Ireland's Curtis Campher became only the third player in history to take four wickets in four balls in a Twenty20 International as Holland were dispatched by seven wickets in the T20 World Cup.
Campher's achievement puts him on a list of three, with Rashid Khan and Lasith Malinga the only other two bowlers to have achieved the feat.
The stunning run was part of a sterling effort with the ball, Ireland bowling out the Dutch for 106. The low target was easily surpassed by Ireland's front rank batsman, Gareth Delany and Paul Stirling scoring 44 and 30 runs respectively as the victors reached 107 for the loss of just three wickets.
Having won the toss and chosen to bat, the Netherlands continued the theme of the tournament so far with one of their openers getting out for a duck.
Ben Cooper was run out as Max O'Dowd set off for a quick single from the non-striker's end and Cooper was so far from safety Paul Stirling could take two attempts to dislodge the bails.
The Netherlands reached their 50 in the ninth over and looked to be making steady progress towards the halfway mark before Campher came on for his second over.
There followed an over for the ages.
Campher reeled off four wickets in a row as the Netherlands fell from 51 for two to 51 for six, and included county cricketers Ryan Ten Doeschate and Roelof Van Der Merwe.
The first wicket had to be reviewed by captain Andy Balbirnie for a possible caught behind after initially being signalled wide, with UltraEdge confirming the ball had caught Colin Ackermann's bat on the way through to wicketkeeper Neil Rock.
Ryan Ten Doeschate's poor run of form extended into the tournament as he became the second wicket, trapped lbw first ball.
The hat-trick ball, the wicket of Scott Edwards, also had to be reviewed after given not out by on-field umpire Rod Tucker, the eventual lbw verdict giving Campher the highly-coveted three from three.
Van Der Merwe then followed the next ball, dragging the ball on to his stumps to complete four in four for the 22-year-old Johannesburg-born seamer. He wound up finishing with four for 26.
The Netherlands needed rescuing and opener O'Dowd took on that responsibility, crunching back-to-back boundaries off Ben White to move their total to 71 for six from 13 overs.
O’Dowd brought up his half-century off 44 balls seemingly undeterred by the devastation he had just witnessed, but he was not immune to error either, slashing the ball to long-on to depart for 51.
There was still time for more drama as Mark Adair looked to one-up Campher, taking the two of the final three wickets, with a run-out sandwiched in between, to reduce the Dutch to 106 all out and earn himself figures of three for nine.
Needing less than a run a ball, Ireland were gifted their first seven runs from extras by Fred Klaasen before powerful hitting from Kevin O’Brien and Stirling showed Ireland’s intent to wrap up the victory quickly.
O’Brien was caught by Logan van Beek going for a huge heave and a similar end befell captain Andrew Balbirnie who attempted to smash a third four in a row, but his shot was instead snaffled by Van der Merwe.
Gareth Delany joined Stirling out in the middle as a more cautious approach was taken in chasing down the total, bringing up Ireland’s half-century in eight overs.
The pair brought up their 50 partnership in the 12th over, Delaney doing much of the heavy lifting as Ireland looked to score at a decent pace, having missed out on the knockout stages in 2014 due to a low net run rate.
Delany would be dismissed by Pieter Seelaar for 44 with Campher then on hand to steer Ireland home, a victory entirely of his own making.
"I didn’t think it was going to happen like that. But I’ve been training hard and (I’m) just very fortunate to get that," Campher said.
"To be honest I wasn’t really thinking about it, maybe it will sink in a little bit later. I was just trying to do what I wanted to do and we knew when Ten Doeschate walked in that we had to go straight to him and that worked and we just carried on with that.
"That was a plan and we worked on that with our analysts and that does fit into my game, so maybe in a few hours or a few days it might rub off, but at the moment I’m just happy with the win and that’s all that matters."
The first of Campher’s wickets was a reviewed caught behind, before two players, including Ten Doeschate were trapped lbw, with the hat-trick ball also overturned on review after umpire Rod Tucker originally turned down the appeal against Scott Edwards.
Van der Merwe then followed, dragging the ball onto his stumps to complete four in four for the Johannesburg-born seamer.
He finished with four for 26 as Holland were bowled out for 106, opener Max O’Dowd providing the only resistance of note with 51.
"To be honest, any time you get the opportunity to take a wicket in international cricket it’s a real privilege and I’m just lucky it went my way today," Campher said when asked if he was relieved by the successful lbw appeal for the hat-trick.
"Nothing else bar that. Any wicket I can do for the team is a real boost."
On his fourth wicket, he said: "My heart was racing quite high but I just took a few deep breaths at the top of my run and made sure that I just managed my skills. Obviously after that over I didn’t really finish the last over as well as I wanted to but I’m learning, I’m young and I just want to do the best I can."
Netherlands 106 all out, in 20 overs (Max O'Dowd 51, Pieter Seelaar 21; Curtis Campher 4/26, Mark Adair 3/9)
Ireland 107/3, in 15.1 overs (Gareth Delaney 44, Paul Stirling 30; Pieter Seelaar 1-14; Fred Klaasen 1-18)Player of the Match: Curtis Campher (Ireland)
Ireland win by seven wickets
Later on Monday, Sri Lanka began their World Cup by cruising to a convincing seven-wicket victory over Namibia in Abu Dhabi.
Star man Maheesh Theekshana took three wickets, including removing Namibian openers Stephan Baard and Zane Green for seven and eight runs respectively, as the Lions swiftly dismissed their opponents for just 96 in the Group A encounter.
Craig Williams’ 29 from 36 balls, plus 20 from captain Gerhard Erasmus, helped Namibia escape embarrassment but their batting line-up could not cope with a series of bamboozling deliveries, led by spinner Theekshana, who also removed Jan Frylinck.
The modest chase began with a brief stutter as a wicket apiece from Ruben Trumpelmann, Bernard Scholtz and JJ Smit sent Sri Lanka’s top three of Kusal Perera, Pathum Nissanka and Dinesh Chandimal on their way for a combined total of 21.
But the glimmer of hope was swiftly extinguished by an unbeaten fourth-wicket partnership between Bhanuka Rajapaksa and Avishka Fernando.
Rajapaksa hit six boundaries, including two sixes, in his knock of 42, while Fernando’s score of 30 also contained a couple of maximums as Sri Lanka eased to their target with 39 balls to spare.
