How I won the Scottish U-18 Championship without being a Scot or under 18

Despite the long list of personally gratifying cricketing moments in my illustrious career (such as accepting a Man-of-the Match award from none other than CMJ – albeit on behalf of the absent actual Man of the Match), there is one that stands out in recent memory: winning the 2008 regional Scottish Under-18 Championship. This world-renowned tournament involves all of Scotland’s young talent, representing the three major regions of Scottish cricket - imaginatively called north, east, and west Scotland.

Now I know that the sharper among you may be thinking something along the lines of the following: what is a Dutch, self-confessed average club cricketer doing at an U-18 Scottish tournament? And, of course, you are right. I am not Scottish, was never a talented youth cricketer, and – probably most significantly – was definitely not under the age of 18 at the time. I was, in fact, at my fifth year of uni (I confess I had an interesting uni career that involved a few twists and [u]-turns).

I shall explain: a Scottish University Cricket representative XI had been invited along to the tournament to make up the numbers. This, presumably, was done with the assumption that the SUC XI had long been the UK’s biggest whipping boys and, before the famous victory against a semi-inebriated travelling MCC side in 2006 (which will be talked about for many years to come), hadn’t won a competitive match in decades. Having played with the SUC for a number of years - which in itself is a good measure of the team's standard - I think I am qualified to say that this was a pretty fair assumption: we were terrible.

The tournament was held at Stirling Cricket Club* and being your typical scummy student team we took it upon ourselves to have a wander around the town, taking in all the cultural sights and sounds for a relatively quiet team-building evening, heading home at or around a respectable 4am. Our first match (East) was won, although the exact details are a bit of a mystery, as memories of the game are hazy at best (in fact, there is debate among the SUC faithful as to whether it happened at all…). For the sake of this article I shall claim that I took a five-for and scored a match-winning unbeaten 60-odd**.

Cue subdued SUC XI celebrations until a pathetic 3:30am (we were still a bit tired from the night before). The early night was a good preparation for the following day's final. Against West, I think? It got a bit difficult to differentiate between them.

We were bowled out for about 120 on a complete road. Taking the field with good spirits (still lingering in us from the night before presumably) we made no inroads whatsoever for the first 10 overs. I opened the bowling. Flagging from our nightly excursions and with very few bowling options - only the spinners were able to exert themselves - it wasn’t looking good for the once-mighty (i.e. the day before) SUC. Thankfully, Scottish youth development batting training kicked in around about that time and a flurry of late wickets - about eight in 15 overs - meant that, with an average age of 24, the SUC representative XI had won their first-ever tournament: the 2008 Regional Scottish U-18 Championship. No one will ever take that away from us and I still display the medal on my mantelpiece with pride.

We have not been invited back since.

* a genuinely lovely cricket ground ** a genuine lie