Netherlands run themselves out of the World Cup

In the fifth over of the Netherlands innings, Max O'Dowd pushed towards mid-off and scampered a single. Rashid Khan was quick to the ball but missed the direct hit. Despite his dive, O'Dowd would have been out had Rashid been on target.

O'Dowd's escape was the warning Netherlands ignored. What followed had catastrophic consequences for their chances of making the semi-finals of this World Cup and damaged their prospects of qualifying for the 2025 Champions Trophy. A campaign that had soared with wins against South Africa and Bangladesh had suffered a frenetic crash landing.

"Definitely not ideal," Netherlands captain Scott Edwards said after the defeat to Afghanistan. "Sort of beat yourself a little bit in that sense. Four run-outs in our top five or six batters - hard to come back from that. I think we started well and set up ourselves for a good total there. Yeah, gave a few wickets away. They have obviously got quality spinners through the middle and we didn't have our top-order batters in there to face them."

After opting to bat in Lucknow, Netherlands lost Wesley Barresi in the first over, but their recovery was so good that their score of 66 for 1 in ten overs was not just their best powerplay performance this World Cup, it was also the best in nine ODIs at this venue.

Afghanistan went into an emergency huddle and Rashid, who hurt himself while attempting the aforementioned run-out, returned to lead the talk. The huddle took so long that umpire Nitin Menon had to nudge the players twice to get on with it. Mohammad Nabi said later the gist of the conversation was "bowl in the right areas and they will make mistakes".

The first of those mistakes came in the 12th over when O'Dowd paddled the ball towards fine leg and tried to come back for the second run. Azmatullah Omarzai, who was at deep-backward square leg, sprinted to his right, cut down the angle, picked up cleanly, and nailed the direct hit. O'Dowd's dive did not save him this time.

A direct hit from the deep was just the inspiration Afghanistan needed. A combination of a new batter, relaxed fielding restrictions, and disciplined bowling resulted in Netherlands scoring only 19 off the next 41 balls.

Sybrand Engelbrecht was the one really struggling, having scored only 12 off 31. In the 19th over, he stepped out to Nabi and drilled the ball towards mid-off. He took off immediately for a single but Colin Ackermann was ball-watching for a second at the non-striker's end. Even if Ackermann had responded instantly, he would have still been out. That's how poor Engelbrecht's judgment was, and as Ackermann walked off shaking his head, he did not make eye contact with his partner.

Afghanistan were back in the game but Netherlands, at 92 for 3, were not out of it either. Their middle and lower order had bailed them out more than once in the World Cup and the architect of some of those rescues, Edwards, had just come to the crease.

Edwards is the best player of spin in his team. Before Friday, he had played three ODIs against Afghanistan and scored a half-century in all of them. Today, in Netherlands' most important ODI against Afghanistan to date, he was dismissed first ball. Run-out.

Edwards had no one to blame. Trying to sweep Nabi, he under-edged the ball and instinctively took off for a single, without realising it had rolled towards the wicketkeeper. Ikram Alikhil did to Edwards what Romesh Kaluwitharana had done to Sachin Tendulkar in the semi-final of the 1996 World Cup: he picked up the ball in a flash and broke the stumps before the batter could hurry back.

Bas de Leede ensured there was no hat-trick of run-outs but there was more to come. Netherlands were trying to resuscitate their innings when Roelof van der Merwe flicked one to midwicket in the 35th over. He and Engelbrecht froze mid-pitch for a moment and that was enough to catch Engelbrecht short at the striker's end. For the first time in 4691 ODIs, a team had lost four of their top five to run-outs.

Was this a freak occurrence, or an extreme consequence of a risk in Netherlands' gameplan? Only once in seven matches this World Cup have Netherlands not had a batter run out. They have lost nine wickets to run-outs in this tournament; India are second with four.

Netherlands are proud of their running between the wickets. To make up for shortfalls in other disciplines, they push fielders hard. Against Sri Lanka at this venue, they ran 27 twos.

"We do pride ourselves on running between the wickets," Netherlands' head coach Ryan Cook said after the game. "Our turning technique and our running between the wickets in terms of the speed and stuff, we do a lot of training on that. Obviously, today, four run-outs - and not just any run-outs, No. 2, 3, 4 and 5 in your batting order getting run out - is not ideal.

"So yeah, we'll have to go back and have a look at that, but it won't stop us, it is part of the DNA of our team and we'll keep trying to run between the wickets and value every run as we do."

A fielding team cannot plan a run-out, but Afghanistan had done their homework and were on high alert. "Before the game, we said, 'We definitely know they're going to try to run well between wickets, but also it might present us with opportunities,'" their head coach Jonathan Trott said. "And that's exactly what happened."