Pakistani Away From Home

Rarely do I pay attention to a game of cricket that is not played by two of the towering cricketing nations . Usually, the hullabaloo is all about India , England, or Australia . But in this silent dead space for a week or so , I turned my attention to a smaller , lesser viewed series of Pakistan touring Netherlands .

While the Netherlands may not be a cricketing country to be aware of usually , in the context of the upcoming T20 World Cup in October , I believe they will put on quite a show . Put in a qualifier group with Sri Lanka , Namibia and UAE , Netherlands has a high chance of coming first and entering the big stage . As a road to the aforementioned tournament , Netherlands have started a series against Pakistan at home , with arguably similar conditions to Australia ( where the tournament will be held ).

The first match of a 3 match ODI series was originally rescheduled to a later date ( i.e. August ) and was played in Roterdam , Hazelaarweg . The bowling team of Netherlands showed their home advantage by taking the wicket of Imam-Ul-Haq at the end of 6 overs , at a measly team score of 10 . The pace duo of Aryan Dutt and Kingma did well to restrict the openers to a low run rate , showing disciplined bowling , and overall fabulous fielding from the team . But Pakistan ( and more specifically Fakhar Zaman and Babar Azam) persevered . Doggedly batting through the overs , they managed a sizeable 168 run stand until Babar Azam got out in the 35th over .

Since then , even though Zaman went on to make a 100 , Pakistan kept losing wickets at regular intervals , seeming to lose the lead set by Zaman and Azam , and make an unsatisfactory target . But Shadab Khan and Agha Salman had other plans . Even though they were primarily bowlers , these 2 belted out 48 runs in the last 4 overs , to take the game almost out of Netherlands' hands .

But they were far from giving up . Faced with a daunting task , Nehterlands batsmen gave a solid reply , ultimately losing because of Mohammad Nawaz and Naseem Shah’s economic bowling . Barring the early wickets , Netherlands almost roleplayed a perfect chase , but the early wickets came to haunt them back later as they did not have a deep enough batting line up left to power through the remaining runs .

While this seems a loss for Netherlands on all sides of the game , I would argue they played really well . The point is not they lost on all sides , but they almost won in all . While they lack the star power or the legacy of a full cricketing nation , Netherlands looks very well to be the perfect underdog in the cage fight going into the world stage . With a few months of training and shining off the edges , they will be a strong enough team to take wins off the powerhouses such as England and India .

Excited to see the road till the T20 world cup for both Netherlands and rest of the world. Have a great week ahead !