Netherlands well prepared to rectify 2021 disappointment

Unlike last year, where preparation on slow, turning pitches had been in scant supply, the Dutch have been meticulous ahead of what's to come over the next week and beyond

A year on from a particularly miserable showing at the T20 World Cup, the Netherlands have a chance to rectify things.

Plenty has changed since then, and they arrive with a new captain – Scott Edwards has replaced Pieter Seelaar – and a different head coach, albeit not in the circumstances that anyone would have wished for.

Fortunately, Ryan Campbell will be with the Dutch side in a consultancy role, six months after he suffered a near-fatal cardiac arrest.

He has stepped away from the pressure-cooker of the top job, and he will move on once he has finished assisting Ryan Cook at a tournament that, before the interruption of the pandemic, he had been preparing for from the moment that the Netherlands qualified in 2019.

^{Scott Edwards is the Netherlands' new captain, replacing Pieter Seelaar (Richard Heathcote/Getty Images)}

Unlike last year, where preparation on slow, turning pitches had been in scant supply, the Dutch have been meticulous ahead of what's to come over the next week and beyond.

They have played eight times all around Australia, and they come armed with a seam attack far likelier to succeed now than it was in the UAE and Oman, as well as a core more accustomed through their upbringings to the style of surface they can expect than when Sri Lanka – led by Wanindu Hasaranga and Maheesh Theekshana – spun them out for 44 in Sharjah.

"We've been down in Adelaide playing a few warmup games there," said Colin Ackermann. "Went out to Brisbane to play against a Brisbane Heat and Queensland XI in three games there and a game against Afghanistan as well. I feel like our preparation this year is much better than last year."

Paul van Meekeren, Timm van der Gugten, Brandon Glover, Logan van Beek and Fred Klaassen all have significant experience of county cricket, while for Edwards – who has represented Victoria at second-team level in the past – this tournament represents a trip back to where he grew up.

THE BIG MATCH

Who: Netherlands v UAE

Where: Geelong, Victoria

When: Sunday, October 16 (7pm local, 9am BST)

Prediction: Netherlands

Similarly, Max O'Dowd is Auckland-born and van Beek has spent the vast majority of his career in New Zealand, for whom Tim Pringle's father, Chris, played 78 times on the international stage.

Others, like Ackermann and Roelof van der Merwe, learnt the game in South Africa, while Tom Cooper is a fine player with Big Bash experience for three separate teams and 86 Sheffield Shield appearances to his name.

Perhaps, though, the Dutchman to watch is Bas de Leede, one of the T20I cricketers of the year and, at 22, a youngster whose stock is rising fast. MI Emirates, the Mumbai Indians' offshoot in the upcoming ILT20, have picked him up.

He is likely to bat at No.3, where he is averaging 52.5 across six innings since the start of 2021, and adds a quality all-round option with his seamers: only van Beek has taken more T20I wickets for the Netherlands this year.

^{Rohan Mustafa has been left out by the UAE (ICC)}

Their first opponents – United Arab Emirates – also have a new captain but, by contrast, seem less primed for a successful tournament. Ahmed Raza was deposed as skipper in August despite leading his nation out of a corruption crisis and, on the field, possessing a handy win percentage through 27 games at the helm.

He has been replaced by CP Rizwan, though they do at least have some consistency in the form of Robin Singh, in his third year as head coach.

Rohan Mustafa, the country's most-capped player across formats, has been left out; rewind to February, and it was Mustafa, the eighth-ranked allrounder in the T20I rankings at the time of his omission, who hit the winning runs for UAE in the qualifying final against Ireland.

"It will be a sad moment for me," he said when the squad was announced, "and I feel like they are going to miss me a bit. I will miss them – and do believe they will miss me too – but I will definitely sit down and watch their matches and pray for them to win."

In a tough group featuring sides better stocked for these conditions, they might just need that assistance.

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