Bas de Leede appeared to be prepared for the ball when pitched short.
Bas de Leede appeared to be prepared for the ball when pitched short. He had the fundamentals down pat; his feet were lined up, and his backlift was ready to pull it away over midwicket. However, this was Perth, where short balls frequently continue to rise. The Netherlands has few chances to play in Perth, and on the international stage, at least, de Leede has no opportunities to deal with the pace that Haris Rauf had just blasted his way.
The ball rose just a touch too quickly and with too much height. When it struck de Leede in the face and knocked him to the ground, it appeared to have breached the uncomfortably wide space between the helmet and the grill with a terrible thud. De Leede left the scene with a cut under his right eye as the medical personnel rushed to assess the degree of the injury. After the game, he ran into Rauf, who promised him that he would return more assertive and able to hit sixes. Good luck. They shared a quick embrace before parting ways. In the pecking order of cricket, two men representing two nations are far away at the table.
Although Rauf’s words were sincere, de Leede needed somewhere to turn. De Leede played no international matches* between the T20 World Cup in October 2022 and the present Men’s World Cup Qualifier, missing the ODIs against Zimbabwe and South Africa owing to injury. And currently, the Netherlands has yet to schedule any games in any format between the Qualifier and the 2019 50-over World Cup.
Two days earlier, Scotland had broken the hearts of the locals in Bulawayo, placing the Netherlands in a must-win situation. To overtake Scotland on net run rate and guarantee their place in the World Cup, they had to chase 278 in 44 overs. The Netherlands and Scotland are two significantly improved teams deprived of the opportunity they deserve. Because the English domestic system offers greater financial rewards, they are so financially constrained that they cannot even choose their first-choice teams for a tournament of this significance.
De Leede then enters the game after Netherlands’ consistent opening. When Tim de Leede faced this exact opposition in the West Indies in 2007, that was the last time de Leede played an ODI World Cup match. But that was 16 years ago, back in the heady days of the 16-team World Cup. Tim played in his 29th and final ODI. De Leede has previously participated in 30 ODIs and is still playing.
De Leede performs as any competent batter in this position would for most of the innings. He picks up weak deliveries, rotates the strike with his captain Scott Edwards, and directs his team toward the pursuit. Even though he’s only 23 and hasn’t had many chances to play in this format, he knows that at this moment, taking low-probability chances, they’re more likely to lose the game than win. There are few signs of the late charge that will sideswipe Scotland in an hour.
After the game, de Leede remarked, “We looked at the target where we wanted to be at halfway and I think from there comes the point where you stop talking about it, and actually do it.” “Max [O’Dowd] and Vikram [Vikramjit Singh] setting up the platform, then the rest of us to come in and finish it off.”
However, Edwards is out, increasing the asking rate; the Dutch must now score 102 runs in ten overs to qualify. It’s a low-probability shot to pursue a career in cricket for the Netherlands. Thus, it would be premature to worry about taking too many chances. De Leede takes a shot after Mark Watt misses an attempt by a hair, hitting his first six of the inning.
With four significant overs remaining and 45 to get, victory appears to be guaranteed with Saqib Zulfiqar assisting from the other end, but qualification is still in doubt. De Leede then exhibits his six-hitting prowess by striking his following eight balls 6,6,1,6,2,6,2. He eventually reaches his first ODI hundred somewhere during that. Most people will never forget this particular moment, but de Leede could only recall it as a pleasant side note to the bliss just around the bend for him.
When the Netherlands left for India, de Leede exclaimed, “It is excellent. “I struggle to express the sensation. I can assure you that tonight’s party will be a huge one.
“At the last over, it was 10 or 11, so for us, it was almost like switching to T20 mode. Every time, we had to try to score as many runs as we could to see where we stood. They are now traveling to India and will eat at the large table with teams that it looked had excluded groups like the Netherlands. De Leede is indeed progressing well, as Rauf may say.
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