Rauf and Ali made short work of the tail although Logan van Beek struck a few blows to limit the margin of defeat. It still is a huge margin of victory for Pakistan who had their own share of troubles in the batting department earlier in the day. They had lost their famed top-three in the first ten overs and needed a brilliant partnership from Saud Shakeel and Mohammad Rizwan to bail them out. Both batters got fifties and their century stand helped Pakistan to reverse the pressure on the Dutch bowlers. However, once they fell, Netherlands kept chipping away at the wickets to keep Pakistan in check.

Mohammad Nawaz and Shadab Khan stitched another useful stand down the order while Shaheen Afridi and Rauf also got a few vital runs to stretch Pakistan’s score past the 285-run mark. It was a score that didn’t seem possible when they had lost their sixth wicket at the score of 188. In hindsight, those valuable runs scored by the lower order had a massive significance on the game’s eventual result. Netherlands were disciplined for most parts and managed to stifle Pakistan but the Dutch bowlers arguably missed their mark a bit in the death overs.

It still was a chaseable score but the pitch didn’t ease out as much as it had in Hyderabad during the warm-up games. The track still had runs to be made as de Leede showed as the all-rounder had a starry outing in the field. Unfortunately for him, he didn’t get the kind of support needed to overhaul the target. Rauf’s second spell in particular was too hot to handle although the Dutch will no doubt question some of their shot selection as well.

Brief scores:
Pakistan 286 in 49 overs (Saud Shakeel 68, Mohammad Rizwan 68; Bas de Leede 4-62) vs Netherlands 205 in 41 overs (Bas de Leede 67, Vikramjit Singh 52; Haris Rauf 3-43, Hasan Ali 2-33) by 81 runs