Kolkata: Disappointed with his side ending their World Cup campaign after an all-loss record, the Netherlands skipper Peter Borren said his side had a chance to beat Ireland on Friday but fielding let them down.
Put into bat, the Netherlands scored a challenging 306 in the stipulated 50 overs but only to see Ireland coast to a comprehensive seven wicket win with 14 balls to spare. "It was a defendable total. It was a big total, but the second half of the performance pretty disappointing, we batted pretty well to get more than 300," Borren said.
"We did not show discipline in bowling and dropped some catches, so we are pretty disappointed. We probably should have won the game. The last four balls (run outs) we could have got a few more runs, but we were happy with the total.”
"You can`t afford to drop good batters, Porterfield is an excellent cricketer. Stirling obviously had a fantastic hundred. They played with a cool head and that cost us the match," he said at the post-match press conference.
The Dutch had also scored a fighting 292 against England but still they lost and Borren said they had their share of chances.
"I think we are happy to have got a chance to be here, we had a good first game in which we had a chance to win, and also today`s game. We are disappointed but we competed well in three games.”"Fielding has been an area of concern for the last couple of years. We bowled without much discipline and could have come up with better fielding. We dropped Porterfield twice and that cost us dearly," he said. Borren said the Irish in comparison fielded well and that proved to be the decisive factor.
"Ireland saved 20-25 runs with their fielding and we did just the opposite, giving away runs easily and missing catches. We hope to do better if we get a chance to play in the World Cup again." PTI
First Published: Friday, March 18, 2011, 19:26