Pragmatism and hope were the twin attributes that defined the Netherlands skipper Scott Edwards during a pre-match press-conference at the Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG) here on Wednesday evening.

Lined up to play India in the ICC T20 World Cup Super 12 game on Thursday, Edwards said: “I don’t think there are many people out there expecting us to win. For us, as I said, we will play our best brand of cricket and we will do everything we can to win this game. But there’s no pressure on us in that sense, I suppose.”

Edwards felt that it was special to play against a big team at the SCG: “Yeah, it’s huge. You always dream of playing World Cups, and the SCG is one of the most famous grounds in the world. And then, to add you are playing against arguably one of the best teams in the world, yes, it’s pretty surreal.”

He then added: “What Virat [Kohli] did the other day [against Pakistan] was pretty surreal. You hope you don’t come up against him on one of those days because he looked pretty hard to stop.”

The Netherlands captain also hoped that players like Tom Cooper, with an Australian connection, and an experienced player like Roelof van der Merwe will prosper: “Tom, obviously great to have him in the squad. He hasn’t got the runs this tournament. But hopefully, this is the game that he can get going. Both he and van der Merwe bring a wealth of experience in T20 cricket. That’s huge for our guys.”