ICC World Cup 2023: Coach Ryan Cook says Champions Trophy qualification will give Netherlands one thing to play for

Netherlands head coach Ryan Cook pointed to a self-destructive streak of runouts – the Dutch facet misplaced 4 of its top-order batters in that vogue — as a serious purpose for his facet’s seven-wicket defeat in opposition to Afghanistan within the World Cup in Lucknow on Friday.

“We do pride ourselves on running between the wickets and it’s something that we actually practice, probably not much like other teams, but we do put a lot of time and effort into it. Obviously, today as you can see, four run-outs and you know, not just any run-outs; that are two, three, four and five in your batting order getting run out is not ideal.

READ | Afghanistan celebrates Lucknow ‘homecoming’ with dominant win over Netherlands

“We’ll have to go back and have a look at that but it won’t stop us, it’s part of our DNA of our team and we’ll keep trying to run between the wickets and value every run like we do,” mentioned Cook.

With a semifinal spot properly past his facet’s grasp after the defeat, Cook mentioned that they’ll re-evaluate their targets within the event.

“We obviously found out about the Champions Trophy qualifications just the other day. We’ll obviously have to look at how that looks now, going into the game against England and India, and that’ll be certainly something on the guys’ minds in terms of something to play for.

“But the guys are a very proud team. We’re all proud of what we’ve done here, and we’ll obviously keep pushing for wins, and we owe it to the tournament to continue to do so. So, we’ll keep pushing on in the next two games,” added Cook. 

Afghanistan, however, is a facet flying excessive on confidence, having gained its final three matches. But it didn’t get pleasure from the very best of begins to the event, dropping the primary two matches, in opposition to Bangladesh and India, respectively.

Afghanistan head coach Jonathan Trott pointed to his facet’s match in opposition to India as a turning level in his facet’s World Cup marketing campaign.

“I think we saw a bit of form coming into the side against India. Obviously, we lost the game but then that gave us a bit of confidence. There are certain things we need to get better [at]. We need to improve on it for the next game against Australia in Mumbai,” Trott mentioned.

Afghanistan, which is fifth on the factors desk, will tackle South Africa in its final league-stage match, after dealing with Australia. The prospect of dealing with two of the very best batting items of this World Cup doesn’t fear Trott an excessive amount of.

“You’ve got to definitely prepare and have a look at how the opposition is going to play. But the thing is, we just focus on how we play and what makes us the side that we are. We’ve got to make sure that we don’t look at the opposition too much and forget about what we’ve got to do well,” the coach mentioned.