 50 run partnership between Anis Raza 31 runs and debutant Fergus Wegener who scored 27 runs. Special mention must again go to Navin Saran who scored a brisk 47 runs from 48 balls. VCC won by 3 wickets but we managed to take the game deep and took the game to the 34th over. We started off very well in the first 8 overs with Joseph Reddy (Joseph 4 overs/ 12 runs) and Navin Saran (Navin 8 overs/ 48 runs/ 2 wickets) keeping it tight. Again it was the dreaded middle overs and a good partnership which took the game away from us. The highlight of the bowling side was Charles McInerny putting his hand up with the ball and bowling 5 overs / 20 runs and taking 2 important wickets. During this game we made sure to maximise on opportunities and this was emphasised by having 10 different bowlers, everyone bowled exceptfor Fergus the wk.crick