SA vs NED, World Cup 2023: A Nine-Over Massacre from the Dutch - Will that be enough?

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It was the 34th over when Logan Van Beek got dismissed. The score line was saying that Netherlands were 140 for 7 and were struggling and staring down the barrel. The South African bowler should have been thinking of an hourly shower as they were in the brink of running through their tail.

But what happened in the next 9 overs will be giving you a narration of how the Dutch fight back looks like.

Why next nine overs? Because the match was curtailed to a 43-over game due to the early rain in the mountainous Dharamshala. The rain was so intense that we had to stop for around two hours before the start of the game.

And when the lost their 7th wicket, in came Roelof van der Merwe, a man most of cricket lovers are familiar. And so are the South Africans. Because he played a number of matches for South Africa before switching allegiance to the Netherlands.

Roelof and Scott take Netherlands beyond 200-mark

Roelof Van der Marwe and captain Scott Edwards stitched a magnificent partnership of 64 runs of just 37 balls in the eight wicket, thus taking their score beyond 200. In the 35th over, the yielded 15 runs, and then 7, 10 and 8 more runs in the next three overs. The 39th and 40th over combinedly resulted 23 runs.

Van der Merwe departed in the 40th over, but not before scoring a breezy 29 runs off just 19 balls.

The Aryan Storm

With just three overs to go, the Proteas were breathing a sigh of relief that the storm is over so that they can close it down. But it was far from over. Then came Aryan Dutt, who bludgeoned past the South African bowlers.

He hit three sixes and scored an unbeaten 23 of just nine balls. Along with Captain Scott Edwards, the Dutch added 41 unbeaten runs of just 19 balls in the ninth wicket. And thus they have reached 245 at the end of their 43 overs. Scott Edwards also remained unbeaten on 78 off 62 balls.

SA vs NED, World Cup 2023: Netherlands scored 104 runs in the last 9 overs

Will it be enough for Netherlands?

Well, it is a competitive total nevertheless for Netherlands. They will be hopeful of defending the total. And in order to defend it, they'll have to take early wickets. If the Netherlands pacers can cause early jitters in the South African batting lineup, then everything is possible.

The Proteas do have an excellent batitng lineup though who are bang on form. With De Kock, Markram, Klaasen and co. in the tank, they will be pretty confident of chasing the score down as well.

All in all, we're up for an intriguing battle in the next few hours will determine where the pendulum swings. But at least what we can say, the Dutch massacre in the end have given them a chance in this World Cup match.