Hayat’s 173 extends Hong Kong advantage

Babar Hayat’s career-best 173 and a combined effort from the bowlers extended Hong Kong’s dominance over Netherlands on the second day of the ICC Intercontinental Cup match at the Mission Road Ground in Hong Kong on Saturday (February 11).

Resuming on 366 for 3, Hong Kong rode on Hayat’s gritty 265-ball effort and an unbeaten 98 from Anshuman Rath, to post 527 for 9 declared.

Despite Roelof van der Merwe’s unbeaten century and a half-century from Ben Cooper, Netherlands could only get to 216 for 5 at stumps, trailing by 311 runs.

Hayat, overnight on 141, fell in the first hour of the day when he was trapped lbw by Paul van Meekeren, the right-arm pacer. Having added 53 runs for fourth wicket with Anshuman Rath on the opening day, the duo extended their association to 113.

Rath continued from where Hayat had left, bringing up his half-century with a four off van Meekeren, and kept the scoreboard ticking over with occasional hits to the fence. But regular strikes by van der Merwe (2 for 103) and Vivian Kingma (4 for 125) meant he soon ran out partners, missing out on his maiden first-class ton by two runs.

Tanwir Afzal, the right-arm pacer, struck early for Hong Kong, removing Stephan Myburgh and Max O’Dowd, the Netherland openers, inside five overs. But van der Merwe and Cooper steadied the innings with a 102-run third-wicket stand.

Twin strikes by Nadeem Ahmed, the left-arm spinner, that accounted for Cooper (52) and Wesley Barresi, in the 27th over further dented the visitors’ charge.

Netherlands was on the backfoot when it lost Peter Borren, the captain, but despite the strikes, van der Merwe brought up his fifth first-class century, with 10 fours and five sixes. Van der Merwe and Pieter Seelar associated for an unbroken 40-run partnership, with the former doing bulk of the scoring.