Veteran all-rounder Roelof van der Merwe and experienced Colin Ackermann are not a part of the Netherlands squad for the upcoming T20 World Cup to be played in the West Indies and the USA. The selectors couldn't pick them as the duo made themselves unavailable due to their county committments. Meanwhile, youngsters Tim Pringle, Kyle Klein and Michael Levitt have been selected in the squad.
While Pringle is an left-arm spinner, Klein is a pace bowler. Levitt is a hard-hitting opener who hogged the limelight by smashing 135 runs off just 62 balls against Namibia earlier this year in February during the T20I tri-series played in Nepal. Scott Edwards has once again been appointed the captain of the side with Fred Klaasen, Bas de Leede, Wesley Barresi being among the key players of the squad.
The Netherlands have been slotted in Group D for the T20 World Cup with South Africa, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Notably, it was them who knocked South Africa out of the mega event in 2022 turning heads with an excellent show. The group is certainly a lot more competitive and the Dutch this time will be hoping to upset more than one team.
They will start their campaign on June 4 against Nepal and then face South Africa, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka on June 8, 13 and 16 respectively. With top two teams from each group qualifying for the Super 8, the Scott Edwards-led side will have to play its best cricket to have any chance of upstaging the top teams. As for squads, all teams are mandated to finalise their team for the mega event by May 25 after which no changes will be entertained without the approval from ICC's technical committee.
Netherlands squad for T20 World Cup 2024: Scott Edwards (c), Aryan Dutt, Bas de Leede, Daniel Doram, Fred Klaassen, Kyle Klein, Logan van Beek, Max O'Dowd, Michael Levitt, Paul van Meekeren, Sybrand Engelbrecht, Teja Nidamanuru, Tim Pringle, Vikram Singh, Viv Kingma, Wesley Barresi
