West Indies defeated the Netherlands by a comfortable 215 runs in their Group A encounter today at the Feroz Shah Kotla, Delhi. Kemar Roach picked up 6/27, including a hatrick.
Netherlands won the toss and elected to field first. Devon Smith and Chris Gayle added an exact 100 runs for the first wicket. Smith scored 53 runs from 51 balls with nine fours, his second World Cup fifty. Chris Gayle started off slowly taking 24 deliveries to score his first boundary. He made an uncharacteristic 80 runs that game from 110 balls with seven fours and two sixes. Gayle also raised 68 runs for the second wicket with Darren Bravo (30).
Once Gayle and Bravo were dismissed, Ramnaresh Sarwan and Kieron Pollard added 65 runs in just six overs. Sarwan missed out on a half-century when he was dismissed for 49 runs that came from just 42 balls. Pollard seemed to have discovered his big hitting ways as he raced to his 50 off just 23 balls. He made 60 runs off 27 balls with five fours and four sixes that helped West Indies finish on 330/8 in their allotted 50 overs. For Netherlands, Pieter Seelar (3/45) and Mudassar Bukhari (2/65) returned decent figures while the other bowlers struggled against the West Indian power hitting.
Chasing an improbable 331 runs to win, Netherlands never really tried to get there and lost wickets at regular intervals. Four of their top six batsmen, including Ryan ten Doeschate, were out for single digits. Only Tom Cooper showed some resistance with a fighting fifty while the other batsmen fell to the pace of Kemar Roach. Cooper remained unbeaten on 55 runs that came from 72 balls and included nine fours.
For West Indies, Roach picked up his best ODI figures of 6/27 that included a hatrick to finish off the Netherlands innings. Roach picked up the wickets of Seelar (1), Bernard Loots (0) and Berend Westdijk (0) off the first three balls of his ninth over to become the sixth bowler to pick up a World Cup hatrick. Roach was rightly chosen the player of the match.