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Following his side's 56-run loss to India in their ICC T20 World Cup match, Netherlands skipper Scott Edwards said that it was an awesome experience playing the Men in Blue amid the "noisiest atmosphere" and added it was difficult to restrict their opponents, given their great batting order.
A superb performance by the Indian bowlers coupled with half-centuries by a trio of Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Suryakumar Yadav helped the Men in Blue clinch a 56-run win over the Netherlands in their Group 2, Super 12 match of ICC T20 World Cup at the Sydney Cricket Ground on Thursday.
"Definitely the noisiest (atmosphere), some of the chants that were going around made it difficult to speak to the players sometimes, but it was an awesome experience. We came here to win and put on a good performance, but against these sides of this calibre, you have to be on the money or they make you pay. The way those two batters played in the end and took them to 180, it was always going to be tricky. We bowled reasonably well but if you do not get the wickets and with the batting order they have, it was always going to be tough to restrict them. It gets bigger and better, does not it? Looking forward to it (the Pakistan game) and hopefully we can put up a better performance," said Edwards in a post-match presentation.
With this win, India are at the top spot on the points table with four points in two wins in two matches. The Netherlands are at the bottom and are yet to score a point.
India scored 179/2 in their 20 overs after opting to bat first. Virat (62*), Suryakumar Yadav (51*), and skipper Rohit Sharma (53) shined with half-centuries. Rohit and Virat put on 75 runs for the second wicket while Suryakumar and Virat put on an unbeaten stand of 95 of 48 balls for the third wicket.
KL Rahul failed to fire once again, scoring only 9 runs.
Fred Klaassen and Paul van Meekeran took a wicket each for Dutch.
Chasing 180, Netherlands did not really look like a threat and Indian pacers and spinners exerted pressure on its batters from ball one. Tim Pringle (21) and Colin Ackermann (17) were the top two batters for the Dutch side. The team finished the innings at 123/9
and lost the match by 56 runs.
Bhuvneshwar Kumar (2/9), Axar Patel (2/18), Arshdeep Singh (2/27) and Ravichandran Ashwin (2/21) contributed with wickets. Shami got one wicket.
Suryakumar Yadav was the Man of the Match for his half-century.