Pakistan deter Dutch invasion in curtain-raiser game
Faheem Ashraf
Pakistan survived a major Dutch scare to record a nail-biting 3-wicket win over Netherlands in the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup opener here at the SSC grounds in Colombo on Saturday. Despite a clinical batting display at the top of their innings–reaching 61 off the power-play for the loss of two wickets–Pakistan lost the plot midway through their innings, needing 29 off the last 12 balls while chasing 148. It looked a tough ask as Dutch bowlers were excellent, leaving little room for the batters to free their arms.
However, Faheem Ashraf produced a blinder, hitting 29 off 11 balls with three blows over the ropes and two boundaries to take them home with three balls to spare. Ashraf blasted 24 off Logan van Beek’s over, including three sixes over midwicket, long on and square leg in the 19th over of the innings that left them requiring just five runs off the last over.
But had Max O’Dowd held on to a tough catch off Faheem in the second ball of this crucial over where the ball popped out of his hands after doing all the hard work to reach the ball–the results would have been different. With that missed catch, however, the match, which had seemed to be in Dutch hands, also dropped dramatically for them.
At the post-match press conference, Ashraf said that he was praying to God when the ball was in the air for the fielder to drop it.
“Thank God, exactly what we wanted happened,” he said.
“When the ball was in the air, I kept praying for him to drop. We wanted to finish it quickly but sometimes it happens that your team collapses. In such situations, you have to keep your nerves under control. If you look at our team, even when we don’t play well, we keep our nerves in check, and because of that we get good results”.
Pakistan opener Sahibzada Farhan made a blistering 47 off 31 balls with two boundaries and four sixes, while there was good contribution from his opening partner Saim Ayub who scored 24 off 13. But it was Ashraf who stole show with his decisive cameo.
Netherlands had themselves to blame as a middle-order collapse, after being put on to bat first, restricted their innings to a below-par 147, with a ball to spare. This was despite them cruising smoothly early in their innings, reaching 50 in the power-play overs. Three quick-wickets in the space of five balls helped Pakistan to claw back the game.
Leg-spinner Abrar Ahmed removed Dutch skipper Scott Edwards in the final ball of the sixteenth over, before fellow leg-spinner Saim Ayub dispatched Logan van Beek and Zach Lion-Cachet in the 17th over to hurt Netherlands deeply in their quest to put on a formidable total on what appeared a good batting track with some support for slow bowlers.
The Netherland batters showed great aggression against seamers and put on 50 runs during the power-play, even though they lost both openers, Max O’Dowd (5) and Michael Levitt (24), but Pakistan hit back at crucial intervals to never let the game slip out of their hands. There was good contribution with the bat from Bas de Leede (30 off 25), Colin Ackermann (20 off 14) and Scott Edwards (37 off 29) but their failure to go big restricted them to a below-par score.
For Pakistan, Zalman Mirza was the pick of the bowlers, claiming three for 24 while Saim Ayub and Abrar Ahmed took two wickets apiece to hurt Netherlands’ run accumulation.
| Scoreboard | |
| Netherlands Michael Levitt c Afridi b Nawaz 24 Max O’Dowd c U. Khan b Mirza 05 Bas de Leede c Azam b Nawaz 30 Colin Ackermann b Ahmed 20 Scott Edwards c Farhan b Ahmed 37 Zach Lion-Cachet c Nawaz b Ayub 09 Logan van Beek c Salman b Ayub 00 Aryan Dutt c Farhan b Mirza 13 Roelof van der Merwe c Salman b Afridi 04 Kyle Klein not out 02 Paul van Meekeren c U. Khan b Mirza 00 Extras (lb1, w2) 03 Total (all out; 19.5 overs) 147 Fall of wickets: 1-28 (O’Dowd, 3.1ov), 2-31 (Levitt, 4.2ov), 3-65 (Ackermann, 7.6ov), 4-105 (de Leede, 12.4ov), 5-127 (Edwards, 15.6ov), 6-128 (van Beek, 16.2ov), 7-129 (Lion-Cachet, 16.4ov), 8-139 (van der Merwe, 18.4ov), 9-147 (Dutt, 19.4ov), 10-147 (van Meekeren, 19.5ov) Bowling: Shaheen Afridi 3-0-28-1, Salman Mirza 3.5-0-24-3, Mohammad Nawaz 4-0-38-2, Shadab Khan 4-0-26-0, Abrar Ahmed 4-0-23-2, Saim Ayub 1-0-7-2 Pakistan Sahibzada Farhan c van der Merwe b van Meekeren 47 Saim Ayub c van der Merwe b Dutt 24 Salman Agha c Levitt b Dutt 12 Babar Azam c Klein b van der Merwe 15 Usman Khan b van Meekeren 00 Shadab Khan c Edwards b van Beek 08 Mohammad Nawaz c Edwards b Klein 06 Faheem Ashraf not out 29 Shaheen Afridi not out 05 Extras (w2) 02 Total (7 wickets; 19.3 overs) 148 Did not bat: Salman Mirza, Abrar Ahmed Fall of wickets: 1-27 (Ayub, 2.4ov), 2-53 (Agha, 4.5ov), 3-98 (Farhan, 11.1ov), 4-98 (U. Khan, 11.3ov), 5-100 (Azam, 12.4ov), 6-114 (Nawaz, 15.6ov), 7-114 (S. Khan, 16.1ov) Bowling: Aryan Dutt 4-0-33-2, Logan van Beek 4-0-46-1, Kyle Klein 3-0-23-1, Roelof van der Merwe 3-0-13-1, Paul van Meekeren 4-1-20-2, Bas de Leede 1.3-0-13-0 |