De Leede's day out. Kiwi openers win the game on their own. Pakistan avenge Dallas 2024.
Day 4 of the ICC Men's T20 World Cup
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Netherlands vs Namibia
Bas de Leede’s controlled chase
When the Netherlands last met Namibia at a T20 World Cup, Bas de Leede was the Player of the Match. Like this time, it was for his all-round brilliance. But in this piece, we’ll focus on the batting.
That game was at Geelong and the Dutch were chasing 122. He came in to bat at 59/1, and even though there was a mini-collapse from 92/1 to 102/5 within three overs, he finished the job with a run a ball 30.
In Delhi, he was in to bat much earlier - the score was 16/1 in 2.1 overs. He took his time in the powerplay, while Michael Levitt was going all guns blazing at the other. He was 4 off 8 when he hit his first boundary - a six over long on versus pacer Max Heingo. At the end of the first six overs, he was on 11*(11). That was similar to his career powerplay SR of 96.9 before today when batting at first drop, and he’s been dismissed six times in those 13 innings.
In the first part of the middle overs, he added 19 runs off 14 balls. The most remarkable aspect of that phase was that he only played three dots (including a one leg bye). When he batted at No.3 in T20Is before today, the dot ball percentage between overs 7 to 11 was 31%, while the strike rate was exactly 100.
De Leede really accelerated in the next phase, scoring 31*(18) from overs 12 to 16. This time, it was all about the boundaries. He whacked two fours and two sixes and was a lot better than his usual strike rate of 128.3 as a No.3 in this part of the innings.
In this innings, he struck at 126.3 versus spin, 125 versus pace & a ridiculous 18 off 5 versus the ‘mixed’ bowling of Jan Nicol Loftie-Eaton. As per ESPNcricinfo, he had a control percentage of 83. He scored most of his runs in the midwicket region, but he was also very strong down the ground and through covers.
Bas de Leede didn’t come to the tournament in great T20 batting form; he had only faced six balls for them in 2025, and in 2024, he averaged 14 at a strike rate of 85.5 from 10 innings. Netherlands will be glad that he’s settled well at No.3, a position he had batted at quite regularly in 2022, before moving down the order.
