Wessly Madhevere put out a stunning all-round display in Zimbabwe's game against the Netherlands in the 2nd ODI to turn the match on its head and allow his team to escape with a 1-run win.
After contributing 43 runs with the bat, Wessly came back in the 44th over to haunt Scott Edwards and company with a magnificent hat trick, becoming just the third player in the history of Zimbabwean cricket to take three wickets in a row.
ODI Hat-Trick For Zimbabwe
- Eddo Brandes (1997)
- Prosper Utseya (2014)
- Wessly Madhevere (2023)
Powered by a strong 104-run partnership between Sean Williams (77) and Clive Madande (52), Zimbabwe ended their innings at 271 after 49.2 overs. At one stage, the Netherlands were going good towards the target of 272, with Tom Cooper (74) and M'x O'Dowd (81) going great guns. However, a run-out sent Cooper packing in the 33rd over, and Sikandar Raza accounted f'r O'Dowd in the 41st over.
At the start of the 44th over though, the Netherlands were cruising along as they needed 59 runs from 42 balls with seven wickets in hand. Wessly, however, came in, and destroyed their batting line-up.
"All credit goes to the team-mates, the coaches and especially the guys who have known me for a long time. Hopefully it's going to carry on for a long time. Honestly I'm not sure where I would like to bat. My responsibility is to score runs for the team whether I'm batting 1 or 5. That's my mentality. 100%, it is always nice to win games, hopefully we will win the last one, but we are chuffed with this win," said Wessly post the game.
Colin Ackermann was stumped by Madande, Teja Nidamanuru was bowled off the very next ball and Paul van Meekeren suffered the same fate off the third delivery.
