Cricket Highlights, 07 Oct: ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2023 (Match 02) – Pakistan vs Netherlands: Pakistan began their World Cup campaign with a comfortable victory over the Netherlands.

Pakistan vs Netherlands (Match 10) – Highlights

Pakistan started their World Cup campaign with an easy win despite top-order failure against the Netherlands. They won by 81 runs despite the challenges from Dutch all-rounder Bas de Leede on a day of failures by Babar Azam, Fakhar Zaman, and Imam-ul-Haq with the bat.

In response to Pakistan’s 286 runs, Netherlands’ innings stopped at 205 runs. After taking 4 wickets with the ball, the Dutch all-rounder Leede scored 67 runs with the bat. Saud Shakeel and Mohammad Rizwan both scored 68 runs for the Men in Green. Haris Rauf took the highest number of 3 wickets with the ball.

The Netherlands got off to a good start with the bat of Vikramjit Singh on Friday (October 6) at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad. Max O’Dowd returned with 5 runs but Vikramjit kept walking on his way to a half-century. Colin Ackermann departed after playing an individual 17-run innings for the team’s 50 runs.

But Vikramjit made his half-century. Shadab Khan caught him out after scoring 52 runs off 67 balls. At the end of 26 overs, the score of the Dutch was 129 runs with the loss of 3 wickets. Leede and Teja Nidamanuru were on the wicket. In the next over, Rauf was struck for a four on the first ball with the ball in hand. But he sent back Nidamanuru (5) in the next ball.

The Pakistan pacer gave a dot on the third ball. The Skipper Scott Edwards was trapped lbw off the fourth ball. Saqib Zulfiqar could have gone back to Rauf’s fifth ball. But Rauf did not get 3 wickets in that over as Iftikhar Ahmed dropped the catch.

Zulfiqar returned with 10 runs. Then 4-wicket hauler Leede took over. Even if the wicket fell at one end, he kept the wheel of runs going. Mohammad Nawaz stopped him as he got 67 runs. The Dutch all-rounder hit 6 fours and 2 sixes in an innings of 68 balls.

After that, none of the rest except Logan van Beek could take the team forward. Roelof van der Merwe was out for 4 runs and Paul van Meekeren was out for 7 runs. Van Beek ended up unbeaten on 28 runs.

Earlier, losing the toss and going into bat first, Pakistan scored 286 runs losing all the wickets. The Netherlands took control of the match by returning the top-order batsmen quickly. Imam returned for 15 runs, Fakhar for 12 runs, and Babar for 5 runs. Then Shakeel and Rizwan took the lead of the team.

Spinner Aryan Dutt broke the pair of 120 runs of these two. Shakeel returned to the dressing room after scoring 68 runs off 52 balls. After 24 more runs were added to the scoreboard, Rizwan was dismissed by Leede. He also scored 68 runs off 75 balls. Iftikhar returned managing to score just 9 runs.

After that, another big pair was formed by Nawaz and Shadab. After losing 6 wickets for 188 runs, their pair added 64 more runs. Leede broke the pair by sending Shadab back to the pavilion for 32 runs. Hasan Ali could not open the account of runs. He left the field with a golden duck on Leede’s ball. Nawaz scored 39 runs off 43 balls.

In the end, Pakistan scored 286 runs with Shaheen Afridi’s 13 and Rauf’s 16 runs. Bas de Leede took the maximum number of 4 wickets for the Dutch. Colin Ackermann took 2 wickets. Apart from that, Aryan Dutt, Van Beek, and Paul van Meekeren picked up one wicket each.

Pakistan vs Netherlands Scoreboard

Pakistan – 286/10 (49.0)

Netherlands – 205/10 (41.0)

Result – Pakistan won by 81 runs

Player of the match – Saud Shakeel

Pakistan

Pakistan vs Netherlands Lanka Playing Xis