Netherlands international Paul van Meekeren has asked for the major cricketing countries to tour the Netherlands ahead of their future tours to England in order to provide more opportunities for the Associate nation in international cricket.
Netherlands, led by Scott Edwards, defeated Namibia and UAE in the opening round of the ongoing T20 World Cup to progress to the Super 12s stage. They went down to Bangladesh by a narrow nine-run margin in their first Super 12s clash before being comfortably beaten by 56 runs by India in Sydney.
“There’s no reason why Test teams can’t come to Holland instead of playing the counties. We’ve got the facilities. I think this year hopefully we showed how good the wickets are in Holland. I think the practice wickets were outstanding back home, and we played some competitive games.
van Meekeren said after Netherlands’ clash against India.
“We can be as competitive as playing the warm-up game against other counties. Why not come to Holland for ten days before they travel to England?”
The player revelled in the joy of playing in front of a capacitated 36,000 crowd at an iconic venue, a feeling he says would take time to process.
“I said this would be a day I’d tell my grandkids about, and it is playing against India, but at the end of the day you are playing against 11 other men, they aren’t gods or anything. You just compete men to men and that’s what we tried to do today.
“You try to block the noise out. You watch it on TV about 100 times and just to be there is very special. I think at the moment I probably didn’t realise it as much, and it will probably sink in in the next 24 hours.”
said the right-arm quick.
