Netherlands squad for Desert T20 Cup Challenge 2017
The Dutch side will look at the group stages of next month’s Desert Twenty20 tournament in the United Arab Emirates with a fair degree of satisfaction, given that the draw has kept them apart from both Afghanistan and Ireland.
The Netherlands will meet Oman, Scotland and Hong Kong in their three Group A pool matches, in which they are ranked first, while hosts UAE and Namibia will complete Group B.
There have been plenty of hard-fought T20 matches between the Dutch, Afghanistan and Ireland, although Peter Borren’s side has recently proved too strong for the Irish, winning their last three encounters. They last met Afghanistan in this format in the World T20 Qualifier, losing by 32 runs.
It was Oman who handed the Netherlands their only other defeat in that tournament, and Borren and his men will doubtless be especially keen to avenge that loss when they meet in the early game at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium in Abu Dhabi on Sunday, 15 January.
They will take on Scotland in the evening match at the same venue two days later, and complete their group program with their match against Hong Kong in the Dubai International Stadium, again in the later fixture.
The semi-finals and final will be played at the same venue on 20 January.
Netherlands squad:
Peter Borren (captain), Wesley Barresi (wicketkeeper), Ben Cooper , Timm van der Gugten , Ahsan Malik Jamil , Vivian Kingma , Paul van Meekeren, Roelof van der Merwe , Stephan Myburgh , Max O’Dowd , Michael Rippon , Pieter Seelaar (VOC), Tobias Visée , Sikander Zulfiqar .
