Not for the first time at the T20 World Cup, a Netherlands squad member has urged the “bigger teams” to open more doors that would aid their growth. The latest to lend his voice to that appeal is allrounder Bas de Leede, who asked for “more and more opportunities”.
De Leede not only starred in Netherlands’ only win at the tournament – over Namibia, when he made 72* and took 2 for 20 – but also gave an excellent account of himself all through. On Wednesday, de Leede made a 23-ball 33 from No. 3, but the pressure of trying to take on the India spinners from the get-go proved challenging. Netherlands eventually finished 17 short.
For de Leede, the hope was that his team-mates had enjoyed the “once in a lifetime opportunity” to play in front of a large crowd in Ahmedabad.
“We’ve shown at what level Associate cricket is at the moment, we can only ask for more and more opportunities against the big teams, ultimately that’s how we’re going to improve as a collective,” he said. “We’ve got nothing planned until June. The next series is for World Cup qualification. We’ll have two weeks off and training starts again.”
De Leede was, of course, cognizant of the economics involved and how big teams playing each other is a money-spinner. Yet, he hoped the chatter wouldn’t die down immediately after the end of the T20 World Cup.
“I get the financial reasoning,” he said. “But maybe a tri-nation series [involving them and two Full Members] could be an option. I recently saw a post about a European T20 series involving England, Scotland, Ireland, Netherlands and Italy.
“We saw how close Italy pushed England. So there are a lot of options. Normally during the World Cup, it gets attention and then it fades away. We can only hope this World Cup may change that. We’ll see what happens in the next couple of months.”
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De Leede, like many others, suggested the possibility of teams touring England to make a quick stopover for a short series against the European Associates.
“Obviously the schedules, with all the franchise leagues and the ICC FTP, it can be hard to find a window for a full series against the top nations,” he said. “But the one way is for traveling teams to have the option of playing warm-ups in the Netherlands and Scotland before they go to England. There are ways around that, where we also get the exposure of playing against the best teams and they get something as well.”
Last month, de Leede gave up a county deal to fully commit himself to Netherlands. It speaks to the strength and will of the Associates, and Netherlands in particular have been among the stronger ones trying to work through a multitude of challenges, like funding, opportunities, infrastructure – some of it a tournament like the proposed European T20 League could address to an extent.
For now, it’s back to the basics. Back home to more camps, training and looking at pathways to the next World Cup in Africa.