T20 title to VOC after win over Excelsior
Published at 16 July, 2023VOC has won the T20 title 2023! It defeated Excelsior '20 convincingly in the final. Max O'Dowd made 50 runs in twenty balls for the Rotterdammers.
Due to heavy rain, the final had to be shortened to eight overs per team. Excelsior won the toss and opted to bat. 76/5 was the result, with 27 runs for Verhagen.
It was up to VOC to make 9.5 runs per over. Niels Etman's fourth over went for 24 runs and with that the game was in fact played. It certainly wasn't a bad over, as Max O'Dowd (50) was dropped twice, on 31 and 39. Earlier (on 20) he had already been dropped off Ingram's bowling. With that, Excelsior more or less disqualified itself. VOC deserved yet another T20 title.
Semi-finals
Earlier in the day, VOC and Excelsior had advanced to the final by beating HCC and Punjab respectively. HCC's Tonny Staal and Boris Gorlee constructed a partnership of 78 runs for the second wicket at a pleasant pace for the Hagenaars. Staal (53) soon found the boundary and Gorlee even did so with a reverse sweep for six. Hidde Overdijk went to a lightning-fast 26 off ten balls before being stumped. Gorlee (35), who was caught by Max O'Dowd at cow corner, also played a good innings. In the end, Arnav Jain gave Upadhyaya a hat-trick with a fantastic running catch. HCC nevertheless posted a challenging 154/8.
O'Dowd (16), just back from the highly successful Dutch participation in the World Cup Qualifier in Zimbabwe, started convincingly, but mistimed a ball that was caught by Doram. However, François Fourie (57) formed the backbone of the Rotterdam innings before Scott Edwards and Tim de Kok safeguarded a spot in the final for VOC.
Punjab vs Excelsior
The other semi-final was Punjab against Excelsior, which did not have to hand over any players to the Dutch national team in the preliminary rounds. Lorenzo Ingram once again rescued the Schiedammers with a flawless 61, half of Excelsior's 122 runs.
Excelsior kept the pressure on with clever bowling and fielding. No Punjab batsman really got into the groove; Asad Zulfiqar top scoring with 21. Roel Verhagen took 3-11, Niels Etman 2-6. Michael Hart picked up three catches.
The VRA ground looked charming, the characteristic teak benches were re-used, there was a livestream with several cameras and commentary by former internationals Jacob-Jan Esmeijer and Klaas Jan van Noortwijk, Ed van Nierop and Ahmed Zulfiqar. Early on there were some issues with the bandwidth, but the effort to tackle it a bit more professionally was very commendable and may become the standard.
In the Hoofdklasse, the T20 title went to Hermes DVS.
In the semi-final against R&W, the team from Schiedam made 142. Rood en Wit was on 109/3 (with Thornton 62 not out) when it started to rain heavily. In the final, HermesDVS faced Quick who had defeated Kampong 116-91 in the other semi-final. Thanks to Doyle (82*), the team from Schiedam came to 144/5 in the match, which was shortened to ten overs. It proved to be more than enough for the T20 Championship, as Quick was thrown all out for 80. Roy Numair and Ralph Elenbaas each took three wickets.
In the final Eerste Klasse T20, VOC 2 beat Qui Vive in an also shortened match.
