It feels, despite a poor run of results lately, there is very little that’s beyond the Dutch cricket team. With the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup already underway in the US and the West Indies, some Dutch optimism shone through in head coach Ryan Cook’s press briefing ahead of their tournament opener this afternoon in Dallas.

The Netherlands’ storied history at World Cups, not least in their last two years having secured automatic qualification for this edition by beating South Africa and Zimbabwe in the Super 12s and their success at the 50-over World Cup in India, makes them one of the favourites to make it out of the group stages and qualify for Super eights.

Classed as the group of death, the road to get there might not be straightforward: their opening game against Nepal, with a head-to-head record of six games to five, makes it a banana peel encounter. Their next game in New York against South Africa is the one to watch out for, eyeing a ‘three-peat’.

The side then move to the Caribbean for games against Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, the Dutch’s regular opponents with a history of narrow, scrappy losses save for their recent exploits. Remarkably, Scott Edwards’ side need only to look at their last games against every side to see what works, having come out victorious.

With only two teams making it out of the group stages, the margin for error is small. Expect a jostle.

Team news

Sybrand Engelbrecht, who could potentially slot into the middle order but may lose his spot to Vikramjit Singh, was understood to be ill but is back to full fitness. Ahead of their first game against Nepal this afternoon, the team trained at full strength with all members of the 15-man squad available for selection.

They will miss the energy and experience of Roelof van der Merwe and Colin Ackermann, not helped by the late withdrawals of Fred Klaassen and left-arm spinner Daniel Doram due to injuries but this is a side that no longer dwells on who’s available and who’s not, creating a core of local, home-based players. A vision of Ryan Campbell, strengthened further by Ryan Cook.

Recent form

While a 1-3 scoreline in a tri-series involving Scotland and Ireland at home last month was an indication of a team still finding its grooves, they hit the ground running in their first official warm-up game against Sri Lanka, one of their group D opponents, by beating them by 20 runs in Florida. Their second game in Dallas was washed out with heavy rain and thunderstorms.

A common theme across those games was a lack of middle-overs acceleration with the bat, often slowing down after a good start, one which cost them two wins against Ireland. Bowling at the death appeared to be a slight concern with varying success but all-rounder Logan van Beek was optimistic at the conclusion of the tri-series about the side’s prospects come the main tournament.

“We have got to be happy with either batting or bowling first, it doesn’t matter,” he told Dutch News. “We can’t be just a chasing team or a bat-first team. We have to adapt and go with it, that’s going to be the key to our getting through to the top eight.”

“If you look back to the last few qualifying and World Cup tournaments, we hadn’t really found our form and then during the tournament, we were good to go.”

Who to watch out for:

Two summers ago, opener Michael Levitt was playing in the Middlesex Premier League in the UK, combining his playing commitments with coaching at a private school in North London. Now he is one of the first names on the team sheet averaging 43.62 (runs per innings) at a remarkable strike-rate of 156.50 in his eight T20Is so far.

Alongside the experienced Max O’Dowd, the duo have been one of the most formidable opening pairs in recent times. A lot will rest on how these two go on pitches varying from high-scoring in Dallas to two-paced and on the slower side for their next three venues.

Logan van Beek, playing in his fifth T20 World Cup, will lead a potent bowling attack well-suited for whatever’s on offer. A tweak in his bowling action, bit more compact now after working with bowling coaches at Wellington over the New Zealand summer, reaped rewards finishing as the highest wicket-taker in the tri-series but an economy of 5.27 speaks to a greater degree of control at the death.

The Dutch have rowed the boat. Sailed the ship. Now it’s all about playing their song. Can they play their greatest hits?

Squad: Scott Edwards (captain), Max O’Dowd, Vikramjit Singh, Michael Levitt, Wesley Barresi, Sybrand Engelbrecht, Teja Nidamanuru, Bas de Leede, Logan van Beek, Tim Pringle, Aryan Dutt, Saqib Zulfiqar, Kyle Klein, Paul van Meekeren, Vivian Kingma. Travelling reserve: Ryan Klein.

Fixtures:

The Netherlands vs Nepal – Dallas, Tuesday June 4 (5:30pm CEST)
The Netherlands vs South Africa – New York, Saturday June 8 (4:30pm CEST)
Bangladesh vs The Netherlands – Kingstown, Thursday June 13 (4:30pm CEST)
The Netherlands vs Sri Lanka – Gros Islet, Monday June 17 (2:30am CEST)

All games will be live streamed on NOS.nl.