The Netherlands are no strangers to competing in World Cups be it the 20 over version or the 50 over one and they often make a big impression when they are there too, as sides such as England can testify. Having missed out on the 50 over World Cup last year the Orange Army will be eager to showcase themselves here.
Form
The Dutch are here courtesy of making the final of the Associate qualifier and who knows but for a washout in the final of that event they could even have won it. Surprisingly they had not played any international T20 since then until they arrived in Dubai for a couple of warm up games last month ahead of this tournament.
That lack of match action could explain their loss to Scotland in Dubai although we can take one off games with a pinch of salt where the Dutch are concerned. We know that the Netherlands can perform under pressure and have enough match winners to be a very dangerous outfit.
Key men
Very few batsmen in the qualifying part of this tournament have the class and the experience of Tom Cooper. Cooper has played many Big Bash competitions and has been representing Somerset in county cricket last season so he is regularly playing against top level competition. He will be the man assigned the task of taking a medium sized total to a match-winning one.
Mudassar Bukhari has been around for much of the Netherlands’ success and he remains an important player for them. He will bowl at the key part of the innings like the start and at the death and he is a clean striker of the ball who can propel a total up with some lusty blows at the end of the innings. He’ll need to go well for Holland to be successful.
Fixtures
Wed Mar 9 – Group A: Bangladesh vs Netherlands (Dharamsala)
Fri Mar 11 – Group A: Oman vs Netherlands (Dharamsala)
Sun Mar 13 – Group A: Ireland vs Netherlands (Dharamsala)
Stats
Overall T20I record: P39 W22 L16 NR1
Last 10 results (most recent last): WWWLLWWWWL
Record vs group opponents:
Vs Bangladesh: P2 W1 L1
Vs Ireland: P5 W2 L2 NR1
Vs Oman: Never met
Record batting first: P20 W9 L10 NR1
Record batting second: P19 W13 L6
Odds
Tournament odds: 1000/1 (General)
Group A odds: 12/1 (General)
Team bets
I’m sticking with just the one here which comes in the batsman market. All eyes will be on Tom Cooper and while I would agree that he is without a doubt the class act in this line up I do think batting in the middle order might go against him. The same thing applies to his brother. I respect Wesley Barresi but I’m going with his opening partner.
Stephan Myburgh is probably best remembered for that brutal knock in the previous T20 World Cup where he took Ireland to the cleaners. That was one of five official 50s he has in this format of the game but he also made another in the warm up game last week.
Myburgh is a clean hitter of the cricket ball and the fact he opens and the altitude in Dharamsala is helping his big hitting and giving him value for his shots I think we could well see plenty more runs from him in this tournament, enough to lead the run charts for his country.
WON – Back S.Myburgh Top Netherlands Tournament Batsman for a 2/10 stake at 4.33 with Paddy Power
Back him here:
