Bangladesh vs Netherlands, 27th Match, Group D at Kingstown, T20 World Cup, Jun 13 2024 - Ball by Ball Commentary

After low-scoring games in New York, Group A sees a par game in Grenadine. Netherlands should've gotten closer but as Shanto said, Fizz showed his experience and skill and helped Bangladesh seal a crucial 25-run win. Another crucial clash coming up from Group B, where England take on Oman. Our coverage has started, follow here. Thanks for joining.

Najmul Hossain Shanto, Bangladesh captain: Boys showed lot of character in an important match. Shakib's calm and we know how good he is. Happy for him. (Total) We didn't know how the conditions will behave and what score is defendable. In the end batters and bowlers did well. Pitch is good, there was uneven bounce early on but good to bat on. Conditions were good. Fizz, we know how good he is. Showed his experience and skill. Rishad stood up like all the bowlers.

Scott Edwards, Netherlands captain: We lost in all three facets. Credit to Bangladesh, they were great and we weren't up to it. They kept wickets in hand. Would be tough to bowl to a windy boundary. Stand between him and Sybrand - We knew they had quality bowlers at the death and wanted to maximise the middle overs but fell quickly. Aryan has been sensational in the last couple years and used the conditions well. It's a bit out of our hands now. Want to play well vs Sri Lanka and see how it goes from there.

Shakib Al Hasan, POTM: It was important for someone from top-four to bat through the innings. Happy to contribute. It was a tough pitch at the start, we held our nerves. Was a challenging total, not a winning one, but bowlers chipped in perfectly. Rishad and Fizz took it away from Netherlands. Hardly any international game was played in the last 4-5 years here. So, we didn't know what a good score was and had to keep wickets till 14-15 overs and take it from there. 160 in a WC game is always tricky. Netherlands had their moments, 10 runs an over on this ground in the last 7-8 overs, wind going in one way, made it tough to defend. But credit to bowlers for pulling it off. Neck braces was for batting and it did help.

2:07pm: Commanding win for Bangladesh despite the game being tight for about 15 overs of the chase. Gets them in pole position to progress into the Super Eights from this group and knocks out Sri Lanka. Coming into the tournament, they had a few big challenges - death and spin bowling being chief among them. Fizz, Taskin, Rishad have offered them solutions despite the pressure put on them by proactive batting from Netherlands' top and middle order, who kept chipping in but couldn't carry on. The bowlers worked out that going slow into the pitch as it wore and tore helped them out, and there was no looking back.

Eshwar: "Death overs performances from both teams was the difference between them."

Taskin has 33 to defend. One non-boundary and the game's effectively done

Turjo: "No crisp in PRINGLE?" Bangladesh have locked him by the jaw. Can't blame him too much, given he's a bowler mainly

Saifi: "Engelbrecht was looking good to score some runs at rapid pace, Edwards went too hard and missed some consecutive balls to put pressure back on his partner who had to gone even harder! "

36 off 12, aka miracle, needed

ShahSafeer: "Why teams tend to choose bowl first while they all have lost the games while chasing? It's been a clear indication that runs have been hard to come by in death overs of second innings, Eng, NZ and now Netherlands are falling short" Tbf it was hard to tell if we'd have had a full game coming in after a rain delay

Rishad on a hat trick, got a wicket last ball of his last over

1 run and a wicket last over. 43 needed off 18. Bangladesh have yanked back the control completely in the last two overs