Fresh from the back of their maiden first-class victory in the Intercontinental Cup game that ended on Wednesday, Afghanistan would have been hoping to become the first team to win their first two ODIs at Amstelveen today with a win over the Netherlands to add to their maiden ODI win over Scotland in South Africa back in April.

But the Dutch side that played today was a much tougher proposition than the Intercontinental Cup side, with captain Jeroen Smits back in the side along with the two county players Ryan ten Doeschate and Alexei Kervezee.

And it was the class of ten Doeschate that was to be the difference between the sides and swing the game the way of the home side.

Afghanistan won the toss and put the Dutch into bat. Kervezee and Mudassar Bukhari put on 33 for the first wicket before the young Worcestershire batsmen was caught by Mohammad Nabi off the bowling of Shahpoor Zadran. Eric Szwarczynski followed two deliveries later, and former Sussex player Bas Zuiderent was out soon after with the score on 46/3.

There were then just six more runs from the next five overs before Tom de Grooth was next out. All four wickets at this point had been taken by Shahpoor Zadran, who finished with figures of 4/24.

De Grooth's wicket brought Essex all-rounder ten Doeschate to the crease, and he set about rebuilding the innings with partnerships of 34, 47 and 32 with Bukhari, Daan van Bunge and Peter Borren respectively before he was seventh out with the score on 165 having scored 58.

Borren, captain in the Intercontinental Cup game and batting quite low for him at number 8, stayed in to score 22, and the tail soon folded once he was bowled by Hamid Hassan. The final total for the Dutch was 188 in 47 overs.

Afghanistan started at what for them was a remarkably slow run rate. They had only scored two when Ahmad Shah was the first wicket to fall in the fourth over. Noor Ali then put on 40 for the second wicket with Mohammad Shazad and 33 for the third wicket with skipper Nowroz Mangal to take the total to 75.

But having scored 14, Mangal was caught by Peter Borren off his own bowling. Two overs later, Noor Ali joined him back in the dressing room having scored 34, failing to capitalise on his good start. Two quick wickets from Edgar Schiferli soon afterwards had Afghanistan struggling on 97/6.

But if there's one thing one can say about Afghanistan is that they never lie down and let a team roll over them, and they came back with a 55 run seventh wicket partnership between Samiullah Shinwari and Asghar Stanikzai before Stanikzai became Schiferli's third victim with the score on 152/7.

With three overs left, the first of which was a powerplay over, Afghanistan needed 22 runs to win, not an impossible task for them. The task of bowling the 48th over went to ten Doeschate, and he bowled Shinwari with the third ball, and with only two leg-byes in the over, he had bowled a wicket maiden in the powerplay at the death, not something that happens too often!

Nine were taken from Mudassar Bukhari's final over, leaving Afghanistan to score 11 from the final over, to be bowled by Ryan ten Doeschate. After a wide and a single, ten Doeschate bowled two dot balls, meaning that Afghanistan needed nine from the final three deliveries.

Boundaries needed then, and Afghanistan went to what is all to often their usual plan - the aerial route. Shahpoor Zadran hit the ball straight to Kervezee on the cover boundary, and from the very next ball Mirwais Ashraf hit the ball to the exact same spot, now the midwicket boundary due to him being right-handed, into the waiting hands of Kervezee and the Dutch had won by eight runs.

Ryan ten Doeschate had taken 4/35 from 9.5 overs. Taken along with his 58 in the Dutch innings, it made him the obvious choice for the man of the match award.

These two teams meet in the second and final ODI on Tuesday at the same venue. The game will, of course, be covered live on CricketEurope.