Rain had the last say at Greenfield International Stadium, Thiruvananthapuram as the World Cup warm-up game between Australia and Netherlands could not yield a result on September 30. While the India versus England match was abandoned without a ball being bowled, a 23 overs per side game was played between Australia and the Netherlands. But rain interrupted play in the 15th over of run chase after Mitchell Starc starred with a hat-trick.
Earlier, Pat Cummins won the toss and opted to bat first. Steve Smith opened the innings alongside Josh Inglis. Inglis got bowled by Logan van Beek for a three-ball duck. Alex Carey came to bat at no.3 and contributed with a 25-ball 28. Roelof van der Merwe got his wicket in the ninth over. Glenn Maxwell could not do much with the bat and lost his wicket to Shariz Ahmad. Slow at first, Smith shifted gears and entertained the crowd with three sixes. He scored 55 runs from 42 balls before getting stumped off Merwe's bowling.
Cameron Green and Starc tried to stitch a partnership. Green got out for a 26-ball 34 in the 19th over. Cummins could not do much damage and was dismissed by Van Beek. Starc came out to bat at no.6. While Matthew Short departed for a single-digit score to De Leede and Marnus Labuschagne struggled to score, Starc contributed with an unbeaten 22-ball 24 to take Australia's score to 166/7.
The run chase got off to a terrible start. In the first over, Starc trapped Max ODowd in front of the stumps with one nipping back into the right-handed batter. With another in-swinger, he went through Wesley Barresi's defense. In his next over, a brilliant in-swinger crashed into the middle stumps as De Leede stood clueless. Starc completed his hat-trick to derail the Dutch run chase early on. Mitchell Marsh got the wicket of opener Vikramjit Singh as Australia were reduced to 15/4 in the fourth over.
Sybrand Engelbrecht was dismissed for a single-digit score by Sean Abbott. Colin Ackermann played the anchor role. Skipper Scott Edwards hit a few boundaries but got out to part-time leg-spinner Labuschagne for a 10-ball 14. Ackermann and Van Beek shared an unbeaten 19-run partnership. Netherlands' score was 84/6 from 14.2 overs when rain interrupted play. They needed 83 runs from 52 balls with four wickets in hand. Ackermann was the top-scorer with 31 runs from 37 balls. The game could not resume and ended with no result.
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