Men’s ODI WC: Have had coaches inquiring how we could fit into their schedule, says Netherlands coach Ryan Cook

Mumbai: The Netherlands face hosts India in their last league match of the ICC Men’s ODI World Cup 2023 with a place in the last eight and a berth in the ICC Champions Trophy in 2025 in line.

The Netherlands too need to win the match as victory is likely to move them into the top eight places ahead of Bangladesh.

Though the Netherlands had not been able to achieve their ambition of making it to the semifinals, head coach Ryan Cook said the team has improved a lot and other teams are looking forward to playing them more and more.

“Other teams are looking forward to try and play us. I have actually had a few teams’ coaches approach me and ask about our schedule and how potentially they could fit into their schedule, so that bodes well. But I know the international schedules are quite full,” Cook said in the pre-match press conference ahead of the match against India in Bengaluru on Sunday.

“But again, we would obviously love to play as many teams as possible. We’ve shown that we can compete for long periods of the game, and obviously, by playing games against these teams, we’re going to be able to compete better for longer.”

The Netherlands made a huge impact on the event when they defeated South Africa by 38 runs at the HPCA Stadium in Dharamsala on October 17.

They had defeated Bangladesh by 87 runs but lost to Afghanistan by 7 wickets in other matches.

Ryan Cook praised his players for putting in some good performances.

“It goes without saying that the guys have put in some really good performances both individually and as a team, both batting and bowling and fielding. So, I think everyone has gone in respect for the way that we’ve played our cricket and the style in which we’ve gone about it. And that’s been really pleasing to see from a coaching perspective,” said Cook.

He said his players have learnt a few things about playing stronger opposition.

“The guys get about playing better opposition and obviously the more of those opposition we can play will be handy for us. I think we had a situation where after the qualifiers we had no cricket against any — we just had Karnataka that we played against. And probably in hindsight probably missed a couple of fixtures to refine our skills and get ourselves going in terms of quality fixtures that we had.

And those two games were really good, but probably not quite enough for preparation for a World Cup like this. And that was no fault of our own. We tried our best to try and get as many fixtures as we could. But obviously, as we said, the schedules are quite packed,” he said.

The Netherlands coach said the scrapping of the ICC Super League is a setback for teams like the Netherlands as it was an opportunity to play some international cricket.

“Yeah, I think the Super League was really influential for the players and they often refer back to those as reference points that they’ve had playing in different countries, playing against some of the top teams in the world. And I think it’s probably one of the reasons why we sit in the position that we’re in today to be competing at the World Cup.

“The (scrapping) Super League is obviously a blow for us, but again, nothing stopping a bilateral series happening between two countries in ODI cricket or in T20 cricket as we move towards the T20 World Cup as well. They will be up against the good teams again and obviously we’ll be trying to prepare as well as we can for that tournament,” said Ryan Cook.

–IANS