Stephan Myburgh’s 74 takes Netherlands to series win

Cricket
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Earlier, Klaassen and van Beek picked up three wickets each to bundle out Ireland for 163

Netherlands 166 for 6 (Myburgh 74, O’Dowd 36, Singh 3-29) beat Ireland 163 (Tector 58, Dockrell 40, Klaassen 3-23, van Beek 3-29) by four wickets

Fred Klaassen and Logan van Beek picked up three wickets each before Stephan Myburgh anchored the chase of 164 with a 111-ball 74 to give Netherlands a 2-1 series win over Ireland in the third ODI in Utrecht.

After opting to bat, Ireland were jolted by left-arm seamer Klaassen, who castled Kevin O’Brien for a duck on the fourth ball of the day. In his next over, Klaassen had Paul Stirling caught behind to make it 6 for 2. Andy Balbirnie didn’t last long either and fell to Vivian Kingma in the tenth over.

At 28 for 3, Harry Tector and George Dockrell got together and tried to revive the innings. The two added 89 off 138 balls for the fourth wicket before van Beek provided Netherlands with the breakthrough by bowling Dockrell for 40. Soon after, he had Tector too as the batter tried to push at a length ball only to nick it behind for a 100-ball 58.
From the remaining batters, only Simi Singh (21* off 35) reached double digits as Ireland lost their last seven wickets for 46 runs and were bowled out for 163 in 49.2 overs.

Myburgh started the chase by dispatching the first ball of the innings, bowled by Barry McCarthy, for a six over deep square leg. Alongside Max O’Dowd, he broke the back of the chase by adding 66 in 14.4 overs for the first wicket.

O’Dowd scored 36, with five fours, before Singh breached his defence. Scott Edwards fell soon afterwards and when Josh Little dismissed Musa Ahmad, Netherlands still needed 68. But with more than 25 overs left, Myburgh and Bas de Leede had the luxury to play out a few overs.

The two brought down the equation to 30 required from 63 balls before Myburgh hit offspinner Andy McBrine for 4, 4 and 6 off successive deliveries.

With six required for victory, Myburgh tried to slog-sweep Singh only to be bowled. Netherlands lost de Leede and Pieter Seelaar too in the next two overs but the result was a mere formality by then. In the 46th over, van Beek finally sealed the win with a four off Singh.

Hemant Brar is a sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo

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