Image Credit- ICC
In an ICC competition, South Africa made a lot of noise about a modest chase in New York, but David Miller and Tristan Stubbs dug deep to keep them from losing to the Netherlands for the third time in a row.
They were down to 12 for 4, but Miller and Stubbs put on 65 for the fifth wicket to pull them up. The pitch wasn’t as awful as the scorecard indicated; they took 13 of the 15 wickets that went to them and were also responsible for two run outs.
Only recently did Sybrand Engelbrecht, who played for South Africa at the 2008 Under-19 World Cup, make his debut for the Netherlands. He led the way with a 45-ball 40 on a surface where the next best score among the top seven was 12.
Apparently in an attempt to take advantage of the early circumstances, South Africa put the Netherlands in to bat and had them teetering at 32 for 4. Ottneil Baartman and Anrich Nortje made sure there were no freebies, continuing South Africa’s animosity. As a result, Netherlands tried to invent strokes, much like Scott Edwards did when he successfully completed a reverse scoop for six, but they were unable to produce enough.
To get them into three figures, it took Englebrecht’s persistent knock and his 54-run partnership with van Beek.
Qunton de Kock was out before he could face the ball. Logan van Beek hit a peach that angled in and straightened to strike the top of off for Reeza Hendricks. When Vivian Kingma choked Aiden Markram down the thigh to send him out of South Africa 3–0, it was the first of a double. And Netherlands dared to dream when Heinrich Klaasen’s blood rush allowed him to identify Tim Pringle trying to pull off Kingma.
Miller and Stubbs are both natural hitters who enjoy taking on bowlers. However, they walked out into a crisis, not a situation for that kind of batting. A slip-up could have resulted in the end. They decided to play it safe, ending the powerplay without taking any more wickets and hitting just two more boundaries till the ten-over point.
Stubbs was trying to push the pace, particularly when the ball was embedded in the pitch, as he was on 9 off 21. Furthermore, he found it challenging to hit out because to the spinners’ grip. Thus, Stubbs handed Bas de Leede the initiative when he entered the field in the eleventh over and was rewarded with a huge piece of luck when a thick inside edge went wide of midwicket.
From there, it ought to have been easy sailing, with South Africa requiring 29 off 30. There was one more twist, though. Paul van Meekeren gave Miller a maiden over to begin with, and the pressure was evident when Stubbs holed out off Bas de Leede to deep midwicket in the next over. Then, in the eighteenth, following a six-figure blowout from Miller, van Beek returned to remove Marco Jansen.
However, de Leede erred in line, with South Africa needing 16 off of 12. Miller finished the game with a sequence of 2, 0, 4, and 6, which prompted an exclamation and ferocious fist pumping. Miller started the penultimate over by delivering a half-tracker over fine leg.