South Africa were taken aback by a riveting slog-overs assault from Netherlands led by skipper Scott Edwards with entertaining cameos from Roelof van der Merwe and Aryan Dutt. A whopping 104 runs came off the final nine overs of the innings as the Dutch ended with a more than handy score of 245 in the World Cup encounter at Dharamsala on Tuesday (October 17). Persistent showers meant that the game was reduced to 43-overs-a-side right after the toss was held.

Given the overhead conditions and the expectation of inclement weather later on, South African skipper Temba Bavuma opted to bowl. He’d have opted for some movement as the surface had been under covers for a long time. Also, Dharamsala has historically favoured the quicks, which is why the Proteas got in the extra pacer in Gerald Coetzee in place of Tabraiz Shamsi. Despite a slightly wayward start, South Africa’s pacers vindicated their skipper’s decision and had the Dutch struggling at 50/4 in no time.

Kagiso Rabada, Lungi Ngidi and Marco Jansen with their varying skill sets had Netherlands’ batters in a lot of trouble while Coetzee’s extra pace also proved to be a handful on the pacy deck. When Edwards walked to the middle to join Teja Nidamanuru, the score read 82/5. The duo was just about starting to put the innings on track before the latter became the victim of a searing Jansen yorker. Logan van Beek also got a start but he too wasn’t able to hang around for long with his skipper. At 140/7, you couldn’t have faulted South Africa for wishing to wrap up the innings quickly. Except that they couldn’t.