No. 11 decides to party
India have wrapped up a convincing win, but they end up without as big an NRR boost as they may have hoped for, with Netherlands' No. 11 Paul van Meekeren ending the innings with 4, 4, 4 off Arshdeep.
India win by 56 runs nonetheless, and move to the top of the Group 2 table. They have a healthy NRR of 1.425, but South Africa are quite a distance ahead on that front, on 5.200. Lots of matches left, though, so those numbers don't mean a great deal at this point.
"I was just trying to express myself when I went in to bat," says Suryakumar Yadav, the Player of the Match. "Message was clear when I went in. We needed to get 8-10 runs an over to ensure we had a total for our bowlers to defend."
With that, I'll take your leave for tonight. We'll have a full report up soon, plus a lot of excellent post-match content, so don't go anywhere!
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Bouncer, yorker
He made his name with his end-overs yorkers, but over his short international career so far, Arshdeep Singh has shown he has other weapons too. New-ball swing, for one, and also a mean bouncer. The Arshdeep bouncer dismissed Asif Ali during India's tournament-opener against Pakistan, and now the Arshdeep bouncer has picked up another victim: Logan van Beek, late on a pull, is caught behind, and Netherlands are eight down.
Next ball, Arshdeep goes round the wicket and spears in his yorker. Fred Klaassen misses the flick, and he's struck on his foot, plumb in front. Umpire Ehsan Raza thinks there's an inside-edge, though, so he says not out, but India review, and Ultra Edge shows there's no bat on ball.
Netherlands are 101 for 9 in 18 overs.
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Seven down
Bhuvneshwar gets his second. Scott Edwards miscues a slower ball, and Netherlands are 89 for 7.
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Shami strikes
Tim Pringle looks to flick, closes his bat face too early, and sends the ball ballooning off the leading edge towards mid-off, where Kohli takes a well-judged catch running to his right. He's out for 20 off 15 - he earlier hit the only six of the innings so far, off Ashwin - and Netherlands are 87 for 6 in 15.5 overs.
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Five down
R Ashwin has bowled a mesmerising spell so far, getting the ball to drift and swing both ways. Now he's bagged his first two wickets of the World Cup, Colin Ackermann and Tom Cooper caught on the leg-side boundary in the space of four balls. Netherlands are 63 for 5 in 12.4 overs.
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Axar bags another
Makes Bas de Leede reach for the ball and slice a catch to Hardik Pandya at point. Axar's figures currently read 2.2-0-8-2, and Netherlands are 47 for 3 in 9.2 overs.
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Sydney, India
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Expose your stumps, you best not miss
O'Dowd walks across to the off side, exposes all three stumps, and misses his attempted sweep as Axar Patel goes flat, full, straight and quick. He's bowled for 16, and Netherlands are 20 for 2 in 4.2 overs.
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Bhuvneshwar strikes
He's bowled two overs so far, conceded no runs, and bowled Vikramjit Singh, who swung across the line of a ball that was probably not short enough for a horizontal-bat swipe.
Netherlands are 11 for 1 in three overs. Vikramjeet made 1 off 9 balls, and Bas de Leede is currently batting on 0 off 4. At the other end, Max O'Dowd has made a bright start with a pair of sweetly timed square drives off Arshdeep Singh.
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Stat attack
Here's the full list of India's totals with two or fewer wickets lost.
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179 for 2
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Only 18 runs came off overs 18 and 19, which suggested that it remained difficult to score boundaries when the bowlers got their lengths right, but Kohli and Suryakumar manage to hit a six each in the final over, off Logan van Beek, to set Netherlands a target of 180.
The final ball is a flicked six from Suryakumar, which ensures he ends unbeaten on 51 off 25 balls. Absolutely spectacular innings given the conditions. Kohli finishes not out on 62 off 44. Could he have taken more chances early on? I would say yes, given that Hardik Pandya and Dinesh Karthik didn't even come out to bat.
A stiff target, but Netherlands aren't out of it by any means.
Through this tournament, we’re picking the best moments from the games with our video experts in a daily show. And if you want to actually own a piece of those moments, they are available as digital memorabilia on FanCraze, ESPNcricinfo’s digital collectible partners. On FanCraze, you can pre-buy iconic moments from each match of the World Cup called the Crictos of the Game.
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Kohli shifts gears
The start of his innings was polarising - for what it's worth, I believed he wasn't taking enough chances given that India have had plenty of wickets in hand during his time at the crease - but Kohli can really turn it on when he's set. And he's starting to do just that now. A chip over mid-off, followed by a brilliantly timed loft over extra-cover for six, as India take 16 runs off the 17th over, bowled by Fred Klaassen.
Kohli brings up his fifty in the process, off 37 balls.
India are 144 for 2 after 17 overs.
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SKY's impact
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That's India from the 14th to 16th overs. Suryakumar has hit five of those fours.
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SKY does his thing
Two-paced pitch? Everyone else struggling to find the boundary? It doesn't matter to Suryakumar Yadav. He's hit three fours in his first nine balls, the latest a trademark whip over short fine leg, and moved to 17. Kohli, at the other end, has hit one four in 30 balls, and is batting on 32.
India are 114 for 2 in 15 overs.
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Klaassen gets Rohit
He's out for 53 off 39, caught on the deep midwicket boundary, and India are 84 for 2 in 12 overs. An interesting innings, but he was prepared to look ugly in the effort to search for boundaries, and that ensured he scored fairly quickly on a slow, grippy surface.
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Fifty
It comes up in 35 balls, and it comes up with a pair of back-to-back boundaries off Tim Pringle in the 11th over. Those two shots kind of sum up the innings Rohit has played so far - a sweep over short fine leg that's fully indicative of the intent he's shown, followed by a step-out and reach-out slice between backward point and short third man, a thick edge that probably didn't go where he intended, indicative of his struggle for fluency.
But here's the important thing: where Rohit's made 52 off 36 balls in the first 11 overs, India's other two top-order batters have scored 24 off 30 between them.
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The power of six
You can struggle for timing and scratch around, but if you hit the odd six every now and then, you'll go along at a reasonable strike rate.
Rohit has hit more sixes than anyone else in T20Is: 181 in all, and three in this innings so far, including a pull off de Leede in the 10th over.
India are 67 for 1 after 10 overs. Rohit has moved to 42 off 32.
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India struggle to break free
Rohit clubbed Logan van Beek for a six over wide long-on in the eighth over, but his and Virat Kohli's attempts to find the boundary since then haven't quite succeeded. Kohli played a glorious extra-cover drive after stepping out to the impressive leggie Shariz Ahmed, but a full-length dive from Bas de Leede at deep cover kept the ball in the field. In between, Rohit successfully reviewed an lbw decision against him as well.
India are 53 for 1 in nine overs, with Rohit on 30 off 27 and Kohli on 13 off 15.
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Slow pitch, slow powerplay
India are 32 for 1 after six overs. The ball has stopped on the batters a few times, and it's swung as well. Rohit Sharma has shown a lot of intent, but he hasn't found the fluency to go with it: he's hit one pulled six and a crisp, square-cut four, but he's still only scored 16 off 16 balls.
He could have been out twice too; a miscued pull off Klaassen in the fifth over was dropped by Pringle at mid-on, and an uppish flick off van Meekeren in the next over just failed to carry to Pringle, once again, at short fine leg.
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van Meekeren strikes
Full, with late inswing, and KL Rahul misses a flick. There's a chance that ball may have been missing leg stump, but Rahul doesn't review the lbw decision.
Update: Ball-tracking suggests the ball would indeed have missed leg stump. Missed opportunity for Rahul.
India are 11 for 1 in 2.4 overs. Excellent start for Netherlands. Both Fred Klaassen and Paul van Meekeren have got the ball to swing, and in between, Tim Pringle bowled a tight over of left-arm spin, conceding just two runs.
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Unchanged India choose to bat
There's no further rain expected this evening, a Google search for "sydney weather" tells me. So perhaps not as muck of a risk in India choosing to bat first.
Rohit Sharma expects the pitch at SCG to be "a touch slower" than the one India played Pakistan on at the MCG. Most pitches in the world would be a touch slower than that one, to be fair.
No changes for either team. India stick with the two-fingerspinner combination, with Yuzvendra Chahal continuing to sit out. No game for Harshal Patel either.
India: 1 KL Rahul, 2 Rohit Sharma (capt), 3 Virat Kohli, 4 Suryakumar Yadav, 5 Hardik Pandya, 6 Dinesh Karthik (wk), 7 Axar Patel, 8 R Ashwin, 9 Bhuvneshwar Kumar, 10 Mohammed Shami, 11 Arshdeep Singh.
Netherlands: 1 Vikramjit Singh, 2 Max O'Dowd, 3 Tom Cooper, 4 Scott Edwards (capt, wk), 5 Colin Ackermann, 6 Bas de Leede, 7 Tim Pringle, 8 Logan van Beek, 9 Shariz Ahmad, 10 Fred Klaassen, 11 Paul van Meekeren.
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T20 Time Out with Kumble and O'Brien
Welcome to the Cricinfoverse! Here’s our own virtual world with the latest videos, stats, news, games, and much more - check it out!
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The stuff dreams are made of
"It's huge. You always dream of playing World Cups, and the SCG is one of the most famous grounds in the world. And then add in you're playing against arguably one of the best teams in the world, yes, it's pretty surreal."
That's Netherlands captain Scott Edwards, speaking about the prospect of facing India. I'm dreaming of a football parallel, where India make it to a World Cup and their captain gushes about the prospect of facing the team of Cruyff, Neeskens, Gullit, van Basten, Bergkamp et al.
Having said that, though, T20 is a sport that gives the underdog a serious chance. Netherlands know this well, having beaten England twice previously at T20 World Cups. And for Indian fans of a certain generation, there's always the memory of Tim de Leede giving them a real scare at Paarl in 2003.
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SKY-fi
At times, it feels like Suryakumar Yadav can pick a spot on the field and hit any ball there - any line, any length, pace or spin. How does he do it? Nagraj Gollapudi sat down with him to understand his inner workings as a batter, and came back with this cracker of an interview.
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Can India open up big gap over Group 2 rivals?
South Africa's no-result against Zimbabwe has given India a bit of a helping hand as far as their prospects of topping Group 2 go. Tonight India will face Netherlands, and they'll be looking to win, and win big, and open up a clear lead at the top of the group table. But it won't be easy. Netherlands are the only Associate team left in the tournament, and they'll look to show they belong here - they came pretty close to pulling off a win over Bangladesh, and they'll be looking to push India every inch. Here's Nagraj Gollapudi's preview get you nicely set up for tonight's game at the SCG.
In the USA, you can watch the India vs Netherlands game LIVE on ESPN+ in English and in Hindi.
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