ICC World Cricket League Division One: Ireland beats Netherlands by 39 runs
Ireland, who have already made it to the final of ICC World Cricket League Division One continued their winning ways when they beat Netherlands in yet another low scoring game today. After batting first, Ireland did not perform well with the bat and were rolled over for just 177 runs. However, their bowling came to the rescue and knocked over the Netherlands batsmen for a paltry 138 runs, resulting in a 39 run win.
Ireland won the toss and chose to bat first, knowing that the overcast conditions would not make things easy for their batsmen. Probably the fact that they have made it to the final already made them test their batsmen against the moving ball.
And as predicted, the start was not too bright. The ball moved considerably and Stirling and Balbirine did not find it easy to middle the ball. With three slips in place, there was no room for error as the batsmen kept holding off on the balls slightly wide of the off stump.
But Balbirine finally gave in to the temptation and played a back foot drive as soon as he saw the off spinner. However, the ball ended up in the hands of first slip after scoring just 5 runs from 24 balls with no boundaries. His wicket was taken by http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Adeel-Raja-c928.
Hall came to the crease and did not find it easy either as he failed on several times as he tried to slashed hard. He was caught and bowled by Loots for just 7 runs from 21 balls with one four.
And Loots got his 2nd wicket on the very next ball when he trapped Kevin O’Brien plum in front of the stumps.
Poynter also failed to get off the mark as he was caught behind in the next over off the bowling of Jonkman.
White and Stirling then put on a stand of 20 runs for the 5th wicket partnership, before Stirling was cleaned up by Loots for his 3rd wicket as Ireland struggled at 57 for 5.
That is when Mooney came to the crease and put on a good partnership with White as the pair added 48 runs together. White was later caught by Cooper off the bowling of Borren after scoring 23 runs from 46 balls with 2 fours to his credit.
Mooney continued to score though and reached his fifty from 71 balls with 4 fours and a six. He was caught by Kashif off the bowling of Jonkman.
There were some useful contributions down the order from Jones (25) and Mccann(18) as http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Ireland-c751 ended at 177 all out in the second last over of the innings.
http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Netherlands-c753 in reply would have been hoping to overhaul the score without much fuss, but did not get off to the best of starts.
Szwarczynski was bowled by O’Brien after scoring 14 from 13 balls with 2 fours. http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Cooper-c51561 came in at number 3 and scored 18 from 18 balls with 3 fours. However, he was caught by Stirling off the bowling of Mooney. Bukhari was out lbw by Dockrell after scoring just 5 runs from 14 balls with one four.
At 3 for 50, it still did not look that bad for the Netherlands, but it kept getting worse. Barresi was dismissed for just 19 runs as he was caught by O’Brien off the bowling of Dockrell.
Bas Zuiderent and Borren re-started a rear guard action and put on 73 solid runs for the 5th wicket as Netherlands started to hope once again. However, after the loss of Borren with a beautiful delivery by Dockrell for 47 runs, it was almost over for the Netherlands.
It triggered a massive collapse as the last 5 wickets fell with just 6 runs being added to the total as Netherland were all out for 138 runs.
Stirling was named as the man-of-the-match for his 4 wickets along with 33 runs to his name.
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