Pop quiz: Which is the only team to have a 100 per cent ODI record against Bangladesh? The answer is not Australia, England or India but good old Netherlands.
The Dutch are now in town to play the World Cup Group B game against the Tigers and while the record could be treated as a statistical anomaly (they have played against each other just the one time), the result is something to bank on for the European visitors.
Captain Peter Borren, who took three important wickets in that 6-wicket win in Glasgow on July 20 last year, will be looking back to take positives but he also happens to be a realistic man. Though in a mischievous way, Borren would still want to upset the applecarts.
“I’m not sure if there has been so many upsets, but only a couple of upsets. But us coming here and beating Bangladesh tomorrow would be an upset. As you guys have said, Bangladesh can be an unpredictable side,” said Borren during the official press conference yesterday.
“I don’t know about Ireland but Bangladesh are right in the mix. Definitely it will be our intention to ruin the party for them. It is good that our games against Bangladesh and Ireland have a bearing on the tournament. It’s just great that we can go out there and play a match that still counts,” he added.
The Christchurch-born Borren admitted the little experience the side have in these conditions, but the Dutch have done enough homework on Bangladesh.
“We do take positives from that win. I remember we won quite comfortably in the end, but we know that here at home, they [Bangladesh] are a very different proposition altogether.
“Our experiences in these conditions are pretty limited. We played against Bangladesh once in Glasgow of all places last year and obviously we won. This is a different condition but we’ve seen them play here against England and we are aware what we are up against.
“We are sort of getting accustomed to playing in slow pitches. What we will face tomorrow is going to be the epitome of what we are training for, that is playing spinners on slow wickets. I think that is what Bangladesh will throw at us,” he said, adding that he would agree with Jamie Siddons on the possible safe score at the Zohur Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium.
“It is not a particularly high scoring ground and we know it’s going to be difficult against their slow bowlers,” he added.
Borren’s team have had a good tournament by Associates standards, though Ireland have probably trumped them quite easily so far. After a fine performance against England where they ran them close, the Netherlands also gave a good account of themselves against India but they did have two very poor performances against South Africa and West Indies.
“Coming into this tournament we wanted to create chances to win games. So far we’ve had a pretty tough draw, we’ve come up against four top sides, but obviously tomorrow and Ireland are not going to be easy games.
“We played well against England and I think we competed against India, two disappointing performances against South Africa and West Indies in between. If we can win the last two games, we’d be happy with that,” said the 27-year-old Borren.
During the good games, there have been a number of mini stars, the likes of Tom Cooper, Ryan ten Doeschate and Pieter Seelar.
“I think we have learned a lot, especially playing against top teams. I think the bowling of Pieter Seelar has been a positive, he has got a lot of good players out.
“We’ve had starts from Tom Cooper, hopefully in the next games he can carry on further. Another positive would be the 292 we got against England. [Ryan] ten Doeschate with a beautiful hundred, so we are looking for a lot more positives in the last two games,” said Borren.
Star batsman, ten Doeschate, said that he was happy that the tough games were out of the way, though he rated Bangladesh quite well.
“Feeling very good you know that we had our four toughest games gone away. Obviously Bangladesh would be a different challenge tomorrow; they are a very good side but they are up and down at the moment so we think we have chance of winning tomorrow and we are focused to play here in Chittagong,” said ten Doeschate.
The ICC’s Associate Player-of-the-Year believes that he has more responsibility since he’s one of the high-profile players in the parallel world of international cricket.
“I guess probably little bit more than anyone else. I know we need to compete and I asked some of the guys to play professionally.
“We have the responsibility to put up our performances but at the end of the day they are going to judge the quality of the boards and not just one or two players of the Associate Members of the ICC. So it needs to be joint effort to raise the standards and rightly deserve a place,” said ten Doeschate.
Courtesy of The Daily Star
