2024 ICC T20 World Cup: NED vs. SA

By Ethan Semendinger

July 19th, 2024

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How is cricket? I went to an ICC T20 World Cup cricket match between the Netherlands and South Africa in June. Let me tell you all about it!

Quick Stats -

• Best Bowler: Vivian Kingma (NED): 4 Overs, 2 Wickets, 12 Runs Allowed

• Worst Bowler: Vikramjit Singh (NED): 1 Over, 0 Wickets, 11 Runs Allowed

• Sixes (Netherlands): Sybrand Engelbrecht, Scott Edwards
  

• Sixes (South Africa): Tristan Stubbs, David Miller (4)

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Big Story - I've mentioned it before on the blog, but I have many goals in my life. One of them is to go to every MLB stadium and watch a game. Tonight, I am going to knock another stadium off that list as I am in Cleveland, Ohio at the Guardians game. (With this game, so far I've completed 9.) In addition to that life goal, I also want to attend one of every major sporting event. I've been to MLB, NHL, NFL, NBA, and MLS games. I've also gone to a UFC event, the US Open, the Barclay's golf tournament, a polo match in Rhode Island, and now a cricket match.

I had no idea that this was going on until the week of the event. I was told by a coworker and I immediately looked up the schedule. There was one shot for me to go to a game (and not miss work): Saturday, June 8th: the Netherlands against South Africa.

So, I did my research and learned as much about the sport as I could. And, I decided to go for it. The first time I would ever go to a professional sporting event entirely on my own.

This is how it went:

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Player of the Match -

• David Miller (South Africa): 59 Runs on 51 Bowls, 4 Sixes

Notable Performances -

Netherlands:

• Sybrand Englebrecht: 40 Runs on 45 Bowls, 2 Fours, 1 Six

• Logan van Beek: 23 Runs on 22 Bowls, 3 Fours, 0 Sixes

• Vikramjit Singh: 12 Runs on 17 Bowls, 1 Four, 0 Sixes

• Scott Edwards: 10 Runs on 9 Bowls, 0 Fours, 1 Six

• Vivian Kingma: 4 Overs, 2 Wickets, 12 Runs Allowed

• Paul van Meekeren: 4 Overs, 0 Wickets, 13 Runs Allowed

South Africa:

• Tristan Stubbs: 33 Runs on 37 Bowls, 1 Four, 1 Six

• Ottneil Baartman: 4 Overs, 4 Wickets, 11 Runs Allowed

• Anrich Nortje: 4 Overs, 2 Wickets, 19 Runs Allowed

• Marco Jansen: 4 Overs, 2 Wickets, 20 Runs Allowed

Better to Forget -

Netherlands:

• Michael Levitt: 0 Runs on 3 Bowls

• Bas de Leede: 6 Runs on 16 Bowls

• Teja Nidamanuru: 0 Runs on 1 Bowl

• Tim Pringle: 0 Runs on 2 Bowls

• Bas de Leede: 3.5 Overs, 1 Wicket, 34 Runs Allowed

• Vikramjit Singh: 1 Over, 0 Wickets, 11 Runs Allowed

South Africa:

• Quinton de Kock: 0 Runs on 0 Bowls

• Aiden Markram: 0 Runs on 3 Bowls
  

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The Match - Before we begin remember: An inning is made up of 20 overs. An over is made up of 6 bowls. Each team gets a maximum of 20 overs, or 10 wickets (or, outs) per inning.

South Africa won the coin-toss and elected to take the field first against the Netherlands. Then, SA proceeded to get a wicket and hold NED to just 1 run in the first over. I missed all of this because I parked at an auto-body shop that was a mile away by walking.

In the 2nd over, NED scored the 1st 'four' of the match (the ball made it to the boundary on the ground), but only put up 6 runs. And this lack of scoring would continue: in the 3rd over NED scored 7 runs, in the 4th over NED scored just 1 run and they hit into wicket, and in the 5th over NED scored 3 runs while hitting into another wicket. Through 5 overs (30 bowls), NED had just 18 runs and 3 wickets.

The next 5 overs weren't any better: 2 runs, 3 runs, 3 runs, 6 runs, and 3 runs + wicket. Through the halfway point of the inning, Netherlands had just 35 runs scored on 60 bowls and had nearly used up half their available wickets.

Coming out of the half, the Netherlands offense started to produce, and only missed scoring at least 5 runs per over once. The 12th over brought some excitement for the Netherlands, who scored their first 'six' of the match, though they also hit into 2 more wickets, moving them to 48/6. In the 15th over, the Netherlands had their 2nd 'four' and put up 9 runs. In the 17th over, they put up their 3rd and 4th 'four' and put up another 9 runs. In the 18th over, they put up their 5th 'four', and in the 19th over they put up their 2nd 'six' and the 6th 'four' while plating 15 runs. From the 13th to the 19th over, the Netherlands scored

54 runs and didn't allow a wicket.

But, South African bowling would prevail as the Netherlands only put up 1 run in the 20th over, while recording 3 more wickets. Their final score after their inning was 103/9.

This was amazing bowling (apparently) going on from South Africa, to hold the Netherlands to so few runs.

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Not to be outdone, the Netherland's bowling came out firing hot. In the first three overs for South Africa, they bowled into 3 wickets. By the 5th over, they had bowled into 4 wickets. And, it wasn't like they were putting up runs either: 3, 0, 5, 4, 0. By the end of the 5th over, South Africa had put up just 12 runs with 4 wickets!

Did it get better to end the half? I guess, but it wasn't going great at all. It took until the 9th over for South Africa to put up a 'four', meanwhile it was the only over in the entire first half where they put up more than 5 runs. In overs 6-10, South Africa did the following: 4 runs, 5 runs, 1 run, 7 runs, and 3 runs. They didn't hit into any more wickets, but halfway through their inning they had just 32 runs to 4 wickets.

However, this would be when South Africa started to take off. In the 11th, 12th, and 14th overs, South Africa scored 11 runs each. The 11th over featured their 2nd 'four' of the match (on a no-ball, which then was turned into 5 runs), while the 12th over featured their 1st 'six' of the match. The 13th over brought home just 2 runs, but the 14th over would add their 2nd 'six' of the match, and the 15th over would bring in their 3rd 'four' of the match. South Africa had taken control of the match and moved in 5 overs from 32/4 to 75/4. With 5 overs to go, they needed just 28 runs.

And then they went scoreless in the 16th over. And then they allowed a wicket in the 17th over while only scoring 4 runs. Now 79/5 with just three overs to go.

The ship righted itself i the 18th over with South Africa's 3rd 'six', but it would also bring their 6th wicket. With two overs to go, they had 88/6. 15 Runs to score on just 12 bowls.

And then David Miller went crazy. He started off the 19th over with a '6', his third of the match. He then followed it up with 2 runs, and then a 'four'. The 'four' moved Miller to 53 runs in the match, moving him over 50 runs, or a "half-century". This is not very common in T20 cricket and it was a big deal:

So, how did Miller follow that up?

Well, this happened on the next bowl:

And yes, that is me, yelling and carrying on with the rest of the fans at the stadium.

In my first cricket match, I watched a walk-off 'six', that was hit about 4 rows in front of me. It was the only 'six' to make it into the stands all match.

South Africa wins 106/6 to 103/9 with a full over to spare!

It was AWESOME!

Next season, I'll be rooting for MI New York.

And next time there is cricket in New York, I will be there.

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Next Up - I don't know when I will go to my next cricket match, but MI New York will play their final game of the 2024 MLC season against the Los Angeles Knight Riders on Sunday, July 21st at 8:30 PM with coverage on the YES Network. Maybe I'll watch that.