By Lee Dolbear
- Holland beat Ireland to finish third
- Bangladesh through after breaking Oman hearts
- Final wrap from the qualifiers
DHARAMSALA, INDIA – Bangladesh cruise and bruise Oman to reach the Super 10’s at the ICC World Twenty20.
Yet again the rain interrupted events in todays first game Ireland v Netherlands for the pride of not finishing bottom of Group A. The Irish won the toss and chose to field, that was prior to the rainfall that decimated games two days ago started to dampen events again. Fortunately a 6 overs a side game was called and Holland racked up 59/5. Stephan Myburgh scoring 27 off 18 balls and skipper Peter Borren 14 off 9. Ireland’s miserable tournament was rubber stamped when they could only manage 47 and Holland won by 12 runs with Paul van Meekeren taking 4 wickets for just 11 runs from his 2 overs.
After the game Borren said on Sky Sports: “I was pretty happy with some of the skills that we showed with the ball – Van Meekeren bowled two sensational overs and used the pitch very well.”
Ireland skipper Will Porterfield said to Sky Sports: “We haven’t been good enough for the last week. We have been beaten by better teams on the day but we should have played smart cricket and seen the games home.”
So it was the Netherlands finishing in third place and they will be happy with that result although ruing the fact that rain wiped out their game with Oman on Friday, who knows what could have been?
Onto the crunch showcase game with Oman and Bangladesh, and I never thought this game would be the deciding factor of who goes through to the super 10’s but after Oman’s amazing and unforgettable antics against Ireland, I’m so glad I was wrong.
Oman won the toss and decided to put Bangladesh in with the weather making decisions hard. Bangladesh went on to smash 180 for 2 in their 20 overs with opener Tamim Iqbal scoring aggressively and finishing not out on 103; it was a brilliant innings scoring them off just 63 balls. Later both Sabbir Rahman and Shakib Al Hasan were equally in the mood adding 61 between them.
Alas more rain was to follow, so D/L came into play with the Oman reply. It didn’t matter as they came up 56 runs short of the revised target and Bangladesh join Group 2, with their first game of the Super 10’s being against neighbours Pakistan on Wednesday.
It was noteworthy that Bangladesh’s Al Hasan took 4 for 15 in his spell and what a great game he had. But the obvious man of the match was Iqbal for the 103 and the great platform he cemented. Sultan Ahmed the losing captain was apologetic to the Oman fans saying “We tried our best but Tamim Iqbal’s innings was the difference. I think the boys did very well in this tournament. Sorry to our supporters that we couldn’t make it through.”
An elated Mashrafe Mortaza also said after the match: “We got through without any trouble. We are looking forward to the next big format. Tamim’s been scoring nicely for us and hopefully others will join in soon. We can’t make any mistakes in the Super 10. We’ve played fearless cricket. The coach has given us so much confidence.”
As was said from the off Bangladesh being the established and more experience team should win this group, they did and pretty easily really but take nothing away from Oman, to turn up on your first major stage and nearly get to the tournament proper is quite an achievement in itself and expect a lot to come from them in future based on this experience.
Bangladesh and Afghanistan win their Groups and have qualified for the Super 10’s.
The next game is the opener of the Super 10’s, we head back to Nagpur for India v New Zealand on Tuesday 15 March.
What a starter for 10!