After Holland claimed the fifth and the final spot for the World Cup 2007 beating United Arab Emirates (UAE) by 145 runs in the fifth-place playoff of the ICC Trophy 2005, it confirmed that there would be no Asian Associate country in the WC.
Bermuda, Canada, Ireland and Scotland have already qualified for the World Cup reaching the semifinals of the ICC Trophy. A last spot was up and UAE played Holland but lost by 145 runs.
Holland has claimed the final qualifying place at the ICC Cricket World Cup 2007 by beating United Arab Emirates by 145 runs in the ICC Trophy fifth-place play-off at Clontarf, Ireland yesterday.
Having narrowly missed out on automatic qualification during the group stage, Holland has bounced back with two emphatic victories to seal the final place in the Caribbean in 2007.
Holland beat Denmark by 89 runs on Saturday to reach today’s play-off and proved far too strong for UAE under a cloudless sky to claim a victory that will see them compete in a second consecutive ICC Cricket World Cup and third in total.
The key to Holland’s victory was the composure under pressure of their batsmen. After being put in to bat, the swinging white ball made the opening overs a struggle for the Dutch top order. Luuk van Troost and Dan van Bunge were both back in the pavilion with only 15 runs on the board.
But Bas Zuiderent, Holland’s outstanding batsman of the tournament, took responsibility for anchoring the innings. In tandem with Tim de Leede, he set about steering the Dutch into the ascendancy.
By the time that De Leede was out for 65 Holland had a solid platform so in the final overs Zuiderent and Ryan ten Doeschate were able to play without inhibition to push the score to 287 for four in 50 overs.
Ten Doeschate finished on 65 not out while Zuiderent was unbeaten on 116. It was Zuiderent’s third century for his country, all of which have come in the ICC Trophy 2005.
UAE chased a bigger total than this to beat Holland in the ICC Six Nations Challenge on home soil in 2004 but never came close to emulating that feat today.
The UAE took an attacking approach from the start which kept them in touch with the run rate but at the expense of valuable wickets as too many players took chances against the disciplined Dutch pace attack.
Five different bowlers picked up wickets as Holland rattled through the UAE batting line-up. The game was wrapped up when Ali Asad Abbas was clean-bowled by Billy Stelling with the third ball of the 32nd over to leave UAE all out for 142.
The other Asian nation participating in the tournament was Oman who was out from the first round. Oman however claimed the ninth position beating USA.
USA’s medium-paced bowling attack has struggled to contain sides in this event but they must have felt confident of defending a total of 345 for six against Oman. It seemed to be going America’s way when Oman were reduced to 82 for four and then 211 for seven but an astonishing eighth wicket partnership turned the match on its head.
Azhar Syed contributed an essential 44 runs but the match-winner was Farhan Khan who smashed 94 not out from 47 balls in an innings which included four fours and an incredible nine sixes as Oman won by two wickets with five balls to spare.