Pakistan hammer Netherlands
\n PERTH
\nPakistan bowlers, led by spinner Shadab Khan, helped them hammer the Netherlands by six wickets in Perth on Sunday for a first win at the Twenty20 World Cup.
\nPakistan restricted the Dutch to 91-9, and then cruised to 95-4 with 37 balls to spare as Mohammad Rizwan made 49.
\nBut it was the bowlers set up victory for a side that lost their opener to India and then were shocked by Zimbabwe in Group 2.
\nShadab returned figures of 3-22 and pace bowler Mohammad Wasim took two wickets to set the tone for their team\u2019s domination against a Dutch side who are out of the semi-final running after losing a third straight Super 12 match.
\nPakistan lost skipper Babar Azam, for four, in the second over of their chase when he was run out by a direct throw from Roelof van der Merwe.
\nRizwan attacked from the start, hitting five fours and putting on 37 with the returning Fakhar Zaman.
\nFast bowler Brandon Glover had Zaman caught behind for 20 as a crowd of over 10,000, dominated by Pakistan supporters, feared for the worst at a venue where Pakistan fell short by one run in their chase of a modest 130 against Zimbabwe on Thursday.
\n\u2018Slow approach\u2019
\nAt first, it was easy for Pakistan to chase this target as Mohammad Rizwan furiously started the second innings. Pakistan captain Babar Azam once again failed to score runs to secure victory.
\nPakistan gave away four wickets; it looked like this chase was quite difficult for the batters to chase down in ten overs.
\nAlthough Pakistan won the match, fans are pretty unhappy with their performance as they wanted this target to be chased down quickly to improve their net run rate.
\n\u201cNot sure if it\u2019s the right way to chase a small target considering NRR can come in to play. I know it\u2019s unlikely to but still you never know\u2026.,\u201d Wrote a Twitter user.
\n\u201cPakistan didn\u2019t look to boost their NRR at any point, they could have shuffled their batting order and tried to chase this inside 10 overs but this wasn\u2019t on their mind. Even the batters out there didn\u2019t try to accelerate, thought this could have been chased better,\u201d another fan wrote.
\nNerves calmed
\nBut Rizwan and Shan Masood calmed the nerves with stand of 30 and despite both falling near the end Pakistan sailed past their target as bowling hero Shadab hit the winning four.
\nNetherlands captain Scott Edwards won the toss and chose to bat first but Pakistan\u2019s new-ball bowlers kept a disciplined line and only three runs came from the first two overs.
\nReturning opener Stephan Myburgh broke the shackles with a boundary off Shaheen Shah Afridi only to fall next ball, caught at fine leg attempting another big hit to be out for six. There was no respite from the Pakistan quick bowlers. Wasim took two wickets in two balls only for Paul van Meekeren to survive the hat-trick delivery, and Haris Rauf made good use of the bounce on offer.
\nA nasty bouncer from Rauf got through Bas de Leede\u2019s helmet grill, forcing the batsman off the ground with a bruised cheek bone. He sat out the rest of the match in the dugout sporting a nasty-looking black eye.
\nShadab\u2019s leg spin had Tom Cooper caught for one after the power play and then trapped Max O\u2019 Dowd lbw for eight in his next over.
\nAfter crawling to 34-3 after 10 overs, and with De Leede retired hurt, Netherlands captain Edwards and Colin Ackermann (27) attempted to rebuild with a 35-run stand but once they were separated the wickets kept tumbling.
\nShadab trapped Ackermann lbw with a quicker and flatter delivery and Edwards fell soon after, for 15, to Naseem Shah.
\nVan Meekeren was last to fall, run out off the final ball for seven.
\nPakistan need to win their remaining matches against South Africa on Thursday and Bangladesh in a week\u2019s time, and need other results to go their way, to have any chance of a semi-final place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Pakistan hammer Netherlands PERTH Pakistan bowlers, led by spinner Shadab Khan, helped them hammer the Netherlands by six wickets in Perth on Sunday for a first win at the Twenty20 World Cup. Pakistan restricted the Dutch to 91-9, and then cruised to 95-4 with 37 balls to spare as Mohammad Rizwan made 49. But it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":292651,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-292624","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports"},"yoast_head":"\n