South Africa has proven in the past that it can cause great upsets by defeating the tournament favorites. Teams like the mighty Men in Blue, India have fallen victim to the Proteas before. Yet South Africa, a great team in their own right, has choked in the final stages of ICC tournaments. But this time even the South Africans wouldn’t have expected that they would crash and burn in such a spectacular fashion, turning the hunter into the hunted.
This was the Netherlands’s first win of the tournament and South Africa’s first loss. For the Netherlands, it’s their third match win in World Cup history. They defeated the Rainbow Nation by 38 runs defending a target of 245 runs, at the HPCA Stadium, Dharamshala on Tuesday.
The game was shortened to 43 overs a side as rain played spoilsport. The South Africans won the toss and decided to chase. In the initial period of the game, the Proteas had the Dutchmen under control restricting them to 50 runs for the loss of 4 wickets.
The Dutch struggled to score their first 50 runs as the Proteas pace quartet of Lungi Ngidi, Marco Jansen, Kagiso Rabada and Gerald Coetzee exerted pressure. But the Dutch skipper, Scott Edwards stood his ground, scoring an industrious 78 runs (not out, 69 balls), and explosive performances by tail-enders van der Merve (29 in 19 balls) and Aryan Dutt (23 not out in 9 balls) gave much-needed hope to the Dutch.
In the second innings, skipper Temba Bavuma and company seemed to have lost the plot. With the in-form Quinton de Kock(20 in 22 balls) going early and Bavuma (16 in 31 balls) falling next. This commenced the top-order collapse with Markram and van der Dussen falling in quick succession. The middle order with batters Heinrich Kaalsen(28 in 28 balls), David Miller(43 in 52 balls), Gerald Coetzee(22 in 23 balls), and Keshav Maharaj (40 in 37 balls) tried to provide some respite but soon they also fell one by one. After this what followed was a total collapse of the South African batting lineup with them getting all out for 207 runs.
Skipper Scott Edwards was named Player of the Match for his stellar unbeaten stance of 78 runs, hitting ten 4s and one 6 in the process.
Here’s the latest look at the points table after Tuesday’s match:
| Team | Matches | Won | Lost | Points |
| India | 3 | 3 | 0 | 6 |
| New Zealand | 3 | 3 | 0 | 6 |
| South Africa | 3 | 2 | 1 | 4 |
| Pakistan | 3 | 2 | 1 | 4 |
| England | 3 | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| Afghanistan | 3 | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| Bangladesh | 3 | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| Australia | 3 | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| Netherlands | 3 | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| Sri Lanka | 3 | 0 | 3 | 0 |