The Netherlands have climbed off the bottom of the World Cup table with an 87-run win over Bangladesh after another fine performance from their Australian-raised captain Scott Edwards.
Wicketkeeper Edwards hit a feisty half-century and his fast-bowling teammate Paul van Meekeren ripped through the Asian side in a fiery spell on Saturday as the Dutch celebrated another terrific moment after their sensational win over South Africa earlier in the tournament.
Chasing 230 to win, Bangladesh collapsed to 6-70 inside 18 overs with van Meekeren (4-23) mowing down the middle order and Bas de Leede dismissing set batsman Mehidy Hasan Miraz for 35, before they folded for 142 in 42.2 overs.
It marked the first time the Netherlands had won twice at the same World Cup.
The Dutch seamers varied their pace and extracted bounce from a slow wicket at Kolkata’s Eden Gardens to turn up the heat on Bangladesh, as de Leede (2-25) removed Mohammad Mahmudullah (20) to put them on course for a famous win.
Player of the match van Meekeren then claimed the final wicket to spark huge celebrations for the Dutch who lost by 309 runs to Australia last time out.
Tongan-born Edwards, who grew up in Melbourne, has an Australian passport but also qualifies for the Netherlands through his Dutch grandmother, scored 68 to revive the innings after a poor start.
Sybrand Engelbrecht chipped in with 35 as the Netherlands scored 229 thanks to late hitting by Logan van Beek (23 not out).
Scott Edwards. (Photo by Alex Davidson-ICC/ICC via Getty Images)
“We thought if we could get 220-plus, we would be in the game… it was nice that the bottom order guys got us to what we thought was a pretty competitive total,” Edwards said.
“I thought that we were awesome with the ball and probably even more so on the field, where we had let ourselves down in the last few games.”
Shoriful Islam (2-51) and Mahedi Hasan (2-40) cleaned up the tail, but Bangladesh were left to rue how they allowed the Netherlands’ lower-order to accumulate 74 in the final 10 overs to post a respectable total.
Netherlands lost both their openers in the first 14 balls after Edwards won the toss and chose to bat, but Wesley Barresi repaired the damage with a breezy 41 including eight fours.
Colin Ackermann fell for 15 and the Dutch would have been in deeper trouble but for sloppy catching by Bangladesh as Edwards was dropped twice off Mustafizur before he had scored.
Taskin Ahmed (2-43) had De Leede caught behind for 17 to leave Netherlands teetering at 107-5, but Edwards soldiered on with Engelbrecht to score his second fifty of the tournament before Mustafizur snared him with a wide yorker.