Netherlands announce men's T20 World Cup squad

Ryan Cook enlists Roelof van der Merwe and Timm van der Gugten for the tournament in Australia. Namibia, Sri Lanka and United Arab Emirates are their first-round opponents

Netherlands have unveiled a 16-strong squad for the men's T20 World Cup in Australia starting next month.

There are places for county cricket stars Roelof van der Merwe and Colin Ackermann, who haven't played a T20I since last year's tournament.

Timm van der Gugten, Fred Klaassen, Paul van Meekeren and Brandon Glover are also named having missed the recent 2-0 whitewash by New Zealand.

In all, there are four players absent from the group that crashed out in the first round in the United Arab Emirates.

Former captain Pieter Seelaar and Ben Cooper have both retired from international cricket, while Ryan ten Doeschate has walked away from all formats. There is also no place for 21-year-old leg-spinner Philippe Boissevain.

Aryan Dutt, Clayton Floyd and Ryan Klein were all named in the squad that lost to the Kiwis but are omitted from the squad. Vivian Kingma misses out too after having been banned for four ODIs or T20Is by the ICC for ball-tampering.

^{Colin Ackermann (Karim Jaafar/Getty Images)}

"We have assembled a well-balanced squad with an exciting blend of youth and experience for the upcoming T20 World Cup," said Cook.

"The experience playing in the Super League will stand the team in good stead and good confidence can be taken from these performances.

"We will look to continue the progression that was evident through the summer into the tournament and have some quality preparation planned prior to the event which will help the readiness for the group in both skills and cohesion."

The Dutch must come through a preliminary stage to reach the 12-team second phase. Starting from October 16, they face Namibia, Sri Lanka and United Arab Emirates, with the top two progressing.

Netherlands T20I squad: Scott Edwards (C), Colin Ackermann, Shariz Ahmad, Tom Cooper, Bas de Leede, Brandon Glover, Fred Klaassen, Stephan Myburgh, Teja Nidamanuru, Max O’Dowd, Tim Pringle, Vikram Singh, Logan van Beek, Timm van der Gugten, Roelof van der Merwe, Paul van Meekeren

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