Brief scores: The Netherlands 159-3 in 18 overs (De Leede 72*, Ackermann 32) beat Namibia 156-8 (Loftie-Eaton 42, De Leede 2-20, Van Beek 2-13) by seven wickets

Bas de Leede’s all-round brilliance, an unbeaten 72 off 48 balls to go with two wickets, helped the Netherlands to their biggest-ever T20 World Cup win by seven wickets against Namibia in Delhi on Tuesday.

With a chasing bias in Delhi, captain Scott Edwards elected to bowl and cycled through eight bowling options, cleverly using his match-ups.

Against a left-handed Namibian top-order, off-spinners Aryan Dutt, Colin Ackermann and Zach Lion-Cachet sent down seven of the first eleven overs, exploiting the early turn and bounce on offer.

The result played into their hands as Namibian batters struggled for fluency with only a 55% control rate despite Jan Frylinck and Jan Nicol Loftie-Eaton’s watchful 50-run second-wicket partnership.

Loftie-Eaton rode his luck, being dropped twice and bowled off a free hit, to top score with a laboured 38-ball 42.

Frylinck, too, couldn’t convert his start but Namibian skipper Gerhard Erasmus came out swinging and clothed Timm van der Gugten’s second over for 16 when Edwards turned to De Leede, a highly effective option against right-handed batters.

It proved to be as much, pulling his length back: Erasmus chipped a pull to midwicket and JJ Smit was bowled, late on a cut shot, reducing Namibia to 127-5, bereft of their hard-hitting finishers in the death overs, eventually stumbling to an under-par 156-8.

De Leede ices the chase

Michael Levitt once again set the tone for the Dutch chase, crashing a boundary and three sixes off spinner Bernard Scholtz and Smit in the powerplay, before De Leede took control.

His fifth T20I half-century, his first in 21 innings since August 2022 in the Hague, had it all: five boundaries and four sixes, including a 90m six over long-on off Max Heingo, his most authoritative shot.

“We’ve had a lot of discussion as a team about how we wanted to play this World Cup and I think the mindset change of being a 160 (as a batting total) team to hopefully, now being able to score 180 or 200 has really helped the purpose of training,” De Leede said, from the heart of the Arun Jaitley stadium’s old clubhouse, unaware his father Tim’s picture from a 2003 World Cup game in Delhi hung a floor above.

Record

The last time the Dutch played in Delhi, they were mauled by Australia in a 309-run loss, with De Leede walking away with an unwanted world record of the worst bowling figures in ODI cricket, 2-115. This would have gone some way in burying those ghosts.

It was only last week Durham officially announced De Leede’s departure from the club, a conscious decision to focus on white-ball cricket after two stress fractures of the back last season.

“Over the last year I’ve had two stress fractures in my lower back, which made me think about what kind of cricket I wanted to play,” he said. “And obviously in England there’s a lot of four-day cricket, which I felt like for me was the right time to leave behind and focus on white-ball cricket. So I made the decision to move back to the Netherlands and I’m looking forward to the next couple of years.”

The Dutch will travel to Chennai tomorrow (Feb 11) for their next game against the USA on Friday at 14:30 CEST. All games are live telecast on NOS.