Tom Cooper announced his arrival in Bangladesh by claiming two critical wickets and striking 34* from 26 to see the Netherlands beat the UAE by 6 wickets.

Seemingly unperturbed by the controversy surrounding his late call-up to the squad, Cooper's all-round performance bagged him the man-of the match award, taking two timely wickets to check a UAE recovery, and seeing the lately fragile Dutch middle order overhaul the UAE's 151 comfortably. Equally crucial were the bowling contributions of Timm van der Gutgten and Ahsan Malik, whose 3.5 overs cost just 16 runs and brought three wickets, whilst Stephan Myburgh's lightning 55 at the top of the order set up the successful chase.

Having lost the toss and been invited to field, the Netherlands started strongly, Michael Swart and Timm van der Gugten each taking a wicket in their first overs to remove openers Faizan Asif and Amjad Ali, but UAE captain Khurram Khan and Swapnil Patil built an initially watchful but swiftly accelerating third wicket partnership.

The pair had put on 67 runs and were looking set when Cooper struck with his second ball, inducing Patil to chop a late cut onto his stumps for 23. Three balls later Khan followed in like manner for 31. Yet Shaiman Anwar and Rohan Mustafa pressed on undeterred, adding 47 for the fourth wicket and recapturing the initiative for the Emiratis.

At 127-4 with nearly five overs to come, the UAE will have been looking to get up toward 170-180. Timm van der Gugten took two wickets in three balls the stem the flow of runs, and combined with Mailk in a fine display of death bowling to see the UAE bowled out for 151.

The Netherlands openers Myburgh and Swart took charge of the chase from the offing, putting on 67 in the first six overs against what admittedly looked like a rather under-cooked UAE attack. A mistimed pull from Swart and a juggled catch from Amjad Javed eventually put an end to the partnership, but Myburgh raced on, bringing up his half century with an atypically ungainly edged pull two overs later.

Myburgh's dismissal the following over, run out attempting a run to the keeper to regain the strike, might have signaled another improbable Dutch collapse going on recent form, and indeed were it not for a series of dropped catches the Netherlands could have found themselves in uncomfortably familiar straights.

Instead, though the rate of scoring slowed somewhat, Cooper added another 36 runs with Wesley Barresi, and with skipper Peter Borren took the Dutch to within 8 runs of victory. Borren may by then have assumed that catches were out of the question when he scooped a looping ramp shot straight to third man, but Silva's catch came too late to prevent the inevitable, and Ben Cooper joined his brother to see the Dutch home with 7 balls to spare.

The win takes the Dutch to the top of Group B, and ends a punishing run of defeat. They will take some measure of restored confidence into their match against Zimbabwe on Wednesday, where a win could set up a thrilling face-off with Ireland on Friday.