Often, you only choose to see what is right in front of you. One saw how Netherlands almost beat Pakistan in the opening match of the ICC T20 World Cup. They built on that form with a win over Namibia in their next game and then went down to fellow Associates USA in their third game. With a match against India up next, the Dutch have a daunting task ahead of them if they want to get into the Super Eights.
But if you look a little deeper, you will see that it takes more than that to scare the Netherlands. What is life without context and to understand what the men in orange are doing in this tournament one has to understand that a snow-covered ground in Amsterdam meant that the team rarely had the opportunity to train together ahead of the World Cup.
In fact, most of their support staff is working on a temporary basis. Known as ‘Pep Guardiola of the team’, coach Ryan Cook — both brother Stephen and father Jimmy played Tests for South Africa — also acted as the team manager, arranging travel and accommodation in Chennai, before the rest of the staff reached Colombo just before the opener.
A funding shortfall of approximately 1.2 million euros means that even though the talent base is expanding within the region, there is little in terms of exposure for the second rung.
But rather than cry about that, what did the Dutch do? They went looking for solutions. If not Amsterdam, then where…
The players travelled to different centres around the cricketing world to get themselves ready for their country’s sixth straight World Cup. While Colin Ackermann, Roelof van der Merwe, Kyle Klein, Aryan Dutt, Bas de Leede, Michael Levitt and Paul van Meekeren trained in Cape Town, O’Dowd, skipper Scott Edwards, Noah Croes and Zach Lion-Cachet practiced in Mumbai. Then you had the likes of Saqib Zulfiqar (Lahore), Fred Klaassen, Timm van der Gugten (both in London) and Logan van Beek (playing Super Smash in New Zealand) who trained on their own at separate centres.
And finally, the team congregated just 10 days before the tournament in Chennai before travelling to Colombo for the opener. Most of the top teams don’t have to contend with any of this and perhaps this is the way for every Associate team but the inequality doesn’t make things easy.
The upsets — in the 2022 edition they beat Test-playing nations South Africa and Zimbabwe and then they defeated South Africa (again!) in the 2023 ODI World Cup — create some buzz around and within the team. Call it fuel if you want to keep things running.
In a country where football, hockey and volleyball dominate the sporting scene, cricket is restricted to 51 clubs and 64 grounds with only seven of them having proper wickets but things are gradually changing.
“The game is definitely growing, especially with the Euro T20 Slam hopefully going ahead this year,” says Dutch batter Ackermann. “We have great self-belief. We’ve shown in the past that we can compete with Test nations, so there’s a lot of confidence in the group.”
When it comes to the players, while some are working professionals — allrounder Saqib Zulfiqar is a banker at ABN Amro — others are students — de Leede is pursuing business administration — who had to either take leave from their workplaces or postpone their exams.
The competition for places in the squad, though, is fierce. Six players who helped Netherlands qualify for the T20 World Cup did not even make the cut for the team present here. “To put the squad together, we had choices. Six years ago, we didn’t even have that,” says John van Vliet, the team’s temporary media manager.
But what brings quality to the team is that many play professional cricket, be it in leagues or County cricket in England. In the past you had the likes of Ryan ten Doeschate and Dirk Nannes who had played in the IPL. Today, Ackermann plays for Durham, van der Gugten for Glamorgan, Klaassen for Kent, van der Merwe for Somerset in County cricket.
“We have been playing for a number of years and a large part of the team plays professional cricket. The rest play club cricket. There is a professional structure coming in place. Also, there are a few central contracts — around seven for the coming year,” said Ackermann.
Like everywhere else, the expat population from South Asia has been boosting the cricket culture in the Netherlands too. Interestingly, the Royal Dutch Cricket Association (KNCB) has been receiving requests from multiple Dutch companies, who employ South Asians, asking the federation to lay down a cricket pitch or field.
“If you look at our junior and sub-junior teams, at least half of them are filled by expat kids,” says van Vliet.
While their ambitions are high, the Dutch are also realistic, not even harbouring Test status ambitions. They do not even have a cricket stadium, playing their matches on temporary grounds. But first, they want to play ODI matches regularly against Full Member nations. Last year they played 11 T20Is (only three against a Full Member) and 12 ODIs (none against a Test team).
For now, though, the Dutch aren’t pondering over the what ifs. That just isn’t their style.
“Part of the DNA of this Netherlands team is that we learn from past experiences. In the immediate future, our goal is to reach the semi-finals. I believe we have the team and the skills to achieve that,” concluded Ackermann.
