Chennai, Feb 13 (IANS) Netherlands won the toss and elected to bowl against the USA in their Group A match of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2026 at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai on Friday.

The Americans have endured a tough start to the tournament. After pushing India in a competitive opener in Mumbai, they were comprehensively beaten by Pakistan in Colombo. With two defeats already on the board, another loss would effectively end their hopes of progressing to the Super Eight stage, making this a must-win encounter for Monank Patel and his side.

The Netherlands, meanwhile, arrive with momentum after a commanding seven-wicket victory over Namibia. Bas de Leede starred with a fine all-round performance, claiming two key wickets to help restrict Namibia to 156 before anchoring the chase with a fluent 72.

The Dutch side will also draw confidence from their preparation in Chennai, having trained at the Chennai Super Kings Academy for a week recently, as well as from their dominant head-to-head record against the USA, which includes three consecutive T20I wins.

Winning the toss, Dutch captain Scott Edwards said, “We’re going to bowl first. It’s obviously quite a good wicket by the looks of it. We don’t know about the dew factor later on tonight. Obviously, it’s a little bit different, maybe how the ball comes on a bit later. But, you know, we pride ourselves on being good at adjusting to those sorts of things. We’ve got Kyle Klein coming in for Tim. Yeah, obviously, you know, things change over the years. I think we played them a year or two ago. But, you know, for us, it’s just playing that good template all the time. We feel like we’ve been playing some of it.”

Meanwhile, USA skipper Monank Patel said, “We would have bowled first too. We don’t mind batting first. It’s important that we get a good score. It’s very important to get in and then play fearless cricket. There were some soft dismissals in the first two games. It’s important to be a good fielding side. We have three changes. Sai, Nosh, and there’s one more coming in.”

Playing XIs:

Netherlands: Michael Levitt, Max O’Dowd, Bas de Leede, Colin Ackermann, Scott Edwards (c & wk), Zach Lion-Cachet, Logan van Beek, Aryan Dutt, Roelof van der Merwe, Kyle Klein, Fred Klaassen

USA: Monank Patel (c), Shayan Jahangir (wk), Saiteja Mukkamalla, Milind Kumar, Sanjay Krishnamurthi, Shubham Ranjane, Harmeet Singh, Mohammad Mohsin, Shadley van Schalkwyk, Nosthush Kenjige, Ali Khan

–IANS

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