New Delhi: India survived a Dutch scare to win a low-scoring Feroz Shah Kotla match by five wickets on Wednesday as Yuvraj Singh scored yet another half century to seal the deal.
After bundling out the Oranges for a paltry 189 runs, India came on to the field all set to wrap the Kotla carnival with a high run rate.
But plans to end the show early hit a bump as they lost Virender Sehwag, Sachin Tendulkar and Yusuf Pathan in quick succession. The batsmen where going all out on Dutch bowlers when orthodox spinner Pieter Seelaar came out with a stunning show to scalp the biggies.
After losing the top order, Bengaluru Man-of-the-Match Yuvraj Singh and skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni guided India home to a win in front of 30,000 cheering fans.
Given a life by Eric Szwarczynski in the fourth over of the match by Mudassar Bukhari, an eager Sehwag smashed five fours and two sixes before went down to Seelaar while on 39.
Sachin Tendulkar became the first batsman to score 2,000 World Cup runs, reaching the mark by hitting three consecutive fours in front of legions of fans in New Delhi, before falling trying to work Seelaar for a big hit.
Seelaar struck again in the same over by taking off the big hitting Yusuf Pathan with a caught and bowled softy.
Despite losing out wickets, India looked set for a comfortable win at this point with 82 runs on board. Virat Kohli and Gautam Gambhir were handed the task of stabilising the innings.
India were cruising well when Kohli completely missed to read the line of a fuller from Peter Borren and let it pass his bat to the stumps.
Yuvi joined Gambhir in the attack but the latter soon departed after Mudassar Bukhari dug out his leg stump.
The placid pitch had little juice in the offering for pacers and was reported to slow down more in the second innings. Earlier, India relied on a pace-spin combination to bowl out the Netherlands for a below-par 189.
Spinners Piyush Chawla and Yuvraj Singh shared four wickets while fast bowler Zaheer Khan grabbed 3-20 after Dutch captain Peter Borren elected to bat.
Netherlands:
E. Szwarczynski b Chawla 28
W. Barresi lbw b Yuvraj 26
T. Cooper c Dhoni b Nehra 29
R. ten Doeschate c Zaheer b Yuvraj 11
A. Kervezee c Harbhajan b Chawla 11
B. Zuiderent lbw b Zaheer 0
T. de Grooth run out 5
P. Borren c Nehra b Zaheer 38
B. Kruger run out 8
Mudassar Bukhari b Zaheer 21
P. Seelaar not out 0
Extras: (b6, lb3, w2, nb1) 12, Total (all out; 46.4 overs) 189
Bowling: Zaheer 6.4-0-20-3, Nehra 5-1-22-1, Pathan 6-1-17-0, Harbhajan 10-0-31-0 (w2), Chawla 10-0-47-2 (nb1), Yuvraj 9-1-43-2.
India:
V. Sehwag c Kervezee b Seelaar 39
S. Tendulkar c Kruger b Seelaar 27
Y. Pathan c and b Seelaar 11
G. Gambhir b Bukhari 28
V. Kohli b Borren 12
Yuvraj Singh not out 51
MS Dhoni not out 19
Extras: (w4) 4, Total (for five wickets; 36.3 overs) 191
Bowling: Bukhari 6-1-33-1 (w2), ten Doeschate 7-0-38-0 (w2), Seelaar 10-1-53-3, Borren 8-0-33-1, Cooper 2-0-11-0, Kruger 3.3-0-23-0.