If there was any doubt around the Dutch legacy being set in Paris over the last fortnight, a double gold in hockey and an eye watering record tally of 13 golds (and counting) should confirm it.

The Dutch pride is palpable and the Netherlands’ men’s cricket team’s assistant and batting coach, Heino Kuhn, only wants to take it a notch higher: “Our goal is now to be one of the top eight teams in the world,” he told Dutch News two days out from their first ODI at home in nearly two years.

Currently, by ICC’s metrics, they are some way off being ranked 15th in T20Is and 14th in One Day Internationals. But ten months ago, they were close to somewhat establishing it needing only one win and a handful of results to go their way to finish in the top eight at the ODI World Cup in India and by the virtue of it, qualifying for the Champions Trophy next year in Pakistan.

Following an indifferent T20 World Cup in the USA and West Indies in June which ended with just one win over Nepal, the Dutch return to the Cricket World Cup League 2 with their first home series against USA and Canada starting on Sunday (August 11) in Voorburg. Their first series in Nepal in February against the hosts and Namibia yielded two wins and two losses.

“It’s all about consistency now in the games leading up to those upcoming World Cups,” Kuhn said. “If we can have the same group of guys and not lose them to the County circuit that makes it a lot easier as well. That would mean guys can play in their positions for more games.”

It was one of the key takeaways from the post-mortem of the T20 World Cup apart from being “better for longer”, a phrase that has stuck since the World Cup Super League. Positively, with T20I games added on to every WCL2 tour will allow sides to plan simultaneously for the T20 World Cup in Sri Lanka in two years’ time.

“We could have probably won a couple more games“, Kuhn said reflecting on the side’s T20 World Cup campaign, stung particularly after failing to beat South Africa after having them on the ropes at 12 for 4 in a chase of 104 and losing to Bangladesh by 25 runs after a late batting collapse.

“There were some wrong options and [players] felt some pressure a little bit. Ryan [Cook, the head coach] and I thought players in some positions could do the job. And they didn’t quite do it. Lots of ifs and buts, but at that stage in that game, we thought it was the right team but they just couldn’t really get it over the line.”

Over the past one month, Kuhn has worked closely with the batters on a one-to-one basis during “marathon batting sessions”, lasting two to three hours challenging batters to spend more time at the crease and finding a way to not get out.

“We have trained well and the guys have all contributed in the Topklasse, as well as the Pro-series, with a lot of hundreds and fifties. The guys are in good form and hopefully they can take it into the games,” he said.

Familiar faces

Injury to Teja Nidamanuru (torn left wrist tendon), the unavailability of Bas de Leede, Roelof van der Merwe and Logan van Beek owing to their county and franchise commitments and Sybrand Engelbrecht’s retirement sees some familiar faces return in Punjab’s left-handed batter Musa Ahmad, VRA all-rounder Clayton Floyd and VCC’s Ryan Klein.

Kuhn hinted at grooming Noah Croes, the VCC wicket-keeper who has already featured across eight Internationals, into a No. 6 role with one of Shariz Ahmad or Ryan Klein slotting in at No. 7. Klein is yet to fully recover from a back injury that ruled him out of the World Cup in India last year and is most likely to feature as a specialist batter.

Their two opponents have a familiar look to their side that featured in the T20 World Cup recently. Canada, who recorded their first-ever win at a T20 World Cup by beating Ireland, are undefeated in their first four games in the WCL2 so far and will be led by Nicholas Kirton. This will be their first series after coach Pubudu Dassanayake’s departure.

USA, on the other hand, will kickstart their campaign without their World Cup heroes Saurabh Netravalkar and Andries Gous, both on paternity leave. The duo were the mainstays of a memorable maiden World Cup campaign which not only ended with a Super Eight spot but also secured automatic qualification for the next edition.

Squads:

Netherlands squad: Scott Edwards (c), Musa Ahmad, Shariz Ahmad, Wesley Barresi, Noah Croes, Aryan Dutt, Oli Elenbaas, Clayton Floyd, Viv Kingma, Kyle Klein, Ryan Klein, Michael Levitt, Max O’Dowd, Vikram Singh, Paul van Meekeren. Reserve: Daniel Doram

USA Squad: Monank Patel (c), Aaron Jones, Smit Patel, Abhishek Paradkar, Harmeet Singh, Juanoy Drysdale, Jasdeep Singh, Milind Kumar, Nosthusha Kenjige, Saiteja Mukkamalla, Steven Taylor, Shayan Jahangir, Shadley Van Schalkwyk, Utkarsh Srivastava, Yasir Mohammad

Canada squad: Nicholas Kirton (c), Aaron Johnson, Dilon Heyliger, Dilpreet Bajwa, Harsh Thaker, Jeremy Gordon, Junaid Siddiqui, Kaleem Sana, Kanwarpal Tathgur, Navneet Dhaliwal, Pargat Singh, Ravinderpal Singh, Rishiv Joshi, Saad Bin Zafar, Shreyas Movva

All matches will be live streamed on ICC.tv.

Fixtures WCL2 (free entry): 11am CEST

Netherlands vs Canada – Voorburg CC, August 11

Canada vs USA – Voorburg CC, August 13

Netherlands vs USA – Voorburg CC, August 15

Netherlands vs Canada – VOC, August 17

USA vs Canada – VOC, August 19

Netherlands vs USA – VOC, August 21

T20I tri-series:

Netherlands vs Canada – Kampong, August 23 (4pm CEST)

USA vs Canada – Kampong, August 24 (4pm CEST)

Netherlands vs USA – Kampong, August 25 (4pm CEST)

Netherlands vs Canada – Kampong, August 26 (2pm CEST)

USA vs Canada – Voorburg CC, August 27 (2pm CEST)

Netherlands vs USA – Voorburg CC, August 28 (2pm CEST)