Sponsorship Excelsior'20

BENK PROJECTS is a sponsor of Excelsior'20, a soccer and cricket club of which I myself am a member and where I have played soccer from the age of six and still play soccer in a Saturday afternoon league. I also played cricket, initially briefly in youth and later in seniors. From the 1980s, Excelsior has become an increasingly important player in cricket and has been national champions 12 times to date. They also draw by far the most crowds in the entire league with it always being pleasant along the line.

Why we sponsor the club? Well, as it goes so often with sponsoring, I have a warm heart for the club Excelsior '20 and I hope that it will eventually bring something to BENK PROJECTS besides a bit of name recognition. Until now this has been rather modest, as it is an unknown sport to most people.

In cricket, quite a lot of players and coaches come over from Australia, South Africa, Jamaica, West Indies, etc., among others, and so far 1 time someone from South Africa has joined us through sponsorship. Furthermore, you obviously hope that people at the club think of BENK PROJECTS when they hear and know that someone with a technical background/education is looking for work or becomes available from a project.

Cricket explanation in a nutshell

If you don't know cricket, cricket is a ball sport in which runs (=points) are scored by running back and forth across the cricket pitch. It is a team sport where alternately one team throws first (bowling) and the other team bats (batting). Depending on the type of match, one plays to an agreed number of overs (1 over is 6 balls bowled) or wickets (1 inning is 10 wickets out). When both teams have batted and bowled, the team with the most runs is the winner. The game proceeds in innings ("innings"). In most games, each team has one innings. Each at bat lasts until 10 of the 11 batters ("batsmen") are out, or the maximum number of balls bowled is reached. Six correctly bowled balls is an over.

The team to field and bowl first puts all eleven men on the field. One of them is the wicketkeeper; he is the only one on the bowling team who wears gloves and leg guards. This is because he places himself just behind the batsman at bat (just like the catcher in baseball). He has a specialist role because he has to catch the bowled ball if it passes the batsman or at edges (where the ball only touches an edge of bat and so flies through anyway). He is also usually the player responsible for stumping. Another player on the bowling team is the bowler. The bowler is the man who throws the ball to the batsman. The bowler throws six times (correctly) toward the batsman, this series of six is called an "over." After an over, one changes sides where one bowls with another bowler. After someone else bowls, one can bowl again. So a team needs several bowlers, also one has different types of bowlers (fast and spin bowlers). A team usually has four to five good bowlers, who alternate depending on tactics, the opponent and the hardness of the pitch. An "over" can sometimes number more than six balls. This is the case when the bowler has thrown a bad ball, namely a no-ball or a wide. In either case, the team at bat gets an extra run and the ball must be thrown again. This is similar to a "wide" ball (a mis-pitched ball) in baseball.

The batsmen's task is to score as many runs as possible. They do this by hitting the ball and walking to each other's wicket. Then they have one run, they can stop running or cross again to score two or more runs. If the ball is hit in such a way that it rolls across the ground out of the field of play, the batsman scores 4 runs (a boundary four). If he hits the ball in such a way that it flies out of the field of play without touching the ground then 6 runs are awarded.

A batsman may bat as long as he wants as long as he does not run out (out), the overs have not run out or the match has already been won. A batsman can go out in several ways:
01. caught (catch): a batter is out if the ball he strikes away, before it hits the ground, is caught by a fielder;
02. ejected (bowled): the bowler ejects the batsman by throwing the ball against the wickets;
03. walked out (run out): a player who is not "in" (over the white line in front of his wicket) in time at the moment the wicket he is running towards is overturned;
04. stumped: a batsman who steps out of his crease or stands to bat and misses the ball can be stumped by the wicketkeeper if he catches the ball and immediately overturns the wicket;
05. leg before wicket (LBW): a batsman is out if the ball would hit the wicket, but instead of hitting the wicket, hits the leg (sometimes another part of the body) of the batsman;
06. hit the ball twice: a batsman may not hit the ball twice, but he may use his bat or foot to stop the ball from hitting the wicket;
07. hit wicket: a batsman who touches his wicket and drops the bails is out. This rule does not apply if this happens because he jumps away from a ball coming towards his body or to avoid being walked;
08. getting on the field late (timed out): a new batter has three minutes to get on the field;
09. obstruction: when a batter intentionally obstructs a fielder;
10. retired out: a batter may voluntarily choose to retire. The next batter then takes his place.

Cricket is mainly popular in the Commonwealth countries. It is the second most popular sport in the world (only soccer is more popular), mainly due to its many fans in the Indian subcontinent. In the Netherlands, unfortunately, it is a modest and small sport.