Scotland beat Netherlands with 1 Wicket in ICC World Cricket League Division One
Scotland won a thrilling match against Netherlands by 1 wicket in the 3rd match of the ICC World Cricket League Division One, played at VRA Ground, Amstelveen.
Netherlands won the toss and chose to bat first, but the start was less than ideal, as opener Szwarczynski, after smashing 2 boundaries in the first over, was caught by McCallum for just 11 runs from 7 balls off the bowling of Matthew Parker.
Tom Cooper, batting at number 3, came in and made sure that Netherlands did not lose more quick wickets, and decided to dig in and steady the innings. While at the other end, Grooth was also finding it hard to cope with the pace and swing of Scottish attack. A number of Scottish bowlers play English county cricket and have good experience of moving conditions and that was quite evident by the discipline showed by them.
Parker and Richie Berrington continued to tease the Netherlands’ batsmen with the off stump line, but Grooth and Cooper resisted the temptation and held back from playing big drives.
Runs were very hard to come by, but Netherlands looked more focused on securing wickets at that point. By the 12th over, both batsmen started playing their strokes, but there was still an air of caution in their approach.
The pair put on 58 runs, but it took them 18 overs to do so, and de Grooth was the next man to be dismissed with Netherlands at 69. Grooth scored 21 from 62 balls with just 2 boundaries; he was caught by the wicketkeeper on the bowling of Berrington.
Wesley Barresi came in next to join Cooper, and once again a partnership started taking shape. There was still some assistance from the pitch for the bowlers, even though the ball was more than 20 overs old.
Still there were no half volleys on offer, and both batsmen were made to work hard for their runs, but this partnership was much quicker compared to the previous one.
The pair put on 83 runs for the 3rd wicket, at the rate of almost 4 and a half runs per over. Barresi was dismissed after scoring 35 runs from 55 balls with just a single boundary.
Zuiderent came in at number 5, and was probably the ideal man for Netherlands, as they needed some quick runs in the final overs. Zuiderent started using the long handle with good effect, while Cooper continued at his own pace at the other end.
Cooper was finally dismissed after scoring 87 runs from 130 balls. He was dismissed by Drummond, and next man Peter Borren could not open his account, and was clean bowled for naught by Gordon Goudie on the very first ball.
Zuiderent remained not out till the end, with 55 unbeaten runs from 35 balls with 4 fours and 2 sixes.
Netherlands ended their innings at 234 for the loss of 6 wickets.
Although the target was not a mammoth one, but considering the difficult batting conditions, it was still going to test the Scottish batting line-up.
The start was almost the same for Scotland; they also lost the first wicket with just 11 on the board. Mudassar Bukhari was on song for Netherlands and after knocking back the stumps of Mommsen for just 5 runs, he picked up Gregor Maiden, who only contributed with 5 runs.
Bukhari was moving the ball into the batsmen with good pace, and soon got his 3rd wicket when he clean bowled Oli Hairs (Hairs scored 23 from 33 balls with 4 boundaries).
Scotland looked to have no answer to the consistent swing bowling and kept losing wickets. They were restricted to 86 for 5 in the 20th over.
Moneeb Iqbal, though, led a fight-back and kept his team in the game. He got able support down the order from fast bowler Parker (22) and Drummond (33*). Iqbal did not go for the big shots, knowing that if he could just stay at the crease, Scotland had a good chance of getting to the target.
Iqbal (63 from 92) was finally dismissed with the score at 225 and the team needing just 11 runs to win, but the worrying part was that only 2 wickets were left.
Goudie made the match more exiting by getting run out on the first ball; the match was now on a knife’s edge, with Scotland needing 11 runs and Netherland wanting just one wicket.
And it was their captain Drummond who turned out to be the hero, knocking off the last few runs with just one ball to spare.
TLW Cooper from Netherlands was declared man of the match for his all round performance, even though his team did not win the match.
Tags: