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Boundless joy . . . Zimbabwe cricketers celebrate after the dismissal of Netherlands batsman Michael Swart (out of picture) during their dramatic win at the ICC World Twenty20 Group B match yesterday. — AFP

SYLHET. — Skipper Brendan Taylor and Hamilton Masakadza kept Zimbabwe’s hopes alive in the World Twenty20 cricket tournament yesterday with a hard-fought five-wicket win over the Netherlands in Sylhet. Taylor hit a solid 39-ball 49 while Masakadza scored 43 off 45 balls to help Zimbabwe pass their 141-run target with a six off the last ball.

When Taylor was dismissed after hitting two fours and a six, 15 runs were needed off the last 11 balls.
When the last over began, seven were still needed. Sean Williams hit a lucky boundary and then ran himself out for 26 with the scores tied. But Vusi Sibanda hit paceman Ahsan Malik for a huge six to give Zimbabwe victory.

Taylor said there was still plenty of room for improvement.
“We committed very basic errors on the boundary which cost us 10-15 runs,” he said. “It wasn’t good enough for a professional outfit. Hopefully, we can rectify that against the UAE and we’ll be a chance.” Netherlands skipper Peter Borren felt his team fell 20 runs short.

“That said, we’ve got a good varied bowling attack, but we would have been confident with 150,” he said.
Zimbabwe kept themselves in contention for the main draw of the World T20, despite making hard work of chasing 141 on a surface which, on Monday, Taylor had assessed as a 180-run pitch. Zimbabwe needed much less and were solid at the start, but almost left themselves with too much to do at the end.

Having watched their own bowlers pluck the Netherlands top-order in the Powerplay, and concede 37 runs in the next six overs, Zimbabwe approached their chase conservatively at first.  Masakadza and Sikandar Raza left as many deliveries as they hit upfront before Raza was hurried into skying one to deep midwicket.

The early setback did not rattle Zimbabwe. At the same stage in Netherlands’ innings, after 4.3 overs, Zimbabwe had already taken four wickets. Prosper Utseya had two of those, removing Stephan Myburgh for a first-ball duck and having Peter Borren caught at mid-off.

The Cooper brothers held Netherlands’ innings together, and Zimbabwe had Masakadza and Taylor. Tom and Ben Cooper put on 52 for the fifth wicket for Netherlands, with Tom, the senior partner, adding 29 of those runs. Masakadza and Taylor put on 62 and took Zimbabwe closer to the target. The Zimbabwe pair showed patience, focusing as much as on singles, and trying to turn them into twos, as they did on clearing the boundary.  They each managed the latter only once, off Tom Cooper in the 10th over, which left Zimbabwe with 75 to get off the second half of their innings.

Three boundary-less overs followed and the required run rate crept up but Masakadza and Taylor were resolute in not rushing. Then Masakadza decided one of them had to.

He charged Pieter Seelaar for the second time in the over and missed to find the ball hitting the middle stump.
When Netherlands lost their fifth wicket, with 6.1 left in the innings, Mudassar Bukhari went in to bat.

He shared a stand of 53 with Cooper and assumed the role of the finisher. Zimbabwe lost Masakadza with 6.3 overs left in their chase and decided not to hold their big-hitter back. Elton Chigumbura was promoted to No. 4 but was out two balls after he arrived. He slapped Seelaar straight to cover to leave Netherlands with the advantage and Taylor out in the middle on his own.

The next two overs yielded only ones and twos as Peter Borren’s slower ball and Timm van der Gugten’s full delivery proved miserly. Zimbabwe needed 40 runs off the last 24 balls and they would have known it was not impossible as Netherlands had scored 37 in the same number of balls. Ball one. Logan van Beek over-pitched and Taylor hit over mid-on for four. Ball two. Van Beek was too short and Taylor got four more.

Off the last ball of the over, Van Beek went short again and Sean Williams found the gap between mid-wicket and square leg, making the equation a manageable 25 off 18.

The next six balls from Ahsan Malik offered no width at all.
Taylor and Williams carved out 10 runs anyway to bring it down to 15 off the 12.

Van der Gugten was back to bowl the penultimate over. Taylor tried to lift him over the covers, but Borren stuck out his hand to pull off a tough chance.

Van der Gugten aimed at the toes for the rest of that over. Williams and Vusi Sibanda kept him out and took the runs on offer to bring it down to seven off the last six. — Cricinfo-AFP.