NEWS
Follow UsAfter Zimbabwe’s loss in the previous fixture, the ball was in the Netherlands and Scotland’s court for a grand finish. Both of them had a chance to make it to India as the second team to qualify from the Qualifiers. The Netherlands won the toss and immediately elected to field first, a decision that was well and truly vindicated in the second innings.
But it required a humungous effort. It required the best of Bas de Leede, with the ball and the bat, to propel the Dutch side to the next stage of the competition. In the first innings, de Leede picked up a five-wicket haul and scored a match-winning 123 off just 92 balls in the second. However, when he walked out to bat at 72/2, it was far from what the Dutch side would have anticipated.
Slowly yet steadily, de Leede found his groove and built up two useful partnerships with skipper Scott Edwards and Saqib Zulfiqar, eventually leading to a monumental win for the Dutch. During his stay at the crease, de Leede smacked seven fours, and five sixes, before being run-out eventually.
In the post-match presentation, Edwards called de Leede an “unbelievable player” before adding that it won’t be the first or the last time the all-rounder has performed in such a fashion.
“We knew what we wanted to do; we just needed a couple of batters to cash in towards the backend. Leede got five wickets and 123; he is an unbelievable player, we have always known that everyone is aware of that. It's not the first time he has done it and it won't be the last,” Edwards said in the post-match presentation.
“Extremely (happy), yeah. Little bit loss for words. I thought what Bas de Leede and Zulfiqar did in the last 10 overs was unbelievable to watch. This group is just incredible. We put in the hard work and the guys just enjoy everyone's success. We had a different match-winner in every game. It's a pretty awesome feeling. It was just unbelievable batting by Leede and Saqib in the end,” he added.
On the other hand, Scotland were this close to qualifying for the ODI World Cup but were let down by their own mistakes on the day. Scotland’s skipper Richie Berrington though, was ‘extremely’ proud of the efforts and stated that they weren’t quite disciplined enough on the day when it mattered the most.
“I'm extremely proud of the guys for the fight we showed throughout this tournament. Unfortunately, today wasn't quite enough also have to give credit to their guys, the way they played. I think we probably just maybe weren't as disciplined as we have been through the tournament,” Berrington said.
Scotland’s efforts in the tournament, though, were impressive, and their win over Zimbabwe was perhaps the cherry on top of the cake. Berrington reckoned that they have a ‘good core’ now and saw it as a good sign for the future.
“I think looking over the whole tournament, we can be very proud of some of the cricket we've played. And certainly some good building blocks, we can keep improving. A lot of different players stepped up at different times throughout this tournament, which has been really exciting to see and some young players coming into the squad as well. They've done really well. So that's good signs for the future"
