Borren bemoans batting shortcomings

It was Netherlands' turn to be on the losing side of the second last-ball finish in three games in Sylhet. Zimbabwe had clawed back at the death against Ireland, but Netherlands fought with the ball throughout Zimbabwe's chase. Peter Borren, the Netherlands captain, was proud of his bowlers and fielders but said Netherlands had slipped behind when they posted what he felt was a below-par 140 after choosing to bat.

"We fought hard, put them under pressure," Borren said. "If you lose a T20 like that in the last over it can be pretty harsh. It was a little bit harsh on us in that last over tonight. Zimbabwe played reasonably well at the end. Brendan Taylor batted very nicely to get them into a good position. I'm very disappointed that we could not finish it.

"The 17th over was a big over but that is going to happen at some stage. I'm really happy with what we did after that. The last two overs were fantastic. We sort of fought all the way there. 140 was below par. It was always going to be hard to defend. We almost did but not quite. While disappointed I am also very proud of the fight from the guys with the ball and in the field. I think we outfielded them at times. We also bowled extremely well to our plan."

Netherlands did well to recover to 140 for 5 after they had slipped to 35 for 4. While Borren admitted that was nowhere near an ideal beginning, he also said that he was not in favour of a sedate approach.

"You never want to be four down in the first six overs and that is what we were. I have to take a bit of responsibility for that myself. In saying that we have come here to play positive cricket. We are not going to take a step back. Obviously we do not want to be four down in the first six overs. After that we rebuilt okay. Tommy Cooper batted beautifully again. He sort of held us together.

"If you say we should have been a bit more conservative at the start, yeah maybe okay. Our run-rate was okay but we lost too many wickets. We are not interested in coming here and getting 140. To be honest I'd rather take a few risks to get 155 because 155 is probably par out here.

"Hindsight is a great thing. You have to go reasonably hard at the start. In the first game we were 67 for none after six. We went pretty hard there too. Possibly we could have reined it back but we still had wickets in hand throughout the innings having had good partnerships."

Cooper made more than half his side's runs with his unbeaten 72. Borren hoped there would be more support from the others in the future like there had been against Ireland when the openers had set up the chase.

"It is obviously nice having Tom coming in there. He is a good player. The rest of us have to take a bit more responsibility as well. I guess the first game, where our openers put on 67 in six overs, that was other people's pretty good contribution. Today we relied on Tom, he is not going to be able to do that every day, every game so hopefully the rest of us contribute a bit more next game.

"You did see that you did need someone to be your anchor. Brendan Taylor did that very well for Zimbabwe today. He is a quality player with a lot of experience and just sort of held that chase together quite nicely. Tom did that job for us. And I would hope for a bit larger contribution from others."