The Netherlands won the toss and opt to bat first. They didn’t have any answers to the express pace of the Pakistani pacers. They lost wickets in clusters on either side of the small resistance shown by Colin Ackermann and Scott Edwards, who stitched together a partnership of 35 runs for the fourth wicket. However, they ended up batting full 20 overs but put only 91 runs on the board for the loss of 9 wickets.
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For Pakistan, Shadab Khan scalped three wickets, while Mohammad Wasim Jr picked a couple of wickets. The rest of the pacers in, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Haris Rauf and Naseem Shah, picked a wicket each.
Chasing this smallish total, Pakistan lost Babar Azam very early on, thanks to a direct hit from Roelof van der Merwe. Mohammad Rizwan and Fakhar Zaman added a 37 runs stand for the second wicket.
Once Fakhar fell, Rizwan continued to nudge around and added a partnership of 30 runs for the third wicket along with Shan Masood. While Rizwan was out just short of his fifty, Masood failed to finish the job. It needed Shadab Khan and Iftikhar Ahmed to complete the chase as they won by 6 wickets with 6.1 overs remaining.
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For Netherlands, Brandon Glover picked a couple of scalps, while Paul van Meekeren picked one wicket. With this win, Pakistan stay alive one more day while Netherlands are knocked out with a couple of games in hand.
Read More: England T20 World Cup qualification scenario
Pakistan v Netherlands: Post-match comments
Babar Azam (Pakistan Captain): Very happy. Performed very well in the bowling and in the batting. Length was crucial. Everyone executed their plans. In my opinion we could chase better than this. But a win always gives you confidence. We’ll try to do our best in the next matches and win.
Scott Edwards (Netherlands Captain): It was still the right decision to bat first. We thought if we got a score on the board, we’ll give the bowlers a chance to defend it. Just not good enough today. Couldn’t get partnerships together, couldn’t string any boundaries. Bowlers always put their efforts in, but 90 was never going to be enough.
Shadab Khan (Player of the Match): I just tried to bowl it at the stumps, that was my plan, just to keep it simple. I have bowled against few of their players in county cricket, so I know how they play. All our bowlers bowled well. The fast bowlers put pressure in the powerplay, and I took wickets because of that pressure built. We didn’t finish the game well in the last couple of matches, but we managed to do it today.
