CWC Qualifier 2023: Bas de Leede pulled off one of the great all-round ODI performances today (July 6), to pull the Netherlands back from the brink and secure their World Cup qualification with victory over Scotland.

From a neutral’s perspective, there are games where you can’t tell which underdog story would be more worthy of your allegiance. In the case of the crunch game in the Cricket World Cup Qualifier today, where either Netherlands or Scotland would become part of a ten-team main tournament, there were strong cases on both sides.

Scotland were the ultimate outsider still left in the fight. They’ve blown away so many supposedly superior teams in the tournament, from a one-wicket win over Ireland through dumping out West Indies to ending Zimbabwe’s hopes in front of a raucous, silenced home crowd. For them to beat three Test-playing nations to a seat at a finite table would be unprecedented. And then there’s Netherlands. They’ve been denied the use of seven players for this tournament who weren’t released by their English counties and were last in the tournament in 2011. Their status as the best of the rest was signified by their being the 13th team in the Cricket World Cup Super League, while that tournament’s defunct status and the lack of a replacement signifies their global standing among the have-nots.

But for his singular refusal to acknowledge a lost cause, with plenty of mitigation from criticism, Bas de Leede pulled the neutral support into the Netherlands’ camp.

Netherlands have already benefited from another odds-defying Stokesian effort previously in this competition. Against West Indies, Logan van Beek smashed 28 off 14 to drag the match into a super over, before hitting every ball in that over for a boundary. He then bowled the reciprocal set, conceding 2-8.

While that innings kept the Netherlands in the hunt during the Super Sixes, carrying forward important points from the win, none of it would have mattered if de Leede hadn’t made it count today.

Coming into the match, the equation for qualification favoured Scotland. A win would take them level on points with Sri Lanka and seal their tickets to India. Netherlands had to rely on eclipsing Scotland’s net run rate. When they won the toss and bowled first, the challenge was confirmed. Chase whatever total Scotland posted in 44 overs or less.

There were plenty of opportunities in Scotland’s innings where they could have put up a total well beyond Netherlands’ reach in 50 overs, never mind 44. Brandon McMullen and Richie Berrington’s 155-run partnership took them past 200 with 13 overs still left to bat. Tomas Mackintosh and Chris Greaves both scored quickly towards the end of the innings. But, every time, it was de Leede who pegged them back.

His first wicket came off the final ball of the powerplay in his first over into the attack, breaking a settled partnership between McMullen and Chris McBride. It was de Leede again who dismissed George Munsey four overs later in an over that conceded just one run. After Ryan Klein had finally dismissed McMullen for a century, de Leede came on to wrap up the tail.

He got Greaves and Mark Watt with consecutive balls, having also dismissed Berrington for 64 shortly before. His five wickets came at an economy rate of 5.20 and went a long way to ensuring Scotland did not pass 300.

Still, 278 was a lot to ask off 44 overs and, as Netherlands reached the halfway stage of their innings, they were struggling. When Teja Nidamanuru was out, they needed 170 runs from 20 overs (8.5 RPO). At that point, De Leede was on 19 off 30. By the time De Leede reached his fifty, that rate was almost at tens and five wickets had gone down.

There were signs though, that he was starting to sense the urgency. A six in the next over off Mark Watt, two fours off Safyaan Sharif and suddenly he was closing in on a century.

At the end of the 40th over, he was on 90 off 82 balls. To win the match, Netherlands needed a near certain 45 runs from 60 balls. But that would mean nothing if they couldn’t score those runs in the next 24. For everything, it seemed de Leede had left it too late. Except he hadn’t.

As soon as he got on strike for the second ball of Saqib Zulfiqar’s over, he whacked two successive sixes. The first was flat over long-on, the second – over square-leg – gave him a century. His first fifty came off 55 balls, the second off 30. Saqib Zulfiqar can claim credit as one of the great supporting acts to a masterpiece, with his six off the final ball of that over a crucial part of the story. In that one five-minute passage of play, every expectation for the outcome of the match had been reversed.

In the next over, he made their success a certainty. McMullen’s juicy half-volley was punished for another six, while his fifth ball disappeared over the rope as well. Three runs needed from two overs. The required rate had gone from 11.25 at the end of the 40th, to 1.5 12 balls later.

The only disappointment from de Leede was that it was not him with the winning runs. He was run out from a direct hit, two shy of victory. It was the hero from earlier in the tournament, van Beek, who finished the job with a single. But de Leede’s place in history was secure. Before today, only three men in history had hit a century and taken five wickets in the same ODI. De Leede became the fourth, and in a game of much greater significance than any of those before him.

If Scotland had concluded what had seemed locked in 20 minutes earlier, their story would be celebrated as one for the history books. But de Leede has scribbled out those pages and left his own indelible illustration. The Netherlands will be at the World Cup later this year, and it’s two genius all-round performances they have to thank.

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