Netherlands 168 for 3 (O’Dowd 90, de Leede 41*, Lamichhane 2-60) beat Nepal 167 (Paudel 33, van Beek 4-24, Vikramjit 2-20) through seven wickets
Van Beek found movement in the air and off the seam early on. He had Aasif Sheikh step in for the third over of Nepal’s innings, bringing together Kushal Bhurtel and Bhim Sharki and they broke through despite not always looking in control. They missed many of their horizontal bat shots.
Bhurtel welcomed Vikramjit with a cut through coverage for four and a punch to the middle for three. But Vikramjit found the lengths on him to first dry up the runs and then dismiss Bhurtel and Aarif Sheikh in the 15th and 17th respectively. That started Nepal’s slide from 46 for 1 to 91 for 5, and they couldn’t recover from then on.
The extra bounce and movement of Vikramjit’s seam accounted for Bhurtel (stuck behind) and Aarif (stuck in a gully). Sharki, who saw the new ball come out, began to aim for the limit after Bhurtel’s wicket. He missed a hook and nearly cut Bas from Leede to the fielder. His luck ran out when he cut off Clayton Floyd’s first ball on point.
Kushal Malla’s trademark positivity led to the first six of the game as he swept Floyd over midwicket at 21. But his aggression didn’t work against Aryan Dutt, who bowled back-to-back maidens and then had Malla miss a slog to long-off.
Nepal captain Rohit Paudel pounced on Aryan on the 29th, taking him down for a six and four. That led to the return of van Beek and the full deployment of the short ball tactic. Paudel and Dipendra Singh Airee were out of the jerk in the space of two overs.
Despite Sandeep Lamichhane impulsively making space to open gaps and Gulsan Jha working the ball to build a steady 32-run position for eighth wicket to give Nepal some respectability, it was only a matter of time until the bouncers searched for wickets of Holland. This time it was from Leede, who passed Jha and Karan KC in 42nd. Lamichhane landed a couple of jagged boundaries before succumbing to the attraction as well. He was the last man out; Nepal’s innings closed with 33 balls to spare.
Vikramjit offered steady support at the other end, and by the time Lamichhane caught him lbw on the 13th, the Netherlands had already broken the rear of the chase with a starting position of 86 runs.
Two overs later, Lamichhane had Wesley Barresi reverse sweeping to short third causing a minor slowdown. But Leede’s new batsman settled in thereafter and combined with O’Dowd to rotate the strike and find regular caps to bring the Netherlands closer.
With ten races remaining to win, O’Dowd was bowled for 90 by Jha. Despite O’Dowd missing out on what would have been a match-winning first ODI century, the Netherlands had no trouble pulling off a seven-wicket victory with as many as 137 balls remaining.
Ekanth is deputy editor of ESPNcricinfo