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The Netherlands have called on the ICC to be granted more fixtures against Test-playing nations after causing another upset at the Cricket World Cup.
After knocking off South Africa earlier in the tournament, the Dutchmen pummelled Bangladesh by 87 runs overnight in Kolkata.
The win marked the first time that the Netherlands had won multiple games at a single World Cup and was their fourth World Cup win overall.
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Following the game, Netherlands coach Ryan Cook urged the ICC to keep giving his side bigger fixtures.
“This is a call-out to anyone who wants to play us, we’d love to have a fixture or two,” he said.
“Obviously our guys have not been to the subcontinent too many times before so it’ll be good to be able to have some fixtures in the subcontinent as well.
“I think all the associate nations have done really well this tour. They’ve shown they can compete throughout the games. They’ve beaten the big sides as well, as we have, so those types of teams are always getting better and going to compete more and more as we go along.
“We don’t focus too much on what we don’t have … we just try to do the best we can with what we’ve got. But obviously, more resources and fixtures would allow us to compete even better.”
Cook’s sentiment was echoed by Netherlands star Bas de Leede, who picked up two wickets in Bangladesh’s run chase.
”We want to try and get the International Cricket Council’s attention to start looking at us as a potentially bigger nation in the coming years,” he said.
“I think obviously every win we get is going to be big for us and cricket in the Netherlands.
“We want to inspire young kids to take up the game back home.”
The result was a massive blow to Bangladesh, which has struggled to show any real progress despite being a Test-playing nation for over two decades now.
I don’t want to blame anyone. We are a better team than our performance. We were disappointing in this tournament, something that the whole dressing room would agree,” skipper Shakib Al Hasan said.
“I don’t know what’s going on. As a batting unit, if you ask me to summarise our six matches with the bat. We were very poor other than Mahmudullah and Mushfiqur Rahim.
“I thought we were well short of confidence in both batting and bowling. We couldn’t meet up with our high expectations. I thought we bowled really well after losing the toss but we were sloppy in the field.
“We are not comfortable facing bowlers at certain times, so we have to adjust all the time. If our batters did well at the top, Riyad and Mushfiq could have performed their roles.”
Netherlands’ shock win now means reigning World Cup champions England are at the bottom of the table after losing four of its first five matches.
