World Cup 2023: We held them well till the 43rd over but let them away – Scott Edwards after loss against England

The Netherlands captain Scott Edwards feels they did a good job in restricting England till the 43rd over but let them get away towards the end. The Dutch had the defending champions in some sort of trouble at 192-6 but Ben Stokes and Chris Woakes took the game away from them.

Stokes scored a fine knock of 108 runs off just 84 balls, which is his first World Cup century whereas Woakes scored 51 runs. The duo added 129 runs for the seventh wicket to play a key role in helping England post an above-par score of 339 runs on the board.

In fact, England scored 124 runs and lost three wickets in the final 10 overs as they took the Netherlands’ bowlers to the cleaners.

Edwards reckons they were good in patches but they need to be more consistent throughout the whole match. On the other hand, the Dutch were skittled out for 179 runs and could not come up with their best with the bat as they lost wickets at regular intervals.

None of the Dutch players could even score a fifty and they could convert their starts in the run-chase against England.

Scott Edwards said in the post-match presentation, “We didn’t start well with the ball, let them get away from us. Bowlers did well to drag them back, but they got away again towards the end for a slightly above par total. Then same old story with the bat. Was a pretty good wicket. We held them well till the 43rd over.”

He added, “Maybe we could’ve tried a couple of different plans. But credit to them, they batted well. Need to find a balance chasing a 340 score. We’ll talk about it and figure it out what we could’ve done better. Like you said we’ve been good in patches. Just got to do it for longer. Going to be an amazing atmosphere there (in Bangalore), boys are looking forward to it.”

With this loss, the Netherlands was knocked out of the tournament. The Scott Edwards-led team will play their last match of the competition against table-toppers India at the M.Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru on Sunday.