Former Dutch international Dick Kramer dies at 76

Former Quick Haag stalwart and Dutch international Dick Kramer has died in Den Haag at the age of 76.

Kramer was an all-round sportsman, first playing cricket in his club’s first team at fifteen and making his debut in the football side three years later.

In all, he played 222 top-flight cricket matches for Quick between 1959 and 1980, making 4133 runs at an average of 22.34, claiming 190 wickets at 15.49, and taking 113 catches.

He posted 20 half-centuries, his best 79 against next-door neighbours HBS at Nieuw Hanenburg in 1969, and took five wickets in an innings 10 times, with his career-best figures of seven for 29 coming against Hercules Utrecht, again at Quick’s home ground, in 1977.

That was undoubtedly Kramer’s most successful season with the ball: he took a total of 34 wickets at 8.35, and claimed five-for on four occasions.

It earned him a recall to the national side after a seven-year gap, his debut having come in 1970. He now played four more times, including a trip to Esbjerg where he took three for 20 and three for 29 against Denmark in which the Dutch had much the better of a draw.

He played once more, against the New Zealand tourists in 1978, but was called upon neither to bat nor bowl in a match which proved a rather disappointing affair.

Kramer was a key member of Quick’s side throughout the 1960s and 1970s, and helped them to the club’s first national championship in 1965, when they shared the title with VOC Rotterdam, and then to a second, outright victory five years later.

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