|
Tendulkar hit India's only fifty
|
World Cup, pool A. India 204 all out (48.5 overs) bt Netherlands 136 all out (48.1 overs) by 68 runs
India's batsmen will go into their next match against Australia on Saturday with confidence very low indeed after they were bowled out for just 204 by the amateurs from Holland.
India did at least beat the Dutch by a comfortable margin, but that was largely due to the inadequacies of the orange team's top order against seam.
And when Anil Kumble (four for 31) and Harbhajan Singh bowled well in tandem on a dusty track, hopes of a famous upset were swiftly put to one side.
However Daan van Bunge, the 20-year-old opener from Voorburg, showed plenty of steel to finish with 62.
Of the Indian batsmen, only Sachin Tendulkar (52) and Dinesh Mongia (42) batted with any great certainty with Holland's medium pacers really hard to put away.
Tim de Leede picked up four wickets, including the key ones of Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid, bowling brisk off-breaks.
De Leede had Tendulkar caught behind off his gloves before really embarrassing Indian's iron man Rahul Dravid by clean bowling him for 17.
Mohammad Kaif then fell to the off-spinner Adeel Raja for just nine and Raja could then have had Yuvraj Singh caught in the deep for 14.
Harbhajan strikes in his first over, with de Leede caught behind off a top-spinner for a duck...
|
That would have made it 119 for six, but Yuvraj survived to hit a vital 37 before Raja had his revenge by dismissing him caught and bowled.
By then he had added 55 with Dinesh Mongia. And it was Mongia who made sure Holland would have to chase more than 200 as he produced some crafty shots in the final overs.
When the Dutch came out to bat, Javagal Srinath struck in the first over with Feiko Kloppenburg caught at second slip.
Van Bunge and Henk Mol then took the score to 29, largely courtesy of a stack of wides bowled by Zaheer Khan.
But when their partnership was broken by Srinath, the Dutch batting fell to pieces.
Arguably their best two players, de Leede and Bas Zuiderent, were both out for ducks before Kumble took the next four wickets to fall.
Van Bunge hit one memorable drive off Sourav Ganguly and punished the rare loose balls from the spinners.
But the last few overs, either side of his dismissal, was pretty agonising stuff for the spectators who had expected far more excitement from the Indians.
India: Sourav Ganguly (captain), Rahul Dravid (wkt), Virender Sehwag, Sachin Tendulkar, Anil Kumble, Harbhajan Singh, Javagal Srinath, Zaheer Khan, Dinesh Mongia, Yuvraj Singh, Mohammad Kaif.
Netherlands: Roland Lefebvre (captain), Luuk van Troost, Daan van Bunge, Feiko Kloppenburg, Tim de Leede, Henk-Jan Mol, Adeel Raja, Edgar Schiferli, Reinout
Scholte, Jeroen Smits (wkt), Bas Zuiderent.
Email this story to a friend
