Netherlands captain Scott Edwards plays a shot during the ICC Cricket World Cup 2023 match against South Africa at the HPCA Ground in Dharamshala on Tuesday October 17, 2023.
| Photo Credit: R.V. Moorthy
The historic upset win over South Africa is not a fluke as Netherlands have the potential to beat any side in the ongoing World Cup if they play their best brand of cricket, asserted captain Scott Edwards.
The Dutch stunned South Africa by 38 runs in their round-robin league clash here on Tuesday, their first win against a Test playing nation in World Cup history. The match was reduced to 43-over-a-side affair due to rain.
“We go into every game with our plans and our ways that we’re going to try and win the game. For us it’s just about playing our best brand of cricket and we feel like if we play well enough on the day, we can beat any side,” Edwards said at the post-match press conference.
It was also Netherlands’ third 50-over World Cup win and first in 16 years. They recorded their maiden victory against Namibia in the 2003 edition in South Africa. Their second win was against Scotland in the 2007 edition in the West Indies.
Netherlands made it to the main tournament in India through the qualifying round and Edwards said his side did not come here just to make up numbers.
“Yeah, absolutely. I think after qualifying we were pretty quick to set our minds to what we wanted to do at this tournament. We weren’t coming here just to have fun and enjoy it. We’re here to win games of cricket and give ourselves the best chance to make the next stage,” Edwards said.
“South Africa is obviously a very strong side and they’ll be close to that semi-final spot. So, if we want to be amongst them, we’ve got to beat sides like this,” said the 27-year-old wicketkeeper.
The Dutch were reeling at 140 for seven in the 34th over before Edwards himself engineered a remarkable recovery with an unbeaten 78 off 69 balls to take his side to a fighting 245 for eight. They then shot South Africa out for 207 in 42.5 overs.
Asked what transpired between him and other batters when they were looking down the barrel, Edwards said, “As a group we pride ourselves on playing total cricket which is guys that are coming in at number 8, 9, 10 have just as much of the ability to put on those partnerships.
“But out there batting with them, it was just about giving ourselves a chance to go harder later in the innings. And luckily enough, Roelof (van der Merwe) and Aryan (Dutt) in there played some unbelievable cameos to get us to what we thought was probably a par score.”
