VOC beats Forfarshire in European T10 league
Published at 11 March, 2024As winners of the Dutch T20 league, VOC is participating in the European Cricket League this week, an initiative of Daniel Weston that has been running successfully for several years. On Saturday, VOC's first two games were completely rained out. On Sunday, the Rotterdammers did come into action, defeating Scotland's Forfarshire by eight wickets.
Forfarshire won the toss and opted to bat. The Scots went after Siebe van Wingerden straight away, but Aaditt Jain struck twice in his first over. Van Wingerden got his act together by simply catching both Wallace (30) and new man Hogarth (0) at mid off (38/4). His third catch even meant 63/5 moments later. The Scots made the classic mistake of being in too much of a hurry. Jelte Schoonheim (2-13), the young guts arm seamer Aaditt Jain (3-10) and Ramdas Upadhyaya (3-6) took advantage with a lot of speed changes and helpful fielders. 86 all out was the end result.
François Fourie (17) started with a big six between long off and deep extra cover. He was unlucky when Cameron took a good catch at cow corner (63/1). Tim de Kok (46 off 16) was given LBW, but VOC didn't run into any problems: 87/2 in 5.3 overs.
Gozo Zalmi surprises VOC
VOC also had a good start against Gozo Zalmi, but that was ruined when Basil George (27) was dropped three (!) times on towering skiers. George riposted with three sixes - and was dropped again. Immediately after the fall of Mehboob Ali's wicket, Pushparajan (94 not out from 26 balls) seemed to be caught behind; he made the most of his second life. 147/4 was now the challenging score. Syed Jamil 3-22 and Aaditt Jain 1-10 bowled strongly.
François Fourie had a number of plays and misses in the first over, but made good contact with the final ball. Fourie and Pete Recordon managed to find the boundary several times per over before Fourie (19) was caught and bowled by Pushparajan (63/2/4.1). Recordon (46 off 17) missed his half-century. Rotterdam's hopes were now pinned on Jelte Schoonheim, but despite his cameo of 41 off 22 balls, VOC (126/6) was unable to surpass the 147 Maltese runs. The last over should have yielded thirty runs.
