World Twenty20:Despite beating England in their opening game, Holland's World Twenty20 dream was cruelly shattered as Pakistan thrashed them by 82 runs at Lord's to progress to the Super Eights.
Set 176 to win the match, the Dutch began their chase knowing reaching 151 would be enough to send them into the second stage alongside England, due to their superior net run rate.
Having surprisingly overhauled the tournament hosts' 162 for five on the same ground last Friday, Jeroen Smits' predominantly amateur side would have fancied their chances at the halfway stage, but they were blown away by the Pakistan spinners and all-rounder Shahid Afridi in particular during a spell of seven wickets for 32 runs in just six overs.
They had progressed to 42 for one when Afridi was introduced into the attack for the eighth over and he highlighted the gulf in class between the teams when he produced a yorker first ball which fizzed under the bat of Bas Zuiderent.
Unable to get the spinners away, the middle-order batsmen then fell in quick succession to shots of increasing desperation.
Tim de Grooth, hero of the opening night chase against England with an aggressive 49, was one of the quartet to perish to Afridi, who finished with figures of 4-0-11-4.
With the Dutch batsmen regularly drawn out of their crease in their bid to up the run rate, wicketkeeper Kamran Akmal saw plenty of action and finished with four stumpings, including one stunning take off Afridi's quicker ball.
Only Darron Reekers, whose beefy early blows gave brief hope, and Ryan ten Doeschate, who hit the only six of the pursuit, scored at better than a run a ball for the Dutch.
"It's always good fun. We lost to England and now we are in the Super Eights so we must take it easy about this cricket. It's good entertainment," said Pakistan captain Younus Khan after the win.
"Everybody follows Twenty20 these days and the good thing about it is it is changing every single over.
"If you lose a couple of wickets in an over you could lose quite easily. But if you get 20-25 runs from an over you can be on your way quite easily. You need energy whether you are batting, bowling and fielding.
"Everybody knows we are slow starters, we are always like that and I hope we have performances like that in every game."
Holland captain Jeroen Smits admitted his side's batting let them down as they let the opportunity to join fellow associate country Ireland in the next stage slip through their grasp.
"We were looking forward to the Super Eights, we thought we had a great chance so maybe we were over-confident," he said. "We were confident at half-time, but we needed a big innings from someone and it didn't happen. They bowled really well.
"Pakistan deserved to win, I can't complain about our bowling or our fielding but our batting didn't go according to plan.
"We spoke about Afridi, and on this kind of wicket it skids a bit and he worked us out. He bowled a special game, and that is the difference between associate level and professional level.
"The main difference was the quality of the bowling - four for 11 says it all."