Toss: Netherlands chose to field.
Match Result: Pakistan won by 81 runs.
Man of the Match: Saud Shakeel.
By looking at the winning margin, one might be enticed to categorize this bout as yet another one-sided drubbing of an associate, but this can’t be further away from the truth. In fact, the first ball of the match made it clear that the Netherlands weren’t to be mere pushovers.
Aryan Dutt, the unusual new-ball bowler of the team, managed to convince Fakhar Zaman to drive on the very first delivery. Fakhar, who hasn’t crossed the 33-run mark in his last 11 innings, missed it completely with the ball bouncing and turning by a margin that wasn’t to be expected. This set the tone for the rest of the powerplay.
Aryan bowled with immense control, consistently landing the ball within the 4-5th stump line, keeping the Pakistani openers in check. The rewards were however reaped by his partners.
Van Beek relieved Zaman of his struggles with a soft caught and bowled in the 4th over. Meanwhile, Captain Edwards ably supported his bowlers with his attacking field sets, always placing a slip and eventually bringing in a silly mid-on! He would take another eccentric decision of handing over the bowl to part-timer Colin Ackermann in the 9th over, who provided the crucial wicket of skipper Babar. Surprisingly, Babar showed very little intent to score runs off the spinners, which might have resulted in him getting dismissed while trying to drag a bowl outside off to the onside. He might learn a thing or two from his deputy Rizwan, whose very first shot was a sweep, making his intentions clear from the get-go. Imam would follow his friends, holing out to a bouncer from Van Meekeran; a ploy used by the Dutch bowlers later on too, but to lesser success. Saud Shakeel who averaged 19 before today, looked like a mouse in front of fire-breathing dragons, scoring boundaries of edges, one of which was a drop catch by Vikramjit Singh, a drop which was going to cost the Dutch a fortune.
A switch seemed to flip within Saud after that; the mice had transformed into brave knights. Still playing his shots, Saud and Rizwan took the attack to the opposition, stitching a 120-run partnership off 114 balls. They made sure that the run rate which had taken a hit due to the exhibition of the openers had recovered to the 6-run mark. Rizwan extended his consistent run but it was Shakeel who stole the show.
Shaking off the early jitters, Shakeel demonstrated why he is rated as such a good player of spin, making brilliant use of his feet especially against the experienced veteran Van Der Merwe, smashing him for 15 runs in the 22nd over.
Edwards probably missed a trick by not trusting Aryan or Ackermann within this phase. Having realized it a bit too late, he bought in Aryan for the 29th over and Aryan didn’t disappoint. In the first ball of his second spell, Aryan finally received his deserving wicket, removing Saud Shakeel who scored 68 runs with a terrific strike rate of 130.77. The Netherlands would capitalize upon this opening, with the man-of-crisis, Bas De Leede removing Rizwan and Ifthikar Ahmed within the same over. Pakistan again found themselves stuck in a tricky situation; 188/6 after 32 overs. The Netherlands should have closed on this situation but were unsuccessful.
Batting depth’s importance is one of the biggest debates going on right now, and it sure isn’t going to be settled anytime soon. However, there was no doubt it was beneficial to Pakistan tonight. Spin duo Nawaz-Shadab put up 64 runs for the 8th wicket, the majority of which came through strike rotation, another lesson that the Pakistan top order will look to employ in future matches.
Netherlands bowling looked subpar for the first time, with both batters picking up easy singles and the occasional boundaries majorly against the spinners. Maybe Edwards could have called for his pacers, and it was a pacer indeed who provided the breakthrough, none other than De Leede(once again), picking up 2 wickets in the same over(once again). With Nawaz’s innings ending due to a mix-up, Netherlands hoped to wrap up quickly, however, some whacking from the tail-enders meant, Pakistan finished with 286 runs on the board.
A very good score with respect to how helpful the pitch was to the spinners, The Netherlands would have wanted to score their bulk within the powerplay. However, there was the imminent threat of Shaheen. Fresh off the havoc created by Starc in the warm-up match, the Dutch sure didn't want to concede yet another hat trick to a left-armer.
Were they successful in their quest? Yes, Shaheen went wicketless within the powerplay. He started off really well, with Vikramjit’s limited foot movement making it a game between Rizwan and Shaheen for the 1st over. However, subsequently, Shaheen’s length drifted, an issue which has been concerning him for quite some time now. Vikramjit made full use of his half-volleys, however, for the rest of the time, he and Max O’Dowd laid dormant. O’Dowd would bow out to Hasan Ali, and Ackermann would follow him, getting bowled by part-timer Ifthikar after taking a stance where he had fully exposed his leg stump. The Netherlands were in crisis, 50/2 after 11 overs, and searched for a savior and it was the familiar face of De Leede that greeted them. Using his first 12 balls to settle down, De Leede strolled down and nonchalantly flicked Nawaz for a six down mid-wicket. This was it, De Leede never let his scoring rate go below 90 after this. However the same can’t be said about Vikram. He found it difficult to get going throughout his innings but kept fighting on, somehow making use of the loose delivery served to him by the Pakistani spinners at constant intervals.
The inaccuracy of Pakistani spinners is one of the biggest issues with the team currently. Pakistan has the 2nd worst average in overs 11-40 since the 2019 WC, and they were yet again unsuccessful in providing control, especially on a pitch that Aryan and even Ackermann to an extent had utilized so well in the 1st innings.
Vikram’s painful stay ended as he tried to dispatch another of Shadab’s half-trackers, but found Fakhar this time around.
The Netherlands required 167 from 157 balls, and considering the depth of their batting to follow which included premier batsman Scott Edwards, the cricketing world sat down in anticipation of the first upset of the tournament, but Rauf’s pace deprived the neutrals of this joy.
Teja was the first go, pulling a trademark Rauf short-delivery to guess who? Fakhar. Edwards, one of Netherlands’s best batters in the format and also the skipper, strode out. Rauf pegged him with a short one first up, pushing Edwards to the backfoot. Having done so, Rauf cleverly pitched the next one up, and with his raw pace, Edwards found himself trapped. Subsequent review proved to be useless; Netherlands’s best batter was dismissed for a duck, lbw, Haris Rauf.
De Leede still had some fight left within him, bringing up his 50 but it was never going to be enough, with Nawaz cleaning his off-stump. De Leede put up yet another magnificent all-round performance; 4 wickets with ball and top scored for his team with a 68-ball 67, however this time it was to be for the losing side. The rest of the tail would be quickly cleaned up except for Logan Van Beek who played a cameo of a run-a-ball 28.
The Netherlands were bundled out for 205 by the 41st over. 85 in 54 balls. Not a big task in the modern age of t20, but alas, the wicket column.
Rauf was clearly the star of the 2nd innings, swinging the match in Pakistan’s favor, and ended up with 3 wickets, with the spinners too improving their numbers at the business end.
Day 2 saw disappointing numbers from the point of view of ground attendance and certain mishaps came to be heard from the broadcaster's side. Nonetheless, it was yet another day of excellent cricket, one which, unfortunately, the scoreboard does no justice to
