We came with high expectations, happy to get first win out of way: Netherlands captain

PTI, Oct 18, 2023, 9:19 AM IST

Dharamsala: Netherlands came into their first World Cup in 12 years with an aim of reaching the semifinals, and captain Scott Edwards was happy to get the first win ”out of the way” by stunning South Africa here on Tuesday.

The 38-run win was Netherlands’ first against a Test playing nation in World Cup history.

”We came in with high expectations. We had very good players. Happy to get the first win out of the way. Hopefully, few more wins on the way,” said Edwards, who made a match winning 78 not out. Netherlands had pushed Pakistan in their tournament opener before going down against New Zealand.

For Tuesday’s game, they had done their homework against a team they had beaten in the T20 World Cup last year. ”We do a fair bit of research. We come up with a few match-ups. Some days it works and some days it doesn’t. We were in decent positions in the first few games but then fell away. I am sure there will be plenty of fans staying up and watching this. Extremely happy with the win,” said the skipper.

It was Edwards’ knock that allowed Netherlands to post 245 for eight in the 43 over a side game after struggling at 140 for seven in the 34th over.

Talking about his batting performance, Edwards said: ”Over the last couple of games too many of our middle order batters were being out before the end of the game, so I wanted to take it deep and hope a couple of guys around me chip in and we are lucky enough to get that score in the end.

”He’s (Roelof van der Merwe) good fun to bat with, he runs hard and hits into some strange areas which is good fun to watch from the other end. I just got him (Aryan Dutt) on strike and he was clearing the ropes, he’s got the talent and it’s all there to see tonight. Really proud of the group.”

”We came into the tournament where we wanted to have a chance in the semi-finals and if you want to do that you got to beat teams and South Africa are one of the favourites the way they are playing, so it is a good win for us,” Edwards added.

South Africa captain Temba Bavuma said they conceded too many runs in the death overs.

”We had them at 112 for 6. We shouldn’t have allowed them to go past 200. We dropped the ball there. Still we were confident with the chase. But they were able to extract some deficiencies in our batting department. We were clinical against Australia.

”We could have controlled the extras (31 of them). The fielding wasn’t up to the standard. Not the same standard we had against Australia. We need to have some conversations with the boys.

”You got to let the emotion to seep in. It will hurt. Our campaign is not over by any stretch of the imagination. That was a proper display from them (Netherlands). They put us under pressure throughout. Good luck to them,” said Bavuma.