Date-stamped : 05 Sep94 - 10:54
Holland XI v South Africans
At HCC, The Hague, 4 September 1994

South Africa was asked to start with the bat by dutch administra-
tors,  they  were  afraid  the  match would end too quick if not.
Clearly they were the favourites for the match, so SA kindly  ac-
cepted.

On Sunday, the match between SA and the  Netherlands  was  to  be
played. Rain threatened for a while, and the match was interrupt-
ed twice at the start of the SA innings. The match was  initially
reduced  to  45  overs,  later on to 40 overs.  Cronje was the SA
captain, in absence of Wessels. Right from the  start  the  dutch
bowlers  were  on  top,  Hudson was caught at first slip by Nolan
Clarke from a delivery of Floris Jansen. After  8  overs  SA  had
made   13  runs  for  the  loss of 2 wickets. Cronje offered some
resistance, hitting at least one 6, but the  other  batsmen  fell
cheaply.  Halfway SA were on 52 for the loss of 6 wickets. Jansen
had finished bowling with the magnificent figures of 3/8  from  8
overs.   SA had to be careful not to be bowled out before the end
of their innings, and reached 87/7 after 30 overs,  to  terminate
on  134/8.  Once  again  the  tail saved the side from a complete
humiliation even before Holland had taken the bat. The dutch side
included  Lubbers  (the  40+  year  old  allrounder, did all ICC-
trophies), Bakker (played for hampshire for a while, must be  40+
too),  but  also  young talent, Tim de Leede who can both bat and
bowl.  The best dutchman currently (Lefebvre) wasn`t released  by
his  county  Glamorgan, he played in the sunday league match. The
dutch included also West Indian Nolan Clarke, Australian Bradley,
Aponso (Sri Lanka?) and Cantrell(Australia?).

Holland opened with Clarke and Cantrell, who easily came through.
The  SA  bowlers  never  impressed, and deVilliers and the others
were hit for 4`s and 6`s regularly. Only Clarke was caught at the
boundary when trying for another big hit, but Bradley finished of
after just 30 overs.  I don`t expect Holland to win any match  at
the  world  cup in 96, but at least the other countries have been
warned.

<END> Contributed by Dennis.Kock (djrfkock@cs.ruu.nl)