Netherlands Beat UAE by 3 Wickets — O'Dowd's 79-Ball Hundred, Then Levitt and Dutt Finish What It Started

Max O'Dowd does not take long to tell you what kind of day it is going to be. At the ICC Academy in Dubai on Sunday he reached fifty off 33 balls, took the Netherlands to 93 without loss inside the powerplay, and had a hundred off 76 balls before the 25th over was done. It was the loud half of the song. The quiet half, the one that actually got the Netherlands home, was sung by Michael Levitt and Aryan Dutt an hour later, after a chase of 245 had gone from 102 for 0 to 186 for 7.

The United Arab Emirates, having chosen to bat, made 244 for 8, Rahul Chopra 82 not out after retiring hurt on 73 and coming back, Akshdeep Nath 68, and Timm van der Gugten 5 for 39 for the Dutch. The Netherlands reached 245 for 7 in 43.5 overs and won by three wickets with 37 balls remaining. O'Dowd was Player of the Match.

Timm van der Gugten's five wickets came in two spells that bookended the UAE innings. In the ninth over he had Aryansh Sharma caught behind by Noah Croes at 38, and three balls later bowled Muhammad Shahdad for a duck: 38 for 2, and a powerplay that yielded only 39. When he came back at the death the UAE were 213 for 3 with five overs left and a total near 270 in sight. Aryan Dutt had Muhammad Waseem (19 off 20) caught by Bas de Leede, Paul van Meekeren bowled Khuzaima Tanveer first ball, and then van der Gugten bowled Nath for 68, had Basil Hameed caught by O'Dowd and Awais Ali Shah caught by de Leede off the next ball. Five wickets fell for 14 runs, and 244 was the result. His 10-1-39-5 was the only maiden of the innings too.

The chase began as a procession. O'Dowd and Cedric de Lange put on 102 in 79 balls, the first fifty of it in 35, and the Netherlands were 93 for none at the end of the powerplay. O'Dowd's 103 contained ten fours and five sixes. Then it stopped being a procession. De Lange and Croes were both caught behind by Sharma off Tanveer in the 14th over, de Leede was bowled by Shahdad at 120, and after O'Dowd had added 37 with Zach Lion-Cachet he was caught by Waseem off Aayan Afzal Khan in the 25th over at 157. Lion-Cachet was bowled by Tanveer three balls later, Colin Ackermann was bowled by Tanveer at 166, and van der Gugten was run out by Chopra and Aayan in the 35th. From 102 for 0 the Netherlands had lost seven wickets for 84, and needed 59 off 92 balls with three wickets left.

Michael Levitt and Aryan Dutt did not panic, and they did not crawl. Levitt made 36 not out off 50 with one four and one six, the anchor. Dutt made 36 not out off 36 with three fours and three sixes, the hammer. Their fifty came in 38 balls, the stand was worth 59 unbroken in 55, and the match was over in the 44th over.

Choosing to bat, the UAE recovered well from 38 for 2. Tanish Suri's 40 off 60 steadied things until he was caught by de Lange off de Leede at 73 in the 19th over, and then Chopra and Nath put together the innings' spine: 98 in 122 balls for the fourth wicket, both men reaching fifty off exactly 67 balls. Chopra retired hurt on 73 with the score 168 for 3, and Nath and Waseem added 42 in 37 balls to take the UAE to 213 with five overs left. The last ten overs produced 69 runs but cost five wickets, and the side that had been building towards something larger ended on 244. Chopra came back at 226 for 6 and added 17 in 13 balls with Aayan Afzal Khan (9 not out off 8) to finish 82 not out off 102, nine fours, and that late return mattered more than it might have looked at the time.

With the ball, Junaid Siddique's nine overs cost 62 and Aayan's nine cost 56, although Aayan did take the wicket that mattered most, O'Dowd. The recovery was Khuzaima Tanveer's: two in his 14th over, two more in the middle overs, 9.5-0-43-4, and a side that had been 102 for 0 was suddenly 186 for 7. Shahdad's 4-0-20-1 was tidy. Where the UAE fell short was the end: 59 runs needed, three wickets to take, and no further breakthrough. That is not a collapse of nerve. It is a reminder that on a ground where the Netherlands took 93 off the powerplay, 244 asked the bowlers to be perfect for 44 overs, and they were very good for 35 of them.

When van der Gugten was run out at 186 for 7 in the 35th over, the required rate was not the issue, 59 off 92 balls, but the UAE needed three wickets and had taken seven for 84 in the previous 21 overs. The momentum belonged entirely to the bowling side. Levitt, who was on 13 at the drinks break with the score 179 for 6, absorbed the next few overs; Dutt attacked. His three sixes did the arithmetic quickly, the fifty stand came in 38 balls, and the Netherlands passed 200 in the 37th over. The last ten-over block of the chase, from over 40.1 onwards, brought 21 runs without a wicket before the game ended at 43.5.

The other hinge was the UAE's final five overs with the bat. At 213 for 3 after 45 they were set for a total that would have made the Dutch collapse decisive; five wickets for 14 turned that into a target the eighth-wicket pair could reach without hurrying.

O'Dowd's 103 off 79 balls was over by the 25th over, and for a while it looked as if it might be a hundred in a losing cause. Fifty off 33 balls, a hundred off 76, ten fours and five sixes, and 102 for the first wicket with de Lange in 79 balls: it was the innings that reduced a 245 chase to a far smaller one, and it was the reason the Netherlands could lose seven wickets and still not be behind the rate. He also took the catch that removed Hameed off van der Gugten. A hundred at nearly a run and a third a ball in a 50-over game is an innings that decides the shape of a match even when it does not finish it.

This match did not have a CricIntel preview, so there is no prediction to hold ourselves to here; we'll have full analysis ahead of the next League 2 fixture we cover.

This is a tri-series leg of ICC Cricket World Cup League 2 in Dubai, and the League 2 cycle runs through to 2027, feeding the World Cup Qualifier. For the Netherlands, the pattern of this innings is the thing to note: a flying O'Dowd start, a middle order that lost seven for 84, and a lower order that had to finish the job. For the UAE, Chopra and Nath showed that the middle overs are not the problem; the last five overs with the bat, five wickets for 14, are what cost them a total that the Dutch collapse would have made very hard to chase. Both sides will take a hundred and a five-for out of this game, and both will know exactly which three overs they would like back.