Max O'Dowd: "The game is growing and the world needs to see it"

NICK FRIEND: Having played on The Hague's coconut matting pitches as a young child, O'Dowd has seen the game develop in the Netherlands. He is part of a side now that is short on form but full of talent, desperate to qualify for the T20 World Cup

Max O’Dowd stops himself in his tracks.

The Dutch batsman is reflecting on the health of the sport in his country, where children he coaches at his local club, who once knew little of cricket, can now recite the names of Indian Premier League stars back to the opener.

O’Dowd is New Zealand-born but spent his formative years in the Netherlands, where he learnt the game and played his junior cricket, even if his father represented Auckland and Northern Districts.

“I’m so used to saying that cricket isn’t a big sport over here,” he says before briefly pausing, “but I really want to get past that because I feel like it’s growing massively.

“I think the performances of the national team over the last four or five years have really helped. I wouldn’t say we’ve boosted the profile, but I think what we’ve done has helped people realise that there is a future out of cricket.

“Ten years ago, if you were a parent in the Netherlands, you weren’t saying that you wanted your son to grow up and play cricket for the Netherlands. You wanted them to play football because he’s going to earn a living that way.

“But times are changing now. Guys are getting paid to play cricket, which is great. It’s only going to get better through performances and how the national team goes.”

Nine players signed central contracts with Cricket Netherlands last year, while seven members of the national squad for the upcoming T20 World Cup Qualifier have played county cricket in England.

“Kids have something to strive for – to play for the national team, which may have been a little bit different in the past,” he adds. “It wasn’t down to a lack of professionalism, but the game has evolved massively.”

To a certain degree, evidence of that growth has come in the shape of an increasing player pool; under the stewardship of Ryan Campbell, 25 players have represented the national team in T20 cricket in 2019 alone, all with a focus on the next fortnight.

The Netherlands approach this tournament in an unusual position, much-fancied but also somewhat out of form. They lost both warmup games against Ireland and Oman, but the additions of Ryan ten Doeschate and Colin Ackermann, both of whom enjoyed fine seasons in English domestic cricket, mean that Campbell’s men are finally at full strength.

Ackermann, the Leicestershire captain and a part-time off-spinner, broke the world record for the best bowling figures in T20 history in a Vitality Blast game against Birmingham Bears, while ten Doeschate played a key role in Essex winning their maiden T20 crown.

It is a line-up which, on paper at least, marks the Dutch out as major contenders to qualify for Australia, even if recent results might suggest otherwise.

And having missed out on the summer’s 50-over World Cup, O’Dowd is well aware of the significance of the opportunity that lies in wait.

“The qualifiers are huge,” he admits. “We just want to play in a World Cup. When you’re representing a franchise team it’s great because you’re representing a group of guys who have come together from all over the world and a lot of it is money-based and if you perform well, it opens more opportunities.

“But when you play for the Netherlands, you are trying to win for your country. And qualifying for your country would be something very special.

“In the past, we’ve walked into qualifiers thinking we were just going to qualify, and I think that hit us pretty hard. Hopefully, we’re a bit more mature and switched on and we know that we’re going to have to work pretty bloody hard to qualify.”

The Dutch side is well-fancied to qualify for next year's T20 World Cup, despite a recent spell of indifferent form

Here, O’Dowd believes, the appointment of Campbell has been crucial. The former Australia wicketkeeper-batsman, who later returned to international cricket with Hong Kong, knows the associate circuit better than most.

“He has been huge, a huge change in Dutch cricket,” O’Dowd explains, while also praising the work of his predecessor, Anton Roux.

“In the past, we had a group of 13 or 14 players that were always getting picked. If you weren’t performing, then you were getting picked anyway because there’s nobody else to fill the void. Now, if you’re not performing, you’re going to get replaced by someone else who will perform.

“That’s something Cambo has punched into this squad – just having a real responsibility for your role and what it means to play for your country, that you’re not just playing for yourself, but you’re representing the Netherlands and you’re playing for the badge on your shirt.”

It has, to a degree, been a frustrating summer for those in orange. They were not alone, of course, in having to sit out the World Cup – the combined consequence of the controversial decision to shrink the competition to a 10-team affair and a poor showing at last year’s qualifying event.

The Euro T20 Slam, the franchise competition set to be jointly hosted in Scotland, Ireland and the Netherlands, was postponed at late notice.

At the same time, however, there is the fillip of the ODI Super League to look forward to – the guarantee of 24 matches between 2020 and 2022 against Test-playing nations, which will serve as part of the qualification process for the 2023 World Cup.

The Netherlands' place in the competition is reward for their World Cricket League Championship success. “Three years of scheduled, promised cricket – we’ve never had that in the Netherlands,” O’Dowd points out. “It’s only going to help us get better.”

It comes at what O’Dowd views as the perfect time for Dutch cricket and, in a wider context, for the associate game as a whole. He points to Scotland’s win over England in 2018 as a result that boosted belief levels all over the cricketing landscape.

“We are playing games and it’s almost got to the point now where I feel like we don’t really fear anyone anymore,” he insists.

“In the past, maybe we’d play Ireland and they’d be the strongest associate or we’d be playing a full member in a series and we’d expect to lose, but it would be nice if we got a win. Whereas now, we don’t want to be that team that’s happy to win one out of the four games in a series because it looks good for us.

“We beat Zimbabwe 3-1 and we were disappointed that we lost that one. We wanted to sweep them.

“Scotland beat England – we’ve beaten Scotland and Scotland have beaten Oman and Oman have beaten Scotland, the gap is closing now and guys are getting so much better. It would just be lovely to showcase that on the big stage.”

Even if the next two weeks will represent a dogfight of sorts – 14 nations fighting it out for six places in the first group stage of next year’s T20 World Cup, there is a collective spirit to associate cricket.

“I feel like we’ve got a big responsibility over the next three years in the ODI league,” O’Dowd says. “Not just for the Netherlands, but for all associates, to do a job on their behalf and prove how far we’ve come over the last six or seven years.”

O'Dowd was born in Auckland but first learned his cricketing trade on an artificial pitch in The Hague

He maintains that he was unsurprised by Scotland’s extraordinary win over England last year, achieved not on a green seamer, but on a belting pitch in a high-scoring slugging match.

O’Dowd, an occasional bowler, found himself on the receiving end of Scotland’s brutality in September. During a T20 tri-series with Ireland and Scotland brought in to cover for the Euro T20 Slam, his solitary over was bludgeoned for 32 by George Munsey.

That is the norm now; the upcoming qualifying tournament will make for fine viewing. It all, therefore, makes a mockery of the system in place; never before has the sport possessed such strength in depth, but – until recently, at least – never had progression existed as such a challenge.

“To see teams like Ireland play well in that Test against England and Scotland win that ODI, it does feel good,” he adds.

“They represent us and we want guys to do well for their associate or 'minor' nations so that other people think: ‘If they can do well, then what can the other teams do?’

“Then you get people looking at results and thinking: ‘If Oman can beat Scotland, can Oman beat England?’ Even though that’s a bit farfetched, that’s what we want – to get more teams involved.”

Even ahead of this T20 World Cup shootout, surprise score-lines have been regular occurrences. Bermuda beat USA – fresh with their ODI status – to a spot in the competition. Nigeria, brought into the qualifier as a replacement for Zimbabwe, have already beaten Kenya in a warmup fixture. It is the nature of the beast. The talent is spread far and wide.

It is why so much frustration exists at being denied the chance to thrive on the summer’s World Cup stage.

O’Dowd is quick to stress that it is difficult to truly complain, having been handed an opportunity to qualify. Even so, however, it is hard not to chortle at an apparently global event, whose commitment to growing the game is at odds with its shrinking format.

Ryan Campbell (left) played for Hong Kong at the 2016 World T20

“It’s a World Cup. It’s supposed to be a world event – not for the select few,” he argues. “You’ve got the Champions Trophy, which is for the elite.

“If you’re in the top eight, fair enough and you deserve to play in the Champions Trophy. That’s the elite tournament. If you manage to crack the top eight and play in that, then great. But then you’ve got the World Cup – get 16 teams involved.”

O’Dowd took part in the European Cricket League in August, the brainchild of Dan Weston. The tournament, comprising the winners of amateur club competitions in Europe, began as a venture derided by television viewers, only to attract hordes of fans as it progressed.

With 43 different broadcast partners and more than 120 countries showing the competition, 140 million households were reached. For what was essentially a start-up, it represented a gargantuan success; the emergence of Pavel Florin, the Romanian cricketer who became the ECL’s cult hero, only added to its appeal.

It was, perhaps, no surprise that O’Dowd’s Rotterdam side ultimately came out on top, with the final providing some of the most destructive hitting ever televised. O’Dowd made a 25-ball 74, while Dutch teammate Scott Edwards made 137 off just 39 balls in an outrageously brutal display.

“It was an unbelievable event,” O’Dowd reflects. “For guys like myself, Scott Edwards and Pieter Seelaar, who’ve experienced situations like that in front of cameras, it was great.

“But then, for amateur club cricketers, who aren’t paid professionals but play the game for the love of the game, to put them on a stage like that to perform has only helped them.

“Not only has it helped their mental approach, the opportunities it gave some guys to play on TV and to show family members back home, that’s what it’s all about.

“Obviously T20 is completely different to one-day cricket, but the game is growing and the world needs to see it. I feel like the world is picking up on it slowly.”