T20 World Cup: Pakistan beat Netherlands to avoid elimination

Pakistan beat the Netherlands by six runs to keep their qualification hopes alive for the Men's T20 World Cup semifinals.

They won with 37 balls to spare after opening with 49 off 39 balls.

Colin Ackermann scored 27 in the Netherlands' 91-9 win in Perth.

Pakistan needs to beat South Africa on Thursday in order to progress.

The Netherlands have lost three times in a row and have been eliminated from Group 2, a place below Pakistan.

Bangladesh moved into the top two with a win over Zimbabwe.

The Netherlands' batting was bad from the beginning.

The display consisted of 63 dot balls and no one looked comfortable.

After being hit in the helmet grille by Haris Rauf, Bas de Leede had a huge cut on his cheekbone and had to retire.

The pace of the Pakistan seamers made it difficult for them to cope.

He was denied a hat- trick by the best of margins as the ball went between his legs.

The stump-to-stump line was great for the bowling of Shadab. The leg-spinner has 20 T20 internationals under his belt.

The batting was poor according to the captain. After the powerplay, we were on 15 or so.

It's always going to be difficult to defend, it was 90 on a nice day.

Babar was run out by van der Merwe for four, meaning he has scored just eight runs in three games.

Fakhar Zaman, who came into the team and made 20, and Rizwan, who played nicely including two gorgeous straight drives, were caught behind off the two guys.

When Shadab drove to the cover boundary, they were able to keep their tournament going.

Babar said he was very happy with the performance.

We could have chased down the score and not lost a lot of points. We take good things into our next match after a win.