T20 World Cup 2026 - Netherlands hampered by lack of practice under lights, says coach

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Netherlands head coach, Ryan Cook, has suggested that his team’s lack of exposure to playing under lights contributed to their defeat against USA in Chennai. Before Friday, Netherlands had not played a day-night or night T20I since September and had played just three T20Is under lights between the 2024 and 2026 T20 World Cups, although Cook refused to use that as an excuse for their first loss against USA.

“We haven’t had any practices under lights yet, so we had a rained-off practice and a rained-off match [against Bangladesh in Sylhet],” Cook said. “Yesterday [Thursday] we weren’t allowed to play under lights [Netherlands trained from 2-5pm IST on the eve of the game]. So this is our first time to play under lights since Bangladesh, [for] which some of our players weren’t there.

“So it is obviously quite new for most of the guys. But that’s not an excuse for us, we’ve got to go out there and do the business, the guys have done it before at these events. Just a poor night for us pretty much.”

Netherlands are the second team in this T20 World Cup, after Namibia, to speak publicly about their lack of exposure to playing or training under lights.

“We haven’t got any lights in Namibia,” captain Gerhard Erasmus said on the eve of their match against India. “Infrastructure-wise, it’s probably the challenge for us. So yeah, it’s not a casual thing. Barring the guys who have played in the Nepal Premier League, ILT20 and the World Cups we have played, you don’t get accustomed to lights and train under it very often.”

In pursuit of 197 on Friday, Netherlands folded for 103 in 15.5 overs, losing seven of their wickets to spin. The dew that Netherlands had expected didn’t set in and the pitch offered grip and turn to USA’s spin trio of Harmeet Singh, Nosthush Kenjige and Mohammad Mohsin. Perhaps wary of the dew, which was a factor during Chennai Super Kings’ games at Chepauk in IPL 2025, Netherlands had opted to chase. Did they misread the conditions at Chepauk?

“There was no dew out there tonight, so obviously their [USA’s] spinners were able to grip the ball really well,” Cook said. “So, we’ll obviously look at that decision-making as well in terms of what we wanted to do first, but again, we didn’t execute with the ball, we didn’t execute with the bat, and it’s as simple as that.”

Cook found fault with the bowling, in particular. Netherlands let USA run away to 53 for 1 in the powerplay and were left to play catch-up for the rest of the game. Netherlands kept switching their bowlers, but to little avail, with USA racking up 196 for 6.

“I think as good a wicket as it was, 195 was probably an above-par score there,” Cook said. “We didn’t execute with the ball at all, and that sort of made the scoreboard pressure come into play. But yeah, caps off to them [USA], they batted really well, bowled some very good spin, and yeah, our decision-making and execution wasn’t quite up to par tonight.”

Netherlands have also had to contend with an unspecified injury to one of their senior fast bowlers, Paul van Meekeren, who missed their last two matches after picking up 2 for 20 in the tournament opener against Pakistan in Colombo. Cook was hopeful of having him back for their final group-stage game against India in Ahmedabad on Wednesday.

“Yeah, Paul picked up an injury after that first match, we tried to get him back for the second game,” Cook said. “Unfortunately he hasn’t been able to come back up since then. But yeah, obviously we’ll be looking to nurse him back to health and hopefully he can come back in the last game.”

Deivarayan Muthu is a sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo

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