The Netherlands followed their excellent batting performance against the MCC in Rotterdam today with an equally impressive effort in the field, bowling the tourists out for 212 to win by 53 runs with three and a half overs to spare.

MCC again began their chase at a lively rate, with James Hamblin, restricted in his running after sustaining a bruised ankle while fielding at short cover, hitting four fours and a six in a rapid-fire 28 off 15 balls. Young Dutch opening bowlers Mark Jonkman and Pieter Seelaar both suffered from the onslaught, but Seelaar finally got his man, caught by Mohammad Kashif.

Peter Bowler soon followed, bowled by Tim de Leede, but Darren Bicknell was batting well, and he shared a useful partnership of 59 with Hitesh Modi, playing for the first time on the tour. At this stage MCC were well placed, despite good spells from de Leede and from Peter Borren which brought the scoring rate under a bit more control, but the turning point came when Mark Jonkman came back at the pavilion end.

He bowled Modi with his fourth ball, and when Bicknell, who had gone to 64 with a fine display of controlled aggression, was bowled by Kashif in the following over the tourists were 117 for four and the tide had begun to turn.

Kashif and Jonkman now produced an excellent spell of tight bowling, containing Toby Bailey and John Stephenson well enough to get the required rate up towards 7 an over. Each of the batsmen hit Kashif for a six, but otherwise they were mainly restricted to ones and twos.

Pieter Seelaar returned to remove Stephenson, Hamid Hassan was run out without scoring, and at 161 for six the asking rate was beginning to approach 8 per over. Alexei Kervezee contributed a useful four-over spell at the end of which he bowled Bailey, and although skipper Rob Bailey struck a few clean blows the writing was now on the wall.

Borren bowled Turner with the score on 199 and then had Guy Bulpitt caught by Kashif at backward point, while Kashif himself brought the innings to a close when last man Michael Baer was stumped by Jeroen Smits.

As a warm-up for next week’s ODIs against Sri Lanka this was a valuable run out for the Dutch side, which will be strengthened next week by the return of captain Luuk van Troost, batsman Bas Zuiderent, and all-rounders Darron Reekers and Billy Stelling, as well as Essex all-rounder Ryan ten Doeschate.