Batting depth helped us, says Bas de Leede after Dutch win over Bangladesh

Netherlands surprised the cricketing world by notching their second successive win in the ongoing World Cup, beating Bangladesh by 87 runs at the Eden Gardens in the Indian city of Kolkata on Saturday night (October 28).

Even though it looks a formidable task, especially after the hammering they got at the hands of Australia which adversely impacted their net run rate, the Dutch are still harbouring hope of reaching the last-four stage.

“Yeah, difficult to think about [but] I think it depends [on] how other teams do. But for us the goal is to keep winning as many games as we can. I think there are a couple of games where we haven't played to our best, but then again today we did. And if we can do that again for the next three games, who knows where we will finish,” said Netherlands all-rounder Bas de Leede, who scored 17 and took 2/25.

Pace bowler Paul van Meekeren picked 4/23 to earn Player-Of-The-Match award.

De Leede said they didn’t expect to bowl out Bangladesh for 142 in 42.2 overs after being bowled out for just 229 in 50 overs, but he admitted the pitch was tricky.

“Obviously, always a surprise when you bowl a team out for 140. But I think it was a tricky pitch. It wasn't easy to score runs. And us having runs on the board, I think it was very clear what we needed to do. With the pacers, it being a little bit up and down, spin staying a bit low, I don't think it was the easiest pitch to bat. So, yeah, a little bit surprised, but it wasn't the easiest track to bat on,” he said.

Netherlands, at one point in time, were struggling at 107/5 in 27 overs but then their depth in batting rescued them.

“I think we bat very deep, which is one of the qualities we have as a team. Aryan Dutt coming in at number 10, who can still hit the ball miles. So, it's been one of the qualities of middle-order. You know, it's rotating strike against spin. And they've helped us get out of some tricky situations a lot. But it's probably from a top-order point of view disappointing that we haven't gotten ourselves off to a good start yet again. So that's something we're trying to fix, but very proud of our middle order and the way we've played so far.”

Cricket, World Cup, Netherlands, Bangladesh