da cassino： The end of a one-sided fortnight is nigh. On March 22 in St Kitts, thefirst competitive fixture of a lop-sided Group A gets underway, whenHolland and Scotland square up to each other in their minnow’s Cupfinal
Andrew Miller at St Kitts21-Mar-2007
‘A few of our batsmen are in a bit of a negative mindset’ – Luuk van Troost © Getty Images
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The end of a one-sided fortnight is nigh. On March 22 in St Kitts, thefirst competitive fixture of a lop-sided Group A gets underway, whenHolland and Scotland square up to each other in their minnow’s Cupfinal. It’s been a chastening week for the small fry, with thrashingsgalore and records tumbling left, right and centre – not least toHerschelle Gibbs, who slammed six sixes in one over off the Dutchlegspinner, Daan van Bunge.But in the opinion of Holland’s captain, Luuk van Troost, Australiaand South Africa are not merely the world’s No. 1 and No. 2 teams,they are in an absolute league of their own. “These two sides are farbetter than the rest,” he said. “There is a gap even between SouthAfrica and Australia, and India, Pakistan, New Zealand and England.They are far stronger than those teams. We played India in thewarm-ups and they didn’t look nearly as good.”It’s not been all fun in the sun on this particular Caribbean odyssey,and after their consecutive thumpings, van Troost admitted that histeam’s morale was not as high as it could be. “A few of our batsmenare in a bit of a negative mindset,” he said. “That happens when youget a few bad scores. But we are not seeing ourselves as underdogsagainst Scotland. The last match we played against them [in Nairobi inFebruary] we lost off the last ball, so that says enough.”Even so, in the opinion of South Africa’s captain, Graeme Smith, it isthe Scots who are the better unit, especially now that they arewelcoming back their captain, Craig Wright, who missed the last gameto attend the funeral of his aunt. “The pressure of playing againstour peers is probably greater than playing against South Africa orAustralia,” he said, “because the expectation levels are much higher.”Where we are in terms of rankings, when we play Holland now we areexpected to win, so there probably is more pressure on us tomorrow.But there has been [pressure] every time we’ve played Holland – andwe’ve got a pretty good record against them. We hope we can show we’renot ranked ahead of them for nothing.”Wright may have been absent for the defeat against South Africa, buthe saw enough in his one match against the Aussies to know his teamwere on a hiding to nothing. “I don’t think they’re ranked one and twoin the world for nothing,” he said. “Having watched a few of thematches from the other groups, I think we could have drawn some easieropposition, but it’s a magnificent learning experience for our guys tosee the levels these opponents reach. It may not be a level Scotlandcan ever aspire to. But it certainly shows where they are, and wecertainly want to close the gap over the years.”And so, for the first time tomorrow, the two whipping-boys get achance to show their true colours, and van Troost for one wasdetermined that his batsmen would plunder Warner Park’s shortboundaries with the same sort of alacrity that the big two had shown,in particular their pugnacious opening batsman, Darron Reekers, whomade an 82-ball century when Holland beat the men of the moment,Ireland, in the recent World Cricket League in Nairobi.”Holland have some dangerous players and they have caused us someproblems in the past,” said Wright, who felt that his own batsmen wereshowing semblances of good form without truly impressing. So far, onlythe wicketkeeper, Colin Smith, has made a half-century in thistournament. “It is slightly disappointing we’ve had guys who get inand don’t go on to get big scores,” he added. “Against the likes ofSouth Africa and Australia, when guys do get to 20 or 30 we reallyneed them to make 70, 80 or 100.”The form and past history favours Scotland, who have won all three oftheir most recent meetings. But Wright was under no illusions aboutthe challenge that lies ahead. “They’ve all been pretty closevictories and I don’t see why it will be any different tomorrow. We’llhave to play somewhere approaching the top of our game to get a win.”I don’t think we’ve necessarily shown all our skills and abilities inthe two games,” he added. “Against Holland tomorrow, we still need toplay better than we have done in the two previous games.”Scotland (probable) 1 Fraser Watts, 2 Majid Haq, 3 RyanWatson, 4 Neil McCallum, 5 Gavin Hamilton, 6 Dougie Brown, 7 CraigWright, 8 Colin Smith (wk), 9 Glenn Rogers, 10 John Blain, 11 PaulHoffmann.Holland (probable) 1 Bas Zuiderent, 2 Darron Reekers, 3 AlexeiKervesee, 4 Ryan ten Doeschate, 5 Daan van Bunge, 6 Eric Szwarczynski,7 Tim de Leede, 8 Peter Borren, 9 Luuk van Troost, 10 Billy Stelling,11 Jeroem Smits (wk).