The Netherlands does not make enough runs to trouble Pakistan

Vikram Singh and Max O’Dowd opened the batting for the Netherlands after winning the toss. Both openers only managed a single. Singh was caught behind, O’Dowd at mid off.

De Leede was dropped on nought as second slip tried to grab the ball in front of first slip.

Barresi was less fortunate as he saw a stump cartwheeling for the second time this week.

Cooper hooked Naseem Shah for six. In the same over Shah took a brilliant caught and bowled, but it turned out to be a no ball. Cooper had the last laugh as he hit the free hit for four.

Of De Leede and Cooper, the latter was obviously the more aggressive. De Leede lost his timidity when he hit left arm spinner Nawaz for six over the top in the 21st over.

Meanwhile, Cooper had reached his fifty with a number of exquisitely timed shots.

After 23 overs the batsmen reached their 100 partnership at 108/3, partly making up for the disastrous start of the Dutch.

Tom Cooper (an excellent 66 off 74) was replaced by Scott Edwards when he hit a ball - that turned and bounced sharply - back to the bowler, Nawaz.

Edwards and Nidamanuru were caught behind in quick succession; Edwards (5) a feather to the fiercely spinning Nawaz and Nidamanuru (0) on the legside facing Rauf: 128/6.

Repair activities were necessary after this mini collapse. De Leede reached his 50, but Van Beek mistimed a lofted drive in an attempt to accelerate: 157/7.

Unfortunately Pringle recorded his second duck of the Series. At 159/8 the Netherlands were in dire straits. Bas de Leede had to attack and did so hitting sixes off Mohammad Wasim and Mohammad Nawaz.

With that, three more or less modest milestones were on the cards: bat the full fifty overs, reach 200 and what would have been De Leede’s maiden ODI hundred.

However, a slower delivery from Mohammad Wasim did not make the boundary which meant that the Netherlands were all out for a meager 186. Roughly half was made by De Leede (89). Nawaz took 3-42, Rauf was brilliant with 3-17.

There was a glimmer of hope for the Netherlands when Viv Kingma struck twice. Fakhar Zaman hit a leading edge back into Viv’s hands. Shortly after, Van Beek took a fairly simple catch at point to dismiss Imam-ul-Haq.

Still, the score 11/2 did not seem to make Pakistan nervous. In general Babar Azam has so much time that he effortlessly places the ball into a gap.

For a moment it seemed that Pakistan would cruise to victory without further wicket loss. However, Aryan Dutt had a surprise up his sleeve. Babar hit a shorter delivery to deep backward square where Bas de Leede took a fine catch.

An lbw review - Rizwan facing Pringle - could have resulted in another wicket. The ball would have brushed legstump, but the umpire’s call stood: not out.

Rizwan and Salman accelerated and took the score to the winning 191/3. Due to fourteen runs in the final over Salman even reached his first ODI 50. Rizwan made 68 not out. Kingma took 2-32 and Dutt the prize wicket of Babar Azam.