Campher puts Dutch hopes in moth balls
FAST bowler Curtis Campher took four wickets in four balls to help Ireland thrash Netherlands by seven wickets in their Twenty20 World Cup firstround clash on Monday.
Campher, 22, took a hattrick and then struck again with his next delivery to return figures of 4-26 as Netherlands were dismissed for 106 in the Group A opener in Abu Dhabi.
Ireland lost two early wickets but veteran opener Paul Stirling, who made an unbeaten 30, and Gareth Delany, who scored 44, put on 59 runs for the third wicket to ease into their chase.
Ireland achieved their target with 4.5 overs to spare as Campher hit the winning runs for his team’s first World Cup win over the Netherlands.
“(We wanted) just to attack the stumps as much as possible and, obviously, with
Curtis’ four-wicket over he did exactly that,” skipper Andy Balbirnie said.
“We’ve had a slow but good build-up, I think we’re peaking at the right time.”
Campher became only the third bowler in T20 International history to claim a “double hat-trick” four wickets in four balls after Afghanistan’s Rashid Khan and Lasith Malinga of Sri Lanka in 2019.
Campher sent back Colin
Ackermann (11), Ryan ten Doeschate (0) and Scott Edwards (0) for a hat-trick and then bowled Roelof van der Merwe (0) in a sensational over.
The Johannesburg-born Campher is also just the second player with a hat-trick in the men’s T20 World Cup after Australia fast bowler Brett Lee, who achieved the feat against Bangladesh in the inaugural edition in 2007.