Peter Borren came close to tears when he took his seat for the formal press conference. It was the only thing that the Netherlands skipper had to do in the whole evening as rain denied any chance of playing against Oman on Friday. The match was washed out without a ball being bowled, resulting the elimination of the Dutch from the qualification round of the ICC World Twenty20 with just one point from two matches.
They lost against Bangladesh by eight runs in their opening match and that proved to be decisive. The Dutch were badly hoping for some action, which would have given them at least an outside chance to qualify.
Borren said that they worked so hard to come to this stage that it was difficult for his team-mates to accept the fact that they were eliminated in such an unfortunate way.
‘It’s a pretty emotional dressing room,’ said Borren. ‘Guys have put a lot of work into this campaign. It started a year ago or close to that starting with the first part of the qualifier in Ireland and Scotland.
‘We shared that trophy and played some really good cricket. We sit here now after playing three hours of cricket against Bangladesh, where we came up short. It’s extremely disappointing.
With the next World Twenty20 scheduled four years later, Borren felt for some of his team-mates, who will not have so much opportunities to show their skill in near future.
Apart from Sunday’s final group match against Ireland, which has now turned out to be a meaningless contest for the Dutch, Borren said they have now just two one-day international matches against Nepal and a four-day match against Afghanistan left for this year.
‘It’s obviously not enough cricket, that’s fair to say,’ said Borren. ‘If we had managed to get through here, it would have been fantastic. But today’s rain means that we’re in a position where we possibly won’t be playing in a world event for many years.
‘And in this sort of environment, I’ve been lucky to have played in a few, but it seems like it’s becoming less opportunities for Associate teams, which is frustrating.
‘For me, I’m getting older. But for some of our young guy it’s pretty hard. Like Paul van Meekeren, for example, who bowls four overs, got 2 for 17 against Bangladesh, that there might not be another opportunity.’
Borren felt that the International Cricket Council have more things to do ensure enough cricket for Associate countries.
‘There are obviously some passionate people at the ICC who work really hard in an attempt to get us more cricket,’ he said. ‘I don’t think it is those people who worked hard… they do work hard for Associate cricket.
‘But maybe above them there is a sort of malaise towards associate cricket. To grow further in the game, we always hear it is not commercially viable.
‘We can’t afford to do our own bilateral series. It is very difficult for us. We then hear world cricket league has gone to a three-year cycle because it is not affordable otherwise.
‘To be honest there is money somewhere. There is a lot of money in cricket. (They) just not really are being spent on expanding the game.
‘Although a bit of it is being spent, the revenue should be spread more far out so that we have that opportunity to play. So that our young guys get that opportunity to become better cricketers, so that cricket can be spread throughout the world.
‘To get people at home excited about cricket we need to play more.’
Borren said that ICC also should be rationale in sharing its huge revenue.
‘I will tell them we don’t need that much. We are not looking for millions and millions of dollars, just a very small percentage of this huge amount,’ he said.
‘Obviously we are not going to probably be the source of much revenue, we understand that, but if the game wants to grow, then surely the revenue needs to be shared more evenly,’ he said.
-With New Age input
