BOP and Te Puke star Ben Williams has had a productive season playing and coaching for VOC in Rotterdam. VOC are on top of the Dutch 10 team national league, Hoofdklasse.

Nathan Astle was another star at the Rotterdam club along with former NZ coach David Trist. David coached VOC and the Dutch side.
Ben has 860 runs and 28 wickets from 16 matches and VOC are tied for first on the table. Three of Ben's team were in the Dutch side that beat England at the Twenty20 World Cup.
When I played in the Netherlands a couple of clubs had four foreign players due to them arriving before a certain date each season. This certainly swayed results.
The Netherlands national league is a highly competitive competition. There are 10 teams with relegation each season. Darrin Murray, who played for NZ and Canterbury, says that the Dutch league was the equal of any league in England he had played in. After playing in Holland he never went back to play in England as the organisation and standard of the Dutch league is so high. In the past it has been played by the elite class, similar to polo in England, but this has changed with the times. You had to have an interview at the club I played for, saying where you lived, went to school and what your father did.
On the coaching side, Ben's Dutch u19 team made the coming World Cup in NZ and he has coached all the Dutch youth sides.
One of his most enjoyable coaching assignments has proved to be the Dutch women's side that he coaches Monday nights. He says he has made some tremendous gains through good coaching.
Meanwhile Andrew Hoogenstraten has been the professional at Ipswich. In his words, Ipswich are ‘in dire need of a hero', which he feels he has provided as they are second in the table and looking at promotion.
He has had a strong season, three 5 wicket bags to date with a best of 6-22 off 12 overs, averaging about 13. (bowl 15 overs max)
His batting average is high due to ‘heaps of not outs batting at 7'.
The best player he played was former England and now Middlesex player Chris Silverwood.
Until my next blog, good luck to Daniel in the second innings at Galle, Sri Lanka and to Kane in India.