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| Vivian Kingma leads the way with the ball as visitor ends Day 2 on 35/6 in reply to host’s 210 |
After the first day of the encounter was washed out without a ball being bowled, the pitch had some demons in it and that resulted in the fall of 16 wickets.
As a result of the damp strip, the overcast conditions and tidy bowling from Scotland, the Netherlands, who was asked to bat first, was constantly under pressure. Had it not been for Roelof van de Merwe and his 136-ball 73, things could have been rather iffy for the host. The former South Africa international’s innings turned out to be the saving grace as it helped the side cross the 200-run mark and finish on 210 from 71.1 overs.
Scotland’s bowlers, led by Josh Davey, who picked up three wickets, had done the job. Now, it was the turn of the batsmen to deliver. Unfortunately, it all went wrong as Kingma and Paul van Meekeren cracked the whip from the first over of Scotland’s innings, sharing five wickets to reduce Scotland to 35 for 6 in 23 overs at stumps.
Kingma was the one to get things going as he got rid of Hamish Gardiner and Matt Machan with just three runs on board. Van der Merwe then got into the act by dismissing Kyle Coetzer, but Kingma was right back in the mix when he sent Preston Mommsen, Scotland’s skipper, back to the hut.
Following his three-wicket burst, Kingma was taken off the attack and van Meekeren was brought on. He, too, hit paydirt as he packed off Richie Berrington and Davey in quick succession to leave Scotland in tatters.
At the start of the day, the Netherlands got off to a decent start but in no time it was tottering at 88 for 5 and in need of a steady hand. Much to its relief, van de Merwe and Stephan Myburgh stepped it up with a 65-run partnership for the sixth wicket.
But, following Myburgh’s wicket, Con de Lange’s second, the Netherlands was back to square one as it lost wickets in a rush. Van der Merwe, who was the wall that separated Scotland from running through the Netherlands’s batting line-up, fell after Peter Borren, Netherlands’s skipper, to bring an end to the fight.
Davey, who had removed Pieter Seelaar earlier, accounted for van der Merwe with the score on 197 and followed it up by dismissing Quirijn Gunning the very next ball. Unfortunately, he missed out on the hat-trick and a four-wicket haul, but it didn’t take Scotland too long to wrap things up as Safyaan Sharif got his second wicket in van Meekeren to bring an end to the innings.
At that stage, Scotland will have felt happy. But, in little over an hour, everything had changed.
Source: ICC