New Delhi, February 19 – India entered the Super Eights with an unbeaten record after defeating the Netherlands by 17 runs in their last Group A match.
In their final group game, India overcame a cautious start against the Netherlands to finish at 193/6 in Ahmedabad, having opted to bat first.
The Netherlands got off to a steady start in their chase. However, they were left struggling after being reduced to 125/6 after 16 overs, before Zach Lion-Cachet and Noah Croes launched a counter-attack with a series of powerful shots, narrowing the gap.
Croes smashed three boundaries off four balls – two off the last two balls of Washington Sundar's spell and one off Arshdeep Singh – before Lion-Cachet also contributed with a boundary and a six.
Two more boundaries from Croes off Hardik Pandya brought the equation down to 28 off the final over. However, Shivam Dube held his nerve at the death, conceding very few runs and dismissing Lion-Cachet to seal a 17-run victory, thus completing their group stage unbeaten.
Key statistics from India's win:
7: India captain Suryakumar Yadav used 7 bowlers. This was the fifth instance when India used seven or more bowlers during an innings of a T20 World Cup match.
12: So far, India have used 12 bowlers in the current edition of the T20 World Cup, which is the maximum in a single edition. Earlier, they had used 11 bowlers in the 2009 edition.
13: Hardik Pandya has become the 13th all-rounder and the first from India to achieve the feat of scoring 6000+ runs and taking 200+ wickets in the T20 format.
3: Opener Abhishek Sharma, who failed to score in the current T20 World Cup, is now the third opener to have scored three ducks in a T20 World Cup. Previously, Andrew Fletcher of the West Indies in 2009 and Tanzid Hasan of Bangladesh in 2024 had this distinction.
12: India registered their 12th successive victory in the T20 World Cups, setting a new world record. They started their winning campaign on June 5, 2024, and it is still ongoing.
66: This is Shivam Dube's highest score in T20Is, surpassing his previous best of 65 against New Zealand at Vizag on January 28, 2026. Overall, this was his sixth fifty-plus score in his 59th match.
176/7: This is the Netherlands' highest team total without an individual fifty, surpassing 174/4 against Nepal at Lord's in 2018.
