Danish Cricket Yearbook 2017

n Af Frederik Klokker As we do every year, Denmark A-team get invited to play in the T20 Continental Cup in Schiedam, Holland. It has been a great tournament where we have the chance to give young players and those who has done well in the league, a go to show their skills against some of the up and coming countries in European cricket. We won two out of the four matches and we made the final against Holland which we should have won. Holland just hold their nerve a bit better than we did at crucial moments, that’s why they got the better of us. Holland played a much stronger team in the final as they could see we were a force to be recog- nized with, so full credit to the guys for making the final so close as they did, the efforts could not be doubted that if for sure. The two games against Germany has shown us how far the German team have come in the last couple of years, they were close games played in a hard but fair spirit. It will be interesting to see how Germany will pro- gress in the near future, as there is nearly 10.000 players in Germany, a large amount of them is refugees, but I am sure that their national team will benefit from that, once they have fulfilled the ICC criteria so they can represent Germany in international tournaments. Our bowling throughout the tournament was very good. In the final especially the spinners, who were bowling on spin friendly conditions, were good and bowled to their plans mostly. Nonetheless the two fast bowlers were ex- ceptional, Anders Bülow and Pawan Ubhoo bowled with a lot of heart on the slow and low wickets. They both changed their pace and with a few other variations they did a great job. The spinners were all in good form, es- pecially the captain Saif Ahmed, Anique Uddin and Nico- lai Jørgensen to choose a few. A special mention goes to Nicolai who took five wickets in one of the matches against Germany. The A team had a few standout performances, but not many where as consistent as Saif Ahmed and Monty Singh. We had important contributions from Anique Uddin and Omar Hayat that helped us on our way to the final. We played on turf wickets which was the first time for some of the guys this season. That meant some guys took time to adjusting to the slowness of the wickets as they were slow and low, nonetheless some guys did and produced enough to get us into the final. The Denmark fielding was generally good, we took good chances and produced enough pressure to create some run outs. Still a lot can be done to improve on this, like getting the ball in the hand when you are attacking the ball or taking catches under pressure. I would personally like to see the standard of fielding in the Elite Division to go up at bit more. It’s all about making it fun for the players so they want to work on it, if not it is a side of the game that easily can be forgotten, especially at club level. Generally it was an eye opener for some guys who were with the A team for the first time, they took a while longer to find their feet and the results speak for them- selves. Everyone who was there now knows what it takes to get to that level, what they need to do to stay there. So now its hard work and determination for each player to get even better. It’s a bit disappointing not to have won that tournament. It was worthwhile participating but we would have liked a few more teams participating. I know that Belgium pulled out in the last minute but it would have been nice if we had enough teams for two groups like there has been in the past. My former club Excelsior was a great host with great fa- cilities, friendly staff and a great atmosphere. Thanks to Excelsior from the Denmark A team. T20 Continental in Holland with our A team Jonas Henriksen med en velfortjent vand Evaluering efter kampen Saif Ahmad gjorde det godt I 30 I DANSK CRICKET ÅRSSKRIFT 20 17