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The Netherlands has made it clear that they are not
attending the World Cup merely to fill out the roster. Their conviction that
they may make a significant run to the semi-final was further bolstered by an
unexpected victory over South Africa early in the tournament.
In that regard, their coach Ryan Cook stated that they
have been severely damaged by the kind of loss that Australia inflicted upon
them on Wednesday. In 21 overs, the Netherlands were all out for 90 after
surrendering 399 for 8.
“The guys will be hurting in the changing room,
for sure,” Cook said. “We talked a good game before the game, and we
didn’t play a good game of cricket today. We didn’t execute our plans quite
like we wanted to and then the fight that we have shown in lots of the matches
– we saw only glimpses of that. We need to play better cricket for a lot longer
if we’re going to compete with teams like Australia.
“Resilience is something as I say we pride
ourselves on as a team. We’ll be able to get back up for the next game and
learn our lessons from that.”
Where exactly did things go wrong? Cook mentioned that
the Netherlands was “a bit up and down” in the competition. While
there were many excellent diving stops in the infield, especially in the early
overs, the Netherlands also committed one very costly drop – Teja Nidamanuru,
running back from mid off off the bowling of Paul van Meekeren, was unable to
hold on to a difficult, high, swirling chance off Glenn Maxwell (who was 26 off
15 at the time).
When that occurred, Australia was well past 300 in the
44th over, but as they were already six down, it’s possible that they could
have been held to less than 350 had Maxwell been removed at that point.
Allrounder Logan van Beek said the greater
disappointment was Netherlands’ batting. After an early string of boundaries to
Vikramjit Singh, who top-scored with a run-a-ball 25, the remainder of the
batting line up folded rapidly. The next-highest score was Nidamanuru’s 14.
“With the bat is the disappointing one. We
shouldn’t be getting bowled for 90. We should be putting up at least a fight.
That’s the part that hurts the most.”