Netherlands 182 for 5 (Ten Doeschate 65*, Burger 2-23) beat Namibia 181 (Erasmus 81, Kingma 6-39) by five wickets
Scorecard
Vivian Kingma is never shy about showing his excitement after taking a wicket. Or six. And when that sixth wicket caps off a hat-trick like it did in a five-wicket win against Namibia at the ICC Academy, that unbridled joy gushes out like a geyser.
Kingma's first wicket after Netherlands had sent Namibia in came in the fourth over when Karl Birkenstock, playing his first match of the tournament, spliced a pull to mid-off. The rest of his haul came via bowled, lbw or caught behind the wicket as Kingma swung the ball regularly past the outside edge. By the end of the Powerplay, Kingma had Stephan Baard edging to slip and Craig Williams nicking behind to debutant wicketkeeper Scott Edwards.
In the interim between Kingma's twin three-wicket spells, Gerhard Erasmus made a splendid 81 off 75 balls. Erasmus played the Dutch spinners with ease, casually whipping the left-arm duo of Roelof van der Merwe and Pieter Seelaar against the turn through the leg side. In the 25th, he slogged offspinner O'Dowd into the ICC Academy car park for a massive six.
But at the other end, Erasmus struggled to find a willing ally in his effort to repel the Dutch bowling unit. Zane Green tickled an edge off van der Gugten to Edwards before Kotze fell to O'Dowd. Ryan ten Doeschate, bowling his first over for Netherlands since 2011, began with a full toss but four balls later found his radar to get Jan Frylinck wafting outside off for a healthy edge to Edwards to make it 125 for 6.
Erasmus brought up a run-a-ball fifty and, with only the tail to provide support, he targetted van der Merwe. He hit four boundaries in the 28th and 30th overs to chase the left-arm spinner out of the attack, perhaps regrettably so as rather than looking at posting another 250-plus total, they collapsed to Kingma.
After seeing Erasmus cut him for four in his first over back, Kingma began the 34th with a fuller ball and got the batsman edging a drive behind for his fourth wicket. JJ Smith had his off stump knocked back, driving at a fullish delivery to give Kingma his maiden List A five-for. Desperate to shield the stumps, Bernard Scholtz shuffled across to the hat-trick ball and missed a belated stab. The umpire had raised his finger even before Kingma turned mid-sprint to look back to confirming the landmark.
A return catch by van der Merwe a few overs later ended the innings in 36.4 overs, meaning the Dutch had almost an hour to bat before the scheduled lunch break. They reached 60 for 2 in 14.3 overs as Wednesday's centurion Ben Cooper flashed an edge behind off Williams to trigger the interval.
When play resumed, the pitch began to deteriorate markedly. Williams and Sarel Burger each snagged a second wicket within a few overs after the restart while spinner Scholtz bowled Sikander Zulfiqar with a ball that kept low after the batsman had charged down the pitch, leaving the Dutch needing a suddenly tricky looking 77 runs to win.
But ten Doeschate calmed the situation with his 11th List A fifty. True to his average of 64.24 in one-day cricket for the Netherlands at the start of play, the allrounder didn't skip a beat in his first innings back in orange, cruising to an unbeaten 65 off 58 balls. He took his time to settle before sizing up Scholtz' left-arm spin in the 34th over, pulling for four before consecutive shimmies down the pitch produced sixes over long-on and long-off to end the spinner's day.
A delightful straight drive off Tangeni Lungameni brought up ten Doeschate's half-century off 46 balls as the Dutch needed 24 to win off the final 12 overs. Having thrown in the towel in the face of ten Doeschate's demoralising dissection of their attack, Lungameni conceded the winning run with a short ball that was signalled as a wide.
The win completed Netherlands' fourth sweep in seven rounds of the WCL Championship tournament as they ended on 22 points, three points clear of second-placed Scotland. Namibia finished in last place with just three wins from 14 matches, finishing three points behind Nepal to take the wooden spoon.
