“We want to go till the semis”: Netherlands bowler Paul van Meekeren

He added that Aryan Dutt and van Beek kept things tight in the powerplay. Meekeren added that it was an all-round performance against Bangladesh.

Kolkata: Following Netherlands’ 87-run win against Bangladesh in the 28th match of the ODI World Cup 2023 at Eden Gardens in Kolkata on Saturday, Dutch bowler Paul van Meekeren said that they want to go till the semi-finals of the tournament.

Speaking at the post-match presentation, Meekeren stated that it was a special day for the team.

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He added that Aryan Dutt and van Beek kept things tight in the powerplay. Meekeren added that it was an all-round performance against Bangladesh.

“Pretty special day. We’ve said earlier we want to go till the semis, and for that, we need to win games. Very happy with the way we bounced back against Australia. At the halfway stage, 230-240 would have been par we reckoned. Aryan Dutt and van Beek kept things tight in the powerplay. We’ve been working on our fielding, every training session we do 20 minutes of fielding drills. It was an all-round performance, pretty tough to pick a Man of the Match. Scott Edwards and Sybrand Engelbrecht got a bit of momentum for us by building that partnership. Pure team performance tonight,” Meekeren said.

With this loss, Bangladesh is out of contention to qualify for the semis in the World Cup, having lost five of six matches. The Netherlands has won two games, lost four and with four points is in the eighth spot.

The Netherlands opted to bat first and were bundled out for 229 in their 50 overs. Skipper Scott Edwards (68 in 89 balls with six fours) and Wesley Barresi (41 in 41 balls) were the key batters for Dutch.

Shoriful Islam, Taskin Ahmed, Mustafizur Rahman and Mahedi Hasan took two wickets each.

In the run chase of 230 runs, Bangladesh was never a threat and was bundled out for 142 in 42.2 overs. Mehidy Hasan Miraz (35) was the top run-scorer for Bangladesh.

Paul van Meekeren (4/23) was the ‘Player of the Match’ for his match-winning figures.