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Netherlands' player Colin Ackermann on Thursday admitted that they were unaware about the qualification criteria of the ICC Champions Trophy before the commencement of the ODI World Cup.
The Champions Trophy is slated to be played in 2025 in Pakistan and the qualification for the tournament rests on the group stage finish. With Pakistan being the host they will automatically qualify for the tournament, along with the seven highest-finishing teams at the ongoing tournament will also be a part of the event. With three games remaining the Netherlands sit in the 8th spot above England and Bangladesh with four points. They will be looking to move up a couple of places and a victory against Afghanistan in Lucknow will boost their chances to qualify for the Champions Trophy. On being asked whether they were aware about the qualification criteria, Ackermann said, "No, we didn't know about it before the tournament. I don't think any teams knew about it before we started. But we are here at a World Cup, we're not playing the Champions Trophy. We first need to compete at this tournament before we look at the Champions Trophy." "The focus is semifinal for us. We know that if we win our next three games, we'll make the semifinal. That is our focus at this stage. We're not interested in what's happening in two years' time. We've got a game to win tomorrow," Ackermann said while speaking to reporters on the eve of the game. Afghanistan will be backing themselves as history favours their chances to prevail over the Dutch team. In 2022 all three matches were won by Afghanistan after they batted first. However, Ackermann feels that time has changed and they have gone through a transformation and they won't dwell on those results. "No, I don't think so. Those games were quite a long time ago, probably was the beginning of 2022. So quite a long time ago. We were also a very different team to back then. The team was quite inexperienced on that tour, so we're not going to look too far into that fixture," Ackermann added. Netherlands squad: Scott Edwards (c), Max O'Dowd, Bas de Leede, Vikram Singh, Teja Nidamanuru, Paul van Meekeren, Colin Ackermann, Roelof van der Merwe, Logan van Beek, Aryan Dutt, Ryan Klein, Wesley Barresi, Saqib Zulfiqar, Shariz Ahmad, Sybrand Engelbrecht. Afghanistan squad: Hashmatullah Shahidi (c), Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Ibrahim Zadran, Riaz Hassan, Rahmat Shah, Najibullah Zadran, Mohammad Nabi, Ikram Alikhil, Azmatullah Omarzai, Rashid Khan, Mujeeb ur Rahman, Noor Ahmad, Fazalhaq Farooqi, Abdul Rahman, Naveen ul Haq. (ANI)
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