Netherlands claim surprise victory over Bangladesh, England drop to bottom of the table

The Netherlands climbed off the bottom of the World Cup table with an 87-run victory over Bangladesh on Saturday, thanks to a feisty half-century from Scott Edwards and a fiery spell from Dutch bowler Paul van Meekeren.

After a slow start, Edwards scored 68 runs and Sybrand Engelbrecht added 35 runs as the Netherlands scored 229 runs thanks to late hitting by Logan van Beek (23 not out).

"I was speaking to a couple of guys and we were saying that if we could get 220 plus, we would be in the game... it was nice that the bottom order guys got us to what we thought was a pretty competitive total," Edwards said.

"I thought that we were awesome with the ball and probably even more so on the field, where we had let ourselves down in the last few games."

Shoriful Islam (2-51) and Mahedi Hasan (2-40) cleaned up the tail, but Bangladesh will be disappointed that they allowed the Netherlands' lower order to score 74 runs in the final 10 overs to post a respectable total.

"I thought we bowled really well but we were sloppy in the field," Bangladesh skipper Shakib Al Hasan said after his side dropped to ninth in the standings. "We should have restricted them from the position we were in to 160-170.

"We've been very poor with the bat all tournament and this is as bad as it gets. We have to pick ourselves up to be able to finish the tournament on a high."

Bangladesh then collapsed to 70-6 in 18 overs while chasing 230, with Van Meekeren (4-23) mowing down the middle order and Bas de Leede dismissing set batsman Mehidy Hasan Miraz for 35, before succumbing for 142 in 42.2 overs.

It was also the first time the Netherlands had won two matches at the same World Cup following their stunning victory over South Africa.

The Dutch seamers varied their pace and extracted bounce from a slow wicket at Kolkata's Eden Gardens to turn up the heat on Bangladesh, as De Leede (2-25) removed Mohammad Mahmudullah (20) to set them up for a memorable victory.

Van Meekeren, the match's player of the match, took the final wicket to spark wild celebrations for the Dutch, who had previously lost by 309 runs to Australia.

SportsLigue