LUCKNOW: Dutch batsman Teja Nidamanuru believes it will not be an “upset” if his team defeat Sri Lanka in Lucknow on Saturday and keep alive their bid to reach the Cricket World Cup semi-finals.

After stunning South Africa by 38 runs on Tuesday for their first victory over a Test-playing nation at the 50-over global showpiece, the Netherlands turn their attentions to 1996 champions Sri Lanka.

The Asia side are the only country at the 10-team showpiece without a victory following three demoralising defeats.

Sri Lanka’s performance has suffered since last month’s Asia Cup as several key players have been injured, including Dasun Shanaka, who was ruled out for the rest of the tournament with a thigh injury sustained in their loss to Pakistan on Tuesday.

“We have been performing on and off... we are yet to produce a tidy game,” Sri Lanka coach Naveed Nawaz said on Friday.

“It’s important that we all align individual performances into a team plan.”Shanaka was replaced by Chamika Karunaratne in the squad as vice captain Kusal Mendis assumed the captaincy

Sri Lanka beat the Dutch twice in the qualifying tournament staged in Zimbabwe but Nidamanuru says that will only fuel his team’s ambitions on Saturday.

“We’ve competed against Sri Lanka multiple times in the qualifiers, and obviously we fell short in our batting side,” he said.

“We’ve worked extremely hard on that so we are here to play well and win. I wouldn’t call it an upset if I’m honest.”

At the qualifiers, Sri Lanka came out on top by 21 runs and then 128 runs in the final.

Indian-born Nidamanuru was out for a duck in both those games although he cracked a century in the victory over two-time champions West Indies.

For Sri Lanka, spinners Maheesh Theekshana and Wanindu Hasaranga claimed 11 wickets between them in the games in Zimbabwe.

However, leg-spinner Hasaranga was ruled out of the World Cup through injury while off-spinner Theekshana has struggled to shake off a hamstring strain in India. He has just one wicket from two games.

“I think if we assess those two games that we played against Sri Lanka, it’s our batting department that probably didn’t live up to the expectation,” admitted Nidamanuru.

“In the final, we kept them down to a good score, we could have chased that, but obviously their spin through the middle was something that troubled us.”

Nidamanuru, 29, is desperate to get going with the bat at the World Cup.

So far he has scores of 5, 21 and 20 with his team losing to Pakistan and New Zealand before gaining their first win against South Africa.

“It’s a little bit frustrating. Obviously, I’d love to be contributing more towards the team’s success,” he said.

“The cricketing community in the Netherlands is very small. I’d say in total there won’t be any more than 5,000 odd people that play cricket,” said Nidamanuru.

“I personally feel good. I can feel that it’s around the corner.”

Another win on Saturday may help to push cricket a little higher up the sporting agenda in the Netherlands where it remains a mystery to large parts of the population.

“But it’s a close and tight-knit community because everyone knows everyone.

“The awareness of the game is growing which is a really huge positive for us, because quite often when you say play cricket, not many people know what that is.”

Published in Dawn, October 21st, 2023