Netherlands captain Scott Edwards: 'Our best is well and truly good enough'
Edwards talks about beating South Africa at global tournaments, his style of captaincy, and playing this World Cup without Roelof van der Merwe and Colin Ackerman
We've got a strong squad and we are really well balanced. The guys are in some form in the domestic stuff, which is good. We've had a fair bit of experience in World Cups recently and we're hoping to take that form into the next World Cup.
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We've obviously shown that our best is well and truly good enough. It's just continuing to build on that consistency. That's how you make the semi-finals and beat these sides.
That was awesome. We got to give a few of the young guys an opportunity and play some good-quality cricket.
They're obviously two quality players, but I think the beautiful thing about Dutch cricket at the moment is, there is a lot of depth. We're just as confident in the guys that are coming in. I'm really looking forward to seeing what those guys bring.
I think we've been pretty lucky because we've got nine fully contracted and a few extra semi-contracted players. The system is growing. Guys are training full-time. It's not like it used to be. We've had guys working two jobs and those sort of things, but pretty much the majority of our squad are now full-time cricketers, so we're confident that we're training as much and as hard as any team in the world. We pride ourselves on that.
The main role is obviously getting the most out of your players. I give the guys the confidence or the freedom to let them do whatever works for them. I try and double down on that. We're quite a positive group. Our head coach, Ryan Cook, is extremely positive. So we built everything around that - like celebrating each other's success and those sorts of things. Yeah, it's an amazing group to be a part of and I'm very fortunate to be leading it.
That's more to do with the coaches than with me, really. We've got the Super League and these World Cups and on the back of that sort of cricket, I think you obviously have to up your game and your training to compete against these top sides. We do have a fantastic group and the way we train is as good as anyone.
Definitely, yes. It's been one thing that's controllable. You know, you can do more analysis work than other sides and get a leg up, in that sense. That's one thing we definitely pride ourselves on. Especially this first round, we've played all those sides one or two or three times in the last couple of years. That definitely helps with the analysis. And we've got some background staff who help us with plans.
In all nine games we had plans for guys. When it comes off, everyone's happy talking about it. Sometimes when the guy [we planned for] goes on to make 50 or 100, it's sort of not spoken about or it's forgotten, so yeah, we put a lot of time into different plans for every side we play. A couple of times in that match it came through, so it got a little bit more media time.
My first year in the Netherlands, I was living with Alex Ross from Australia. At the time he was playing state cricket in Australia and I wasn't. I tried to soak up as much information as I could from him. Sweeps was one of the big things that he has in his game. I learned a little bit of that off him and ever since then, it's been something I've prided myself on and I've managed to find ways to make it work.
Wesley [Barresi] has been around for a long time. He's played in and won lots of big games and he is just a fantastic character to have around. The same goes with Max [O'Dowd] and Logan [van Beek] and Paul [van Meekeren]. We've got a fair few senior guys in the group, all reasonably young but with a fair bit of experience. We've all played together for a long time now, so it's a little bit like clockwork playing in this side, which is good.
Michael's been involved for the last three years or so. He was in the qualifiers for the ODIs last year. The last six to 12 months he's been unbelievable - from the SA20 to Nepal to the pro-series fixtures in the Netherlands. He's been pretty much the leading run-scorer in all of those.
It's been quite interesting over there [in the IPL]. I think there's obviously a few different rules and the wickets seemed to be playing quite truly over there with some small grounds. But I'm not sure the World Cup will be the same as that. Teams may come in with that same mentality. I think the sides [that will succeed are the ones] that play the conditions the best - whether that is a 220 score or a 160 score. We are going to be playing the conditions. We'll see what that is come that first game in Dallas.
Sruthi Ravindranath is a sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo