From snow fields to their 6th World Cup on the trot

Often, you only choose to see what is right in front of you.

- Sandip Sikdar

One saw how Netherlands almost beat Pakistan in the opening match of the ICC T20 World Cup. They built on that form with a win over Namibia in their next game and then went down to fellow Associates USA in their third game. With a match against India up next, the Dutch have a daunting task ahead of them if they want to get into the Super Eights.But if you look a little deeper, you will see that it takes more than that to scare the Netherlands. What is life without context and to understand what the men in orange are doing in this tournament one has to understand that a snow-covered ground in Amsterdam meant that the team rarely had the opportunity to train together ahead of the World Cup.

In fact, most of their support staff is working on a temporary basis. Known as 'Pep Guardiola of the team', coach Ryan Cook — both brother Stephen and father Jimmy played Tests for South Africa — also acted as the team manager, arranging travel and accommodation in Chennai, before the rest of the staff reached Colombo just before the opener.

A funding shortfall of approximately 1.2 million euros means that even though the talent base is expanding within the region, there is little in terms of exposure for the second rung.

But rather than cry about that, what did the Dutch do? They went looking for solutions. If not Amsterdam, then where...