CHENNAI: The Netherlands coach Ryan Cook said that the team did not get to train under the lights so far at the T20 World Cup after the loss against the USA here on Friday. The Oranje lost to the United States of America by 93 runs under the lights at the MA Chidambaram Stadium.
Apart from Bas de Leede’s 23-run knock, Netherlands' struggled to get going during the chase of 197. USA's Harmeet Singh (4/21) and Shadley von Schalkwyk (3/21) kept pegging away with wickets at regular intervals, handing their team a crucial win. Asked if the lack of exposure and night matches under lights outside of World Cups played a part in Netherlands' struggles, Cook said that they are yet to train under lights so far. Netherlands trained from 2-5 PM on the eve of the USA match in Chennai.
“So, yesterday (Thursday) we were not allowed to play in the lights. So this is our first time playing in the lights since Bangladesh (September 2025), (in) which some of our players were not there. So, obviously it was 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,” he said in the post-match press conference.
This comes 48 hours after Namibia skipper Gerhard Erasmus said that they did not get time to train under the lights, in their lead-up to the clash against India, which they lost on Thursday. "Yeah, we haven't been given night training before this game. I don't know why. I think India have two night trainings and I see outside that Canada are going to have a night training now. So make of that what you want, but we'll just rock up and do our Namibian way, which is to fight," Erasmus said before the pre-match presser against India.
Already out of the tournament, their next clash is against India, which too will be a 7 PM clash in Ahmedabad on Wednesday.