West Indies 249 for 3 (Hope 119, Brooks 60, King 59*) beat Netherlands 240 for 7 (Nidamanuru 58, Vikramjit Singh 47, Hosein 2-29, Mayers 2-50) by seven wickets
The tone of the chase was set early as Hope and Brooks added 120 for the first wicket. While their approach wasn’t explosive in the T20 sense, they kept reeling off enough to always stay ahead of the asking rate, Then there was a lutter when seam-bowling allrounder Logan van Beek picked up two wickets off successive deliveries.
First, he sent back Brooks by taking an excellent return catch and then had Nkrumah Bonner lbw with an inducker. When Nicholas Pooran, the captain, departed for 7 three overs later, Netherlands may have sniffed an outside chance of winning. That is when Hope and King decided to extinguish any such hopes with an unbroken 116-run stand to seal the deal.
Nidamanuru faced just 51 balls and struck three fours and two sixes in his knock. This helped Netherlands post 240 for 7, which was then re-adjusted to 248 via the DLS method. As the chase went on, it became increasingly evident that they were well short.
The second and third ODI will take place on June 2 and June 4 respectively. Despite the win, West Indies are currently 10th and outside the direct qualifying zone in the ODI Super League that serves to identify seven direct qualifiers for next year’s 50-overs World Cup in India. Netherlands are last, with just two wins in 11 matches so far.
Source: ESPN Crickinfo