Second World Cup qualifying match prey for West Indies

The Netherlands won the toss and decided to bat. Just like on Tuesday the openers started the innings cautiously.

O’Dowd’s first attacking shot came in the fifth over. His mistimed lofted drive was dropped by Alzarri Joseph. In the same over, Singh too escaped when Nkrumah Bonner - fielding between second and third slip - failed to hang on to an edge.

The openers’ timing was a bit less impeccable than on Tuesday. However, in the ninth over O’Dowd managed a perfect lofted drive. The scoring rate increased, especially when Singh found the boundary with a gem of an off drive.

O’Dowd and Singh reached their 50 partnership in the eleventh over. One over later, Singh hit Phillip for six in the same spot he targeted on Tuesday.

On 68/0 O’Dowd was dropped once again, this time by Mayers who was fielding between fourth slip and gully. He made the most of his third life with a massive six over cow corner and a gorgeous cover drive.

The 100 partnership was reached in the 21st over; an excellent achievement on the strong and fast West Indian attack. Just like on Tuesday, Vikram narrowly missed his half century - this time due to Hayden Walsh who caught Singh off his own bowling.

Scott Edwards, in at number three, also played a fine inning. However, he received little support from the middle order batsmen. They were unable to cope with the spinners Hosein, Bonner, and Walsh, who took six wickets between them. Akeal Hosein was the standout performer with 4-39 in ten overs.

Numbers 4 until 11 only got 29 runs between them. Where earlier a 250+ score was on the cards, the Dutch innings went out like the proverbial night candle.

Shariz Ahmad, who had received his cap from his brother Musa in the morning, was cheered by the crowd when he made his very first international run but saw top scorer Edwards get out in the same over, holing out to cow corner. Having been 101/1 at one stage, the Netherlands were 214 all out.

Innings West Indies

In the absence of the injured Viv Kingma, Ryan Klein opened the bowling together with Logan van Beek. The latter caused the first breakthrough when Brooks was caught at first slip (fine catch Seelaar), followed a little later by Bas de Leede who cleaned Shai Hope (18) with a beauty: 35/2 in the ninth over.

De Leede, who bowled 135 km/h, also got Bonner (15) LBW: 48/3 in the thirteenth. It was even 60/4 when Dutt got Pooran (10) played on. It was the second time in three days that the 19-year-old offspinner took the wicket of the West Indian captain.

Now it was key to break the partnership between King and Mayers. 19-year-old legspinner Shariz Ahmad struck with his second ball in his first ODI: Mayers caught behind, Windies 99-5 and the Netherlands back in the game.

Captain Seelaar now faced a complicated puzzle. Everyone bowled sparingly and four of his bowlers had taken wickets. Many bowling changes then, in the hope of upsetting the West Indians.

However, apart from two big run out chances in the 33rd over which should have meant the end of Carty, Brandon King and Keacy Carty didn't give away any more chances. With a partnership of 118 runs, they sealed the fate of the Orange in the 46^th over. King again remained unbeaten, this time with an excellent 91.

Acting coach Ryan Cook: "After our excellent opening, we only had small partnerships of between 20 and 30 runs, and we lost wickets in the middle order to their spinners. That didn't yield enough to build a truly challenging total."

High Performance Manager Roland Lefebvre said: "We played competitive cricket, but West Indies showed resilience coming back into the game from a tough situation."