New Delhi, Oct 18 (IANS): Former Indian cricketer Aakash Chopra explained why very few people in the Netherlands take up cricket and how the Dutch pulled off a huge upset over South Africa.

The Netherlands stunned South Africa by 38 runs in the World Cup 2023 match at the HPCA Stadium, here on Tuesday night.

First time the Netherlands has beaten a Test-playing nation in the ODI World Cup. This was the same Dutch side that knocked Proteas out of the T20 World Cup 2022 and now they have defeated them in a 50-over World Cup convincingly.

Akash Chopra said, “The Netherlands is a team full of amateurs. There are very few professionals in the side. And that is because there’s no money or very little money. No one has a central contract there. They do have retainers, but that too depends on how much cricket the concerned player plays.

"During qualifiers, seven of their players were not even there - they were playing county cricket. Someone like Bas de Leede came for the qualifiers and went back simply because there’s no money to play qualifiers. So even if people want to play for the Netherlands, the lack of money holds them back. They are a team capable of playing one match that everyone remembers and that’s what they did against South Africa," he told JioCinema.

Netherlands will lock horns with Sri Lanka in their next game on October 21 in Lucknow.