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Pakistan shaken by Netherlands in opening win
The Dutch bowlers rattle the top order before Rizwan and Shakeel’s fightback in their World Cup opener. Bas de Leede’s brilliant all-round show goes in vain
Pakistan’s bowling prowess saw them subdue Netherlands by 81 runs in their opening World Cup game but the 1992 champions suffered enough nervous moments to be fully satisfied with Friday's performance at Hyderabad’s Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium.
Despite the comfortable margin of victory for Babar Azam’s team, the story of the game was the impressive display of the Dutch bowling unit. Pakistan’s batting was fully stretched and was saved any embarrassment by two good partnerships, 120 runs the fourth wicket between Mohammad Rizwan (68) and Saud Shakeel (68), and 64 runs for the seventh wicket between all-rounders Shadab Khan (32) and Mohammad Nawaz (39).
Netherlands’ display again underlined the importance of taking wickets. They elected to bowl and made early inroads with the new ball, got breakthroughs in the middle overs and took wickets in the last 10 overs to restrict their fancied opponents to 286.
In reply, Netherlands started well and at 100/2 after 20.1 overs, the chase was certainly on. The third-wicket partnership between opener Vikramjit Singh (52 -- 67 balls) and Bas de Leede (67 -- 68 balls) had laid the foundation. But they lacked the depth to sustain the chase and folded up for 205.
BAS’ ALL-ROUND SHOW
Bas de Leede was easily the stand-out player of the game. In an inspired all-round performance, he became only the 10th player in ODI World Cup history to hit fifty and take a four-for in a game after a bowling effort of 9-0-62-4.
De Leede occasionally strayed in line to leak runs but kept surprising the batters with wicket-taking balls, clever use of variations and reverse swing with the older ball. The highlight was his battle with Haris Rauf. At the 2022 T20 World Cup, the fast bowler had left de Leede with a cut under his eye. On Friday, Rauf again tried to rattle him with pace, unleashing two consecutive short balls. The first one, clocked at 149kph, was too fast for him, but for the second one de Leede was ready, connecting well for a flat pulled six. He let his opponent know with a cheeky smile.
SMART MATCH-UPS
Netherlands were also smart with their match ups. Their off-spinners Aryan Dutt 10-0-48-1 and Colin Ackermann 8-1-39-2 rose to the challenge of containing the left-handed heavy Pakistan line-up after talismanic player Logan van Beek set the tone with the first scalp of Fakhar Zaman, caught and bowled.
Preying on Pakistan top-order's tentativeness, captain Scott Edwards was superb with his bowling changes, using eight bowlers inside the first 25 overs. Reducing Pakistan to 38/3 after 10 overs of the mandatory powerplay overs was fairytale stuff for the Orange brigade.
Opening the bowling with off-spinner Dutt against the left-handed pair of Fakhar and Iman-ul-Haq seemed to unsettle Pakistan. Struggling for timing, pressure grew on the batters. Edwards' decision to try his second offie, Ackermann, in the ninth over proved a masterstroke with batting lynchpin Babar Azam pulling straight to the short midwicket fielder. Pakistan were jolted further in the next over when Imam-ul-Haq was caught at fine leg off a bouncer from van Meekeren.
Given their inexperience and limited resources, the issue for Netherlands was always going to be whether they could back-up the impressive start. Rizwan used all his experience to find the runs by playing the angles and in left-handed Saud Shakeel found an ally to lift Pakistan with a partnership. The team’s 100 was up in the 20th over with their association growing to 62 runs. Saud raced to his fifty off 32 balls -- Pakistan’s second fastest half-century in World Cups.
However, to the disbelief of their fans, from a well-placed 158/3, Pakistan lost three quick wickets to be reduced to 188/6 in 32 overs. Dutt got the big breakthrough of Saud, and De Leede struck a double blow in the 32nd over to send back Rizwan and Iftikhar Ahmed. At 188/6 Pakistan were again under pressure to get to 300. The highlight was de Leede's peach of a delivery to clean bowl Rizwan. The ball seamed in and sneaked through bat and pad to hit the top of off.
With all their specialist batters back in the hut, all-rounders Shadab Khan and Mohammad Nawaz batted sensibly to take the total past 250. But de Leede continued to attack and produced his second double wicket over in the 44th over to peg back Pakistan’s final charge. After taking the middle stump of Shadab, the next ball he had Hasan Ali leg before. Nawaz’s run-out at the total of 267 meant Pakistan finished short of 300.
