Netherlands have stressed they are not just at this World Cup to make up the numbers. A surprise win over South Africa early in their tournament only galvanised them, and their belief they could make a meaningful run at the semi-final.
“The guys will be hurting in the changing room, for sure,” Cook said. “We talked a good game before the game, and we didn’t play a good game of cricket today. We didn’t execute our plans quite like we wanted to and then the fight that we have shown in lots of the matches – we saw only glimpses of that. We need to play better cricket for a lot longer if we’re going to compete with teams like Australia.
“Resilience is something as I say we pride ourselves on as a team. We’ll be able to get back up for the next game and learn our lessons from that.”
Australia had already passed 300 in the 44th over when that happened, but could conceivably have been held to less than 350 had Maxwell been dismissed at that stage, as they were already six down.
“When these types of players give you chances, even if they’re half chances, you do have to take them to be able to give yourself a good chance of victory,” said Cook.
Allrounder Logan van Beek said the greater disappointment was Netherlands’ batting. After an early string of boundaries to Vikramjit Singh, who top-scored with a run-a-ball 25, the remainder of the batting line up folded rapidly. The next-highest score was Nidamanuru’s 14.
“With the bat is the disappointing one. We shouldn’t be getting bowled for 90. We should be putting up at least a fight. That’s the part that hurts the most.”