Michiel Muller

Lucky thirteen

When Michiel reported to Red and White at the age of twelve, he did not know the finer points of the game of cricket. He did though, have a very strong throwing arm with which he could fire swift projectiles. During that time, he quickly participated in the Flamingo Junior Tournament. His team reached the final in which it had to compete against VOC with Roland Lefebvre among others in the ranks. Michiel: "I remember that I missed a catch on point on a ball launched by Roland. I could go through the ground, but my revenge was sweet: the next ball I had him run out with a line. At least I thought so, but the umpire decided otherwise. A great injustice, I thought then."

Michiel found a place in the third team at Rood en Wit, after he moved on to the second team after six months and again a few years later to the first. At one of his first gigs, he tried to score some runs against VOC with Bellie den Hartog, but one of his shots through the covers seemed to be a certain run-out by, against, Roland Lefebvre, which missed, much to his displeasure.

Haarlem Cricket Week

Michiel also made himself heard in another area. In 1985, he organised the Haarlem Cricket Week, an event that, following the famous Haarlem Baseball Week, attracted 5000 spectators, partly because the West Indies stars took part. They were very surprised that they could stroll through the centre of Haarlem without being assailed by hordes of fans. They were used to that in the streets of Kingston and Georgetown. Perhaps because they could completely relax here, they formed a real steel band at the boundary with Courtney Walsh on bass and Richie Richardson on guitar. The fact that they lost the first match and won the second probably doesn't really matter.

In his time, Michiel developed into a good all-rounder in the first. One feat he fondly remembers is his outlawing of Nathan Astle, the famous New Zealand test cricketer. He treated the first five balls of the over to as many tight fours, so a new strategy was required. "It was clear he liked my lumpy inswingers, so I produced a leg break that was too much for him. Wicket-keeper Hugo Nelissen gratefully received the present. To put the whole thing in perspective, I should mention that I was deposed the next over. "

After a two-year stay in Paris, he was not completely done with active cricket. Michiel still played for the lower teams of Red and White and VOC and for Binnenhof CC. He was also brought to the Flamingos as a board member by chairman Marc Asselbergs. At the time, he was commissioned by the KNCB, together with Steven van Hoogstraten and Peter van der Burg, to write the report "More hands on the bat", the title of which speaks for itself. When Marc Asselbergs was asked to become chairman of the KNCB, partly at the instigation of the committee, Michiel moved on to chairmanship of De Flamingos, a period in which there was a great deal of hard and energetic work.

There is no shortage of anecdotes. "During our tour I walked with Charterhouse's head mistress across the grounds of her school, a walk where she showed me all kinds of beautiful sports facilities. Don't you feel a bit elitist? I asked her after seeing all that beauty. Instead of a direct answer, I got a frown. She clearly hadn't understood my question."

In 2009, during Michael's presidency, he witnessed the legendary match between the Netherlands and England at Lord's. As every true Dutch cricket fan knows, we won, and England suffered one of their most ignominious defeats of all time (dixit BBC sport). "I found myself among the English supporters who initially gave the Dutch cricketers quite a bit of trouble. That gradually decreased, but when we needed two more runs of the last ball, the victory seemed in the bag for them. The fact that we still scrambled that couple together stunned them."

A particularly dramatic moment during Michael's presidency was the disappearance of the Cramer McLean cup and the Willem van Rossem Memorial. They searched for years, but it remained lost without trace. In desperation Eduard Nieuwenhuijzen Kruseman bought replacements, but the riddle continued to gnaw. Did Frank van der Weijden perhaps not always neatly return the trophies to the office of Laurens Maaldrink after the matches, where they would be stored? Ultimately, a redeeming phone call supports that angle. The cups were found in the garden shed.

August 29, 1964, was an important day in Dutch cricket history because on that day the Netherlands won at HCC in front of a thousand-headed audience from Australia. The Dutch hero was Ruud Onstein who took the victory with a few mighty blows (197 all out - 201 for 7). Half a century later there was a reunion at Quick Hg. During the Flamingo Heeren dinner on March 21, 2014, many reminisced about yesteryear. "It was an amazing evening on which I look back with great pleasure, just as I look back with pleasure on my presidency. It was an exciting 13-year period in which I gave my best efforts to this club that is so dear to me."