The Netherlands innings against Sri Lanka in Lucknow on Saturday saw two stars coming to the fore after more than half of the team was back in the hut. The Dutchmen came prepared to tackle spin but were completely blown away by the fast-bowling duo of Dilshan Madushanka and Kasun Rajitha who shared 8 wickets between them. Their opening spells were longer than expected, consisting of 7 overs each, in which they reduced the Dutch side to 91/6 in 21.2 overs.
With all main batters gone, the Netherlands looked up to someone who could just stand and absorb the pressure, perhaps anyone. That’s when Sybrand Engelbrecht and Logan van Beek stood up and scripted a World Cup record for the 7th wicket partnership.
They just batted, batted and batted. The sun was overhead, the mercury levels were spiking up and the Lankans, who have had a great start, were getting frustrated over the unbreakable Dutch stand.
Engelbrecht and Van Beek tested Sri Lanka’s patience with a 130-run stand, setting the record for highest partnership for 7th wicket or lower in the history of the tournament.
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In due process, they surpassed the 40-year-old record of legendary Kapil Dev and wicketkeeper-batter Syed Kirmani who put an unbeaten stand of 126 runs against Zimbabwe in 1983 – the game that wasn’t televised.
The interesting part of the partnership was that neither of the two batters has Dutch roots. Both have connections from two different countries, which are full ICC members, and now putting their efforts to make an associate nation win the World Cup.
The stories
Starting with Sybrand Engelbrecht who was an opponent of Virat Kohli when the latter won India the Under-19 World Cup in 2008 in Malaysia. Not many people know that Engelbetcht was in South African colours in the final and before that, he took a marvellous catch against Papua New Guniea which still comes up in search results for ‘greatest catch ever’ on the internet.
However, his dream of representing South Africa in senior men’s category could never take shape which left him with no other option than quitting the sport. He took the step in 2016 and drew curtains on his playing career.
Done with cricket, Engelbrecht pursued an MBA after which he shifted base to the Netherlands. It was during the covid pandemic when someone sent him the video of his catch on the office WhatsApp group, and eventually, he picked up the sport again. He played for the Voorburg CC and even led the club to a championship victory earlier this year.
Also Read: Sybrand Engelbrecht, The U-19 World Cup Sensation’s Remarkable Comeback Journey
Back in August, he made his debut for Netherlands A and scored a fifty and a century in his first two matches.
“I played professionally in South Africa up until December 2016 and I moved into a corporate career. I studied finance. I went into the finance route with a company called Fairtree. I did my master’s, and my MBA as well and I’ve been working for the last seven years for the same company. About three years ago, we moved from South Africa to the Netherlands and started playing again predominantly just to kind of make friends and integrate into the community. And it wasn’t, I suppose until Ryan Cook and the rest of the management took over that the interest came a little bit again,” Engelbecht said in the post-match presser.
“Only this year in July I think I became eligible to play for the Netherlands. So, I spoke to Ryan and asked, look, would you be interested in me putting my name in the hat? And he was brutally honest because the team did really well to qualify and get us here. So, he said, absolutely the broader the pool, the better for them,” he added.
On the other hand, his batting partner Logan van Beek was raised in New Zealand and happens to be a grandson of SC Guillen, one of the few cricketers who has played Test cricket for West Indies and New Zealand.
Van Beek was raised in New Zealand. His grandfather, Guillen, played Test cricket for both West Indies and New Zealand. Guillen’s daughter met her husband in the Netherlands before emigrating to New Zealand.
Van Beek was instrumental in one of the greatest ODI victories ever when the Dutch team beat the West Indies in world cup qualifiers earlier this year.
Van Beek, who plays First-class cricket for the Canterbury, aimed at playing the 2015 ODI World Cup for the Black Caps at home. However, things didn’t fall into place. In fact, last year he was in India with the New Zealand A side but now, he is helping the Dutch fulfil their dream of making it to the World Cup 2023 semis.
The Record Partnership
Engelbrecht (70 off 82 balls) and van Beek (59 off 75 balls) put up a brilliant 130-run stand for the 7th wicket to pull out the Netherlands from 91 for 6 to push them to 262-all out.
So what did it take to break a 40-year-old record for the highest partnership for the seventh wicket in a World Cup?
Engelbrecht said Van Beek and he just tried to be calm under pressure and didn’t take any unnecessary pressure since they were six wickets down already.
“A lot of credit needs to go to Logan. I thought he batted brilliantly and we just try to extend and take it as deep as possible. So, we just told ourselves, if we can get to the last ten overs with six down, we’re giving ourselves a good chance. So, for us, it really wasn’t necessarily about trying to accumulate runs. It was just about making sure that we get into positive positions and pick up the runs when we could,” Engelbrecht said.
“But to try and lay a bit of a foundation for us to start scoring a little bit more freely to the back end, which we managed to do. So, happy with the partnership. I thought Logan batted brilliantly and together we just kind of kept on going.
“We were pretty calm out there and then on the 40th over we try to shift gears to try and accumulate a little bit more runs. So yeah, it was a good partnership for us, but it would have been fantastic to get a little bit more,” he added.
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