The USA got its first taste of victory against the Netherlands on Friday at the MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai. Monaak Patel’s side had been brilliant in the tournament so far, but they just could not get over the line against India and Pakistan in their first two matches.

However, they gathered the two points against the Dutch by winning by 93 runs, which helped to break the record of the biggest win by run margin for an associate team in the T20 World Cup. After the huge defeat, Dutch head coach Ryan Cook shared his views on the lack of preparation for playing under lights.

Netherlands coach Ryan Cooks slams ICC and Jay Shah

Before their last match, the Netherlands had not played a day and night since September and had played just three T20Is under lights between the 2024 and 2026 T20 World Cups. Cook did not use the excuse of not practising after their loss.

Ryan Cook said, "We haven't had any practices under lights yet, so we had a rained-off practice and a rained-off match [against Bangladesh in Sylhet]. Yesterday [Thursday] we weren't allowed to play under lights [Netherlands trained from 2-5pm IST on the eve of the game]. So this is our first time to play under lights since Bangladesh, [for] which some of our players weren't there."

"So it is obviously 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. Just a poor night for us pretty much."

The Netherlands were bowled out for 103 runs while chasing 197. They are the second team in this T20 World Cup, after Namibia, to publicly discuss their lack of experience playing or training under lights.

Namibia questioned ICC before the loss against India

Previously, Namibia's captain, before their match against India, brought up the matter of not being able to train under lights and play games as well, and questioned ICC and Jay Shah about the matter.

Ryan Cook also pointed out on his bowling unit after the loss, "I think as good a wicket as it was, 195 was probably an above-par score there," Cook said. "We didn't execute with the ball at all, and that sort of made the scoreboard pressure come into play. But yeah, caps off to them [USA], they batted really well, bowled some very good spin, and yeah, our decision-making and execution wasn't quite up to par tonight."

Ryan Cook provides injury update on Paul van Meekeren

Ryan Cook finally gave an update on Paul van Meekeren, who missed their last two matches after picking up an unspecified injury.

Ryan Cook said, "Yeah, Paul picked up an injury after that first match, we tried to get him back for the second game. Unfortunately he hasn't been able to come back up since then. But yeah, obviously we'll be looking to nurse him back to health and hopefully he can come back in the last game."

The Netherlands will be up against India in their final group game on 18th February. The USA will be facing Namibia in a Group A fixture tomorrow.

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