Thaindian News

Mohali, March 2 (IANS) Dutch captain Peter Borren Thursday lashed out at top cricketing nations who justified the world body’s decision to keep minnows out of the next World Cup, saying the countries which do not want them do not bother to play them anyway.

Borren stressed the importance of facing the Test-playing nations outside the World Cup as that was the only way for the International Cricket Council’s associate nations to improve their standards.

“We bring a lot to the World Cup, though it is difficult to play against these top teams,” Borren said ahead of the match against South Africa here Thursday.

“Full-member countries which say we should not be there are the same that don’t play us in between the World Cups. We are good enough to be at this level.”

“We learn a lot when we play big teams, but we have to play at higher levels to learn more. We get to play top teams only in World Cups. It will be of great help if we get to play them in other smaller events,” said Borren.

Australian captain Ricky Ponting has been vocal in supporting ICC’s decision to trim the number of teams for the next World Cup from 14 to 10.

Borren, while maintaining that the associate nations have a lot to contribute to World Cup, lamented that some players of higher-ranked teams are against their participation in the cricket’s biggest tournament.

The Netherlands proved their worth with a decent outing against England, but were hammered in the second game against the West Indies in New Delhi Monday. Borren rated the performance against England satisfactory and hoped for a similar outing against the Proteas.

“We had a close look at our performance the other night. We did not play to our potential. The bowling needs to be a lot better in the next game.

“We have our own standards to live up to and hopefully we can do that tomorrow.”

Borren asserted that there is no dearth of talent in the side and despite the consecutive defeats, each player is keyed up for Thursday’s game.

“We were pretty disappointed after the loss (against the West Indies), but the guys are fine now and are raring to go.

“We lack the experience but not the talent. We have learnt a lot from both the games in the World Cup. You get to play great teams and a whole lot of top class players.”