The Netherlands again asserted their superiority over the touring Bermudians in Rotterdam on Saturday, dominating in all aspects of the game as they secured a comprehensive 172-run victory.

They were set on the road to their win, after Irving Romaine had won the toss and elected to field, with another record-breaking 155-run partnership for the first wicket between Alexei Kervezee and Tom de Grooth, exactly the same as they had achieved in last week’s Intercontinental Cup match in Amstelveen but the highest for The Netherlands in a One-Day International.

The runs came in 25 overs, with all the Bermudian bowlers except the steady Ryan Steede coming in for some heavy punishment. George O’Brien, who had bowled so well in the four-day match, was particularly expensive as the Dutch openers carried on where they had left off earlier in the week.

Dwayne Leverock, too, was taken on as soon as he entered the attack, but he eventually made the breakthrough when Kervezee, on 62, made off 68 balls, mistimed a lofted drive and was well caught by James Celestine dropping back at wide mid-on.

Bas Zuiderent again went cheaply to O’Brien, caught behind this time, but De Grooth continued with great confidence, his second hundred of the week apparently a formality. But when on 97 he was trapped in front by Steede, worthy reward for the bowler’s persistence but desperately disappointing for the batsman. It was the second time he had been dismissed in the 90s in just over a fortnight.

De Grooth’s runs were made at exactly one a ball, and he hit nine fours and one six in an innings which confirmed his emergence as an international opener in both forms of the game.

Ryan ten Doeschate stayed long enough to demonstrate his undoubted quality, making 36 in 45 balls before becoming Leverock’s third victim and adding 57 for the fifth wicket with Mudassar Bukhari. After Ten Doeschate’s departure Bukhari began to open out, and his innings of 61, made off 47 balls and including three fours and three sixes, ensured that the Dutch score reached 300.

With Jeroen Smits scampering between the wickets in the final overs, indeed, chipping in with a run-a-ball 19 not out, they got to 315, breaking by a single run the national record for an ODI, set against Namibia in the 2003 World Cup.

Steede was the pick of the Bermudian bowlers with one for 38 off his ten overs, nine of which came off his last in the final flurry, while Leverock finished with three for 55.

The Bermudian openers reached 20 before Dwight Basden fell to a brilliant catch by Smits off Bukhari, and five overs later Ten Doeschate trapped Jekon Edness leg-before. Lionel Cann smacked Bukhari for six, but when Peter Borren had him caught by Smits with the total on 56 the chase was seriously faltering.

Steven Outerbridge and James Celestine added 44 for the fourth wicket, but then Celestine gave Smits his third catch off the day, off Geert Maarten Mol’s bowling, and Mol struck again in his following over, Romaine lofting a drive straight into the hands of De Grooth at long off.

That made it 100 for five, and the game was effectively over. Outerbridge soon followed, the first of three victims for Pieter Seelaar, and while Jacobi Robinson, Dwayne Leverock and Ryan Steede all stayed around for a while, it was clearly once more in a lost cause.

Seelaar took three for 30 in eight overs, Mangesh Panchal bowled a tidy five-over spell, and then Ten Doeschate came back to finish off the innings, removing Steede and O’Brien with successive balls as Bermuda were all out for 143 and finishing with three for 20.

The second ODI, the final match of the Dutch leg of Bermuda’s European tour, will be played on the same ground on Monday.