Netherlands skipper Scott Edwards leads from front with help of his unconventional sweeping technique | Cricket-world-cup News
Netherlands opener Max O’Dowd terms his captain Scott Edwards as an “awkward, but great man”. “Whether it be golf at 7:00 AM or the World Cup, he’s always ready.”
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Being born in the South Pacific island of Tonga and raised in Melbourne before making his international debut with the Netherlands in 2017 after their first-choice wicketkeeper got injured, Edwards has always been ready for whatever assignment has come his way since his early cricketing days. Even the captaincy would come out of the blue last summer after Pieter Seelaar was forced to retire owing to a long-term back injury.
It was only fitting that O’Dowd’s words resonated once again as the Dutch skipper bailed his team from five down for 82 to 245 against a red-hot Proteas pace attack, before their bowlers sealed a memorable deal.
The result was no flash in the pan after the Dutch had knocked out the Proteas from last year’s T20 World Cup in Australia as well.
While Edwards may have stood tall in the proverbial sense, it was the right-hander stooping low to repeatedly sweep Keshav Maharaj that was the highlight of his innings. It’s a shot he’s known for, atypical for most tall players but not for Edwards, who seems to take a cue out of his wicketkeeping technique.
Maharaj seemed clueless as the left-arm orthodox kept offering the Dutch skipper the length and line he needed – full and on the stumps. Edwards even bisected deep square-leg and deep backward square-leg fielder off a length ball pitched outside off-stump. He did so moving across the stumps, crouching low and taking the ball from outside off with just the top hand on the bat.
While the quick adjustment of feet is the first trait one can applaud from Edwards’ four orthodox sweeps, the unorthodox that came later sheds light on how the skipper brings a quick roll of the wrs into play. The right-hander would display that skillset stepping forward to guide a length ball all along the ground as it went between the narrow corridor between short third and backward point.Most Read
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It was his execution of shots behind square against spinners that seemed to have aided Edwards in his onslaught against Rabada. Be it a quick delivery from the Proteas pace spearhead banged into the surface, or a slower one sprayed on the pads, the Dutch skipper would successfully find the deep square-leg boundary – just as he had with those sweep shots.
Perhaps the high point of his sweeping displays would come in the last over of the Dutch innings when he did it off pacer Gerald Coetzee – picking one of the many slower ones – getting low to pick it from outside the off-stump and hit it over short fine-leg for four.
Edwards’ kneeling-low heroics wouldn’t have come as a surprise. When the in-form Quinton de Kock top-edged a shot into his own shoulder later in the game, Edwards would quickly latch onto it – crouching low to his right – setting the Netherlands to another blockbuster win against South Africa at the World Cup under his captaincy.
