The last few days have been a roller coaster ride for the Netherlands’ opening batter, Max O’Dowd. The 31-year-old was the centre of attraction in the team’s opening match of the T20 World Cup against Pakistan at the SSC in Colombo on February 7. He had the chance of pulling off something truly special for the Dutch had he plucked the catch of Faheem Ashraf in the penultimate over of the game. The Netherlands had their noses in front, and the left-hander’s dismissal would have been the final nail in the coffin. But O’Dowd buckled under pressure, and an easy chance went down at long-on, paving the way for Ashraf taking Pakistan home with an unbeaten 29 off 11 balls.
The disappointment was evident on O’Dowd’s face after dropping a diving catch. However, no one truly deserves what came next for the right-hander. The next two to three days saw O’Dowd facing online abuse on Instagram, with several fans saying nasty things about him for dropping the catch.
On the eve of the T20 World Cup match against Namibia at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in New Delhi, the seasoned campaigner revealed that his Instagram account was flooded with nasty comments, most of them from Indian fans.
“Some of the comments were quite harsh, something that should never be said to anyone,” O’Dowd told the Indian Express.
“It seems that Indian fans were angrier with me than the Dutch supporters,” he added.
A look at the comments under the batter’s posts shows remarks such as Bro, you’re a professional player, how can you drop that easiest catch?” and “Bhai pakad lete catch bikhari pehle din hi bahar ho jaate” (Brother, you could have completed the catch, Pakistan would have knocked out on the first day itself).
These are the comments that can be placed in the public domain; the rest are too offensive and contain explicit content.
The crucial chance that let Ashraf off the hook
In the match against the Netherlands, Pakistan were cruising at one stage, but the side self-imploded and found itself at 119/7 after 18 overs, still needing 29 runs off 12 balls. Logan van Beek stepped up to bowl the penultimate over of the contest. Ashraf hit a six off the first delivery, bringing the equation down to 23 off 11 balls.
The next delivery turned out to be a full toss, but it was sent straight down O’Dowd’s throat at long-off, but the Dutch opener failed to hold on. Ashraf then sealed the deal by smashing two sixes and a four off the next four balls, before eventually hitting the winning boundary with three balls to spare.
“We had a chat about things after the game, not just that catch. We could have done a lot of things better. We thought we were a bit short with the bat as well,” O’Dowd said.
