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Team India's morale will be high as a sensational last-ball thriller against Pakistan in their T20 World Cup opener saw them win the game by four wickets. However, the performance wasn't as clinical as they would have expected.
The Netherlands dished out a fighting performance against Bangladesh in their first game of the Super 12 stage, only to fall short by nine runs. Both India and the Dutch will be locking horns on Thursday at the SCG.
Having already seen a number of upsets, the Men in Blue cannot underestimate the Netherlands. Similarly, even the Dutch will need to be smart in their approach against India if they want to pull off another upset at this showpiece event.
On that note, let's take a look at the three player-battles to watch out for:
#3 Max O'Dowd vs Arshdeep Singh
Arshdeep Singh has already proved exactly what he is capable of upfront if he gets the ball to swing both ways. Although he doesn't bowl at express pace, Arshdeep is smart enough to focus on his accuracy and that has helped him add another dimension to his bowling.
Max O'Dowd has been a strong pillar of Dutch batting for quite a while now. He often tends to attack bowlers inside the powerplay and unsettle them. To avoid giving the Netherlands a quickfire start, one may sense that Arshdeep will have to ensure O'Dowd departs early.
Having sent both the Pakistan openers packing in the last game, Arshdeep will be confident enough of repeating the feat against the Dutch.
#2 Bas de Leede vs Hardik Pandya
Bas de Leede is not just the Netherlands' No.3 in their batting line-up but also does the job of bowling some crucial overs. In the seven innings that De Leede has bowled at the death in T20Is, he has picked up 11 wickets at a fantastic economy rate of just 6.66.
This is where he may have a good match-up against the hard-hitting Hardik Pandya. The Indian all-rounder strung together a crucial 113-run partnership with Virat Kohli in their last game, with himself scoring 40(37).
However, Hardik is a champion player and knows that the Indian team expects him to be explosive at the death and provide them with a strong finish. This makes the face-off between Hardik and De Leede even more interesting.
#1 KL Rahul vs Paul van Meekeren
Arguably, most eyes will be on KL Rahul when he faces the Dutch pacers on Thursday. There has been a lot of talk about how Rahul often underperforms in crunch games, and the same thing happened against Pakistan, where he chopped one onto his stumps yet again.
Rahul will need to find a better way to cope up with the extra pace upfront and that's why his encounter against Paul van Meekeren will be fascinating. In 2022, Rahul's numbers in the powerplay have been horrible since he has a strike rate of just 113.07 and has also been dismissed thrice.
With India being quite vocal about how they want to play their cricket, it will be interesting to see if Rahul just stops being tentative and tries to take on Van Meekeren.
Meanwhile, Van Meekeren will know that the pressure is on Rahul to score big and this might help the speedster pose some serious questions to the Indian vice-captain.
