Netherlands head coach Ryan Cook gives credit to Mustafizur Rahman after their defeat to Bangladesh in the ICC T20 World Cup 2024.

Netherlands lost to Bangladesh by 25 runs on Thursday (June 13) at Kingstown, ST Vincent. Earlier, Bangladesh posted 159 on the board.

Ryan Cook was once the coach of the Bangladesh team. He used to sit in the dressing room of Bangladesh and see how Mustafizur was doing. However, this time as the coach of the Netherlands, Cook has to see this from the other dressing room.

Bangladesh bowled really well in the match despite Netherlands fought hard in the chase. Captain Scott Edwards and Sybrand Engelbrecht made a good partnership in the middle-over featuring 42 runs in 5.1 overs. When Netherlands were 104/3, Rishad came to bowl the 15th over and took two important wickets of set batter Sybrand Engelbrecht and all-rounder Bas de Leede. After that, Mustafizur carried the momentum by conceding just 4 runs in his 2 overs in the death when Netherlands needed just 49 runs in the last 5 overs.

“I think probably on that wicket assessing when both teams batted, they probably got a few many runs there. A couple of too many big overs. This led to a chase that was always challenging, especially at the back end against some of the experienced bowlers. We put ourselves in a good position with a good partnership between Scott and Sybrand. With 49 to win off the last five overs, we’re confident that they’d be able to chase those down. Obviously, I’ve been in the other dressing room when Mr. Fizz [Mustafizur] has been bowling those balls and watching guys swing (the bat) and miss. To watch it from the other side, now is a bit tougher the guys obviously have a lot of experience and it is something we were prepared for but just were not able to execute on the day,” Cook said.

Batters have to sweat to win each match in the World Cup. In the IPL, there is a flood of runs this year, but in the World Cup, it is the opposite, where the bowlers are the victors. After the Netherlands failed to chase down the target of 160 runs, the team's head coach commented, “I have just been at the IPL where it’s two runs a ball – it’s kind of where you want to try and get it as the bowling team even though it’s sometimes you’re under pressure. In this tournament, you might be different. These conditions might be different as well but we set the run-chase up pretty much exactly like we wanted to. We thought we could probably get those runs off the last 5 overs. Credit to Fizz and all the other bowlers who bowled really well. They used the conditions well and obviously us losing wickets never helped the momentum and too many dot balls at the end.”