Netherlands jump Pakistan, but the men in green get home

Also a look at how different England is from the last World Cup.

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The Netherlands were all up and in Pakistan's face early on. For a long time, there was hope. But eventually, not even Bas de Leede could win them the game, despite him continuing to go crazy with bat and ball. Pakistan got the win, but it was kind of a frustrating putrid one, like getting a free pizza but then finding out it was only all the toppings you hate. 

How do you feel about this if you’re a Pakistan fan? You take the points, and maybe think of this game as a cold cup of coffee and move on with the shitty net run rate. 

But if you’re a Dutch fan, this was a big chance to beat a major Test team at a World Cup without Stuart Broad involved. 

For a moment we thought we had a massive upset, and in the end, we Pakistani fast bowlers being fast, so I suppose, there was something for everyone. 

Big Bad Bas de Leede (JK)

This might seem weird, but for cricket, Bas de Leede might be one of the most important players in a very long time. Obviously, he is not Virat Kohli, Babar Azam or Pat Cummins. But de Leede might be the best non-Commonwealth player in cricket. Ireland complicates this, but most of the Irish players still played and trained in England in school at certain times. Even someone like Ali Khan was born in a Commonwealth country. Many of the older Afghanistan players, and even the younger ones, are trained in Pakistan. 

Bas de Leede is a Netherlands cricket product. Sure, the coaches, overseas pros, and even his teammates are still from the rest of cricket’s world. But he is the son of a Dutch player, is part of their system, and he’s just ripped the heart out of Pakistan’s batting lineup twice. Well, maybe not the heart, but he rearranged some organs. 

Bas de Leede is living breathing, hard-hitting, fast-bowling, proof that fantastic players can be made outside of the traditional cricket world. 

But he is more than that. As it currently stands only four Dutch bowlers have taken four wickets in a World Cup match, one of the others is his father Tim. 

If you think that’s wild, how about this? Currently, the de Leede family has 15.9% of their World Cup wickets, and really, the way Bas has been going on, they may be able to improve that number. 

De Leede bats too (JK)

Oh, and he also batted. His journey as a batter in the last 18 months has been incredible. Last summer, the great summer in Dutch cricket history, he was a cameo batter. You could see he could make runs against World Cup bowlers, but he was not quite a full-fledged batter. He looks so much better now. It took him 20 innings to make a 50, but remember, because he was so young when he came in, and he’s an all-rounder, you can understand that. But he has passed 50 four times in the last ten matches. And those include one innings against the reigning champ, two against Pakistan and a hundred against Scotland that got them here. 

It doesn’t seem like there are any technical changes. It’s just that he understands how to make runs more now, and isn’t just a natural hitter of the ball. 

Vikramjit Singh’s knock  (JK)

Worth talking about his batting partner as well. Vikramjit is not yet a complete player. I am not sure if he has many boundary options against spin, he’s very risky with his attacking shots versus the short ball and swinging back into him is an issue. But he has an incredible eye and great hands. When he hits a boundary, it just looks better. 

His biggest issue right now is he gets stuck. He hit four boundaries in the powerplay, and his next one was in the 20th over. He’s a beautiful striker, he should be finding the rope more than this. I think the issue is against spin. The only time he looked like hitting a boundary was from a terrible Shadab Khan drag down which he smashed for six. He won’t get many of them, so he needs to be better at forcing the spinners to change their plans.

Pakistan don't start well (SAK) 

Pakistan played 42 dots in the first 10 overs and lost 3 wickets. Fakhar Zaman's struggles at the top continue. He now has only 202 runs from his last 11 innings. Will Pakistan be tempted to bench him if he has another couple of failures?

Babar Azam looked tentative, barely attempting an attacking shot in his 18-ball stay in the middle. He pulled a length ball to midwicket off Ackermann. He probably felt the need to play the shot because of the pressure generated by the dot balls bowled by Aryan Dutt. 

Pakistan have been a middling powerplay side - they rarely lose too many wickets but they score slowly. So today might just have been an aberration, of course, apart from Fakhar’s lean run. But they need to be clear on the approach they want to follow against the top sides who have quality strike bowlers up top.

The Netherlands are new ball kings (CS)

In our team maps, we mentioned that only England and New Zealand take more wickets than them in the PP, and they also don’t go for many runs. They have quality new ball talent. They made use of their new ball talent and took 3/43 in the first 10. 

The Netherlands went all Dipak Patel and used Aryan Dutt’s off-spin with the new ball. If you don’t get that reference, ask your uncle. They had done that against Pakistan before. Logan van Beek took the new ball as well. Colin Ackermann and Paul van Meerken chipped in with an over each and reaped the rewards in the last two overs of the powerplay. The pressure created by the two frontline options in this phase definitely had a part to play in this. 

Dutt is another off-spinner who bowls in the Powerplay. Among the offies to have bowled at least 10 overs with the new ball since 2022, Dutt has the best economy rate. But what made him so tough to get away? It might partly be because of the conservative approach - the batters barely played attacking shots off him despite the field restrictions. They also showed a puff of dust in the first over, so that meant the ball wasn’t coming onto the bat that well, but it turned and bounced at pace.

Scott Edwards, and the Dutch team, are often very clever in how they use their side. Even the surprise bouncer to Imam, they’re a street smart side. 

Pakistan v off-spin (SAK)

Pakistan are one of the most conservative batting units among the top sides in this World Cup. This reflects pretty well in their approach against the off-spinners. Since the 2019 World Cup, their top 4 batters are the 2nd best on average. However, they are also the 3rd slowest - only the Netherlands and Bangladesh have a worse record. 

Here’s a look at the batters who have faced at least 100 balls of off-spin in this time period. Babar Azam has struggled to score off them, and he’s slow while doing it. Fakhar does not get dismissed, but he’s the 4th slowest. Imam has been middle of the road. But Rizwan is a standout for Pakistan here, he maintains a par scoring rate off them without getting out.

This could be a problem going ahead in the competition when they’re up against quality offies like Theekshana, Mehidy and Mujeeb. Saud Shakeel looks like a serious prospect against spin bowling. 

Rizwan and Shakeel lead the rescue act (SAK)

Such scenarios usually bring the best out of Rizwan's ODI batting a lot more than having to attack. He is a busy player in the middle overs, rotating the strike effectively. However, he came out and batted positively since the start today. His 120-run partnership with Shakeel came at a run rate of 6.31. It was a low-risk partnership, apart from a couple of half-chances, that soaked up the pressure.

On Shakeel, at one point Waqar Younis said that he was the best player of spin in Pakistan, and I wondered if he was better than that. I looked for all the players with 500 international runs against spin in the last two years, and oh my eyeballs, what on earth is this?

Saad was actually averaging more than 100 during this innings until being dismissed. Now, clearly, he hasn’t played Tests inside India on those tracks against those bowlers. But you could see again today that he is a fantastic player of spin. 

Pakistan spinners (SAK)

We had Nawaz in Tier 2, Shadab in Tier 4, and Iftikhar in Tier 5 (the part-timers) while ranking the spinners in this competition. 

Ackermann picked the wrong delivery to sweep off Iftikhar. Shadab bowled a half-tracker wrong-un to get rid of Vikramjit Singh, who skied it to Fakhar. And Nawaz got the ball to grip and hit the top of off to dismiss de Leede, who kept the Dutch in the chase for the first half of the innings.

They conceded 92 runs in 18 overs against an inexperienced Netherlands side, who are very weak in the middle overs. It's not a terrible performance, since they pulled the game back with those wickets. But their spinners are in this weird situation where they are neither too miserly, and nor do they pick up too many wickets.

Wreck-It-Rauf (BQ)

In the recently concluded Asia Cup, one obvious deficiency in Pakistan's tactics was a lack of enforcement in the middle overs. Teams were batting on cruise control from overs 10 to 40, taking singles with ease.

Against the Netherlands today, there was no such thing, as Haris Rauf changed the complexion of the game in a single over, the 27th of the second innings. The Netherlands required 158 in 24 overs, with 7 wickets in hand. 

Rauf was having none of it, as he first bounced Teja Nedamanuru out, and then wrapped Dutch skipper Scott Edwards on the pads two balls later, with the ball crashing into the leg stump, as per DRS. Rauf would have had a third in the over, had Iftikhar Ahmed not shelled a dolly in the slips on the very delivery, but regardless had done enough to swing the pendulum in Pakistan's favour. 

It is no surprise that between overs 10 and 40, only Shardul Thakur, Hardik Pandya, and Taskin Ahmed have a better average than Haris Rauf.

All said and done, if Pakistan are to make waves in this World Cup, Haris Rauf's pace will have a part to play.