Spotlight on Bulawayo as Netherlands, Scotland battle for World Cup jackpot

Don't be fooled by the hype from Headingley. The biggest game in cricket on Thursday - no, perhaps the biggest game in cricket this year - is happening in Bulawayo where Netherlands and Scotland will compete for a place at the 50-over World Cup.

Few would have expected that the final contest would be between the team that finished at the bottom of the World Cup Super League, with only three wins from 24 games, and the team that finished at the top of League 2, a division that should receive much more attention than it does. That it has come down to this speaks volumes about the way cricket is developing outside of Full Member countries and rewards those who have spent the last four years slogging away for recognition they had no guarantee would come.

Netherlands played series against Ireland, Afghanistan, New Zealand, West Indies, England, Pakistan and Zimbabwe and lost all but one of them. In that time, they were never able to top 300 but conceded over 300 five times, scored just one century in the entire campaign and were bowled out for under 200 nine times. Did it ever get tiring being beaten so often and so comprehensively? No, said Scott Edwards, in more words than that, at his pre-match press conference.

"The confidence we got from coming up against these Full Member teams throughout the Super League was massive for us," he said. "Look at our youngsters like Aryan Dutt, Shariz Ahmed, Vikramjit Singh. These sorts of guys were thrown in the deep end at the start of the Super League, so where they are now, whether they are coming up against Scotland or Sri Lanka, there's no spotlight to it. It's just another game of cricket. They've been on top of other batters and we feel like coming into this sort of tournament, we've done it all before. We took a lot of confidence from that and it shows where we are now."

That's why the Dutch don't use the word "Associate," to describe themselves anymore. They've been around the big boys and, as Vikramjit Singh said two days ago, they simply call themselves "the Netherlands' cricket team."

They believe in their ability to take down top teams and why wouldn't they? Eight months ago, they dumped South Africa out of the T20 World Cup. Asked at this event how they digested their giant-killing ways, head coach Ryan Cook was pragmatic. He told ESPNcricinfo that because of the way his team had been preparing, they always knew they would be able to stub out a few of the more star-studded sides and it was a matter of when and not if. He also predicts there's more to come from other so-called smaller teams and already he's been proven right, partly about his own camp and partly about someone else's.

While Netherlands dented West Indies in the group stage, it was Scotland who sent them out of contention for a World Cup place. "We've put three Test nations out of the World Cup now. What more can we say?" Michael Leask, Scotland's offspinning allrounder, said.

Scotland started their campaign with a one-wicket win over Ireland, then stunned West Indies and most recently robbed the host nation, Zimbabwe, of their chance to complete a dream run to the World Cup and arguably, they've done it in tougher circumstances than anyone else. League 2 is gruelling with 36 matches grouped into nine triangulars, and as result, is supremely competitive. Scotland lost a third of their games but still finished top and it was not until the final phase of the tournament, when Scotland and Namibia travelled to Nepal, that they were able to confirm their spots at the World Cup Qualifier.

They did all that while their organisation was found to be institutionally racist with 448 examples cited in a report, and investigations ongoing. We have seen in South Africa and Yorkshire how damaging and divisive the issue of race can be, and how it can impact results. While the Social Justice and Nation-Building hearings were held in South Africa, the national men's team stumbled through the World Cup Super League and almost ended up in Zimbabwe themselves. As for Yorkshire, they were relegated at the end of last summer. The rights and wrongs of the cases in Scotland are still being assessed (and it's not easy to do so because instances of racism don't come with receipts) but the team has somehow managed to put that to one side and play well, and they recognise how difficult that has been.

"We have been through a bit of a tough time but we wear this shirt with a lot of pride, and for us it's all about leaving the shirt better than we found it," Leask said. "Yes, there's been some tough times, but we're out here competing and we're doing a very, very good job of it at the moment. The biggest thing is leaving this shirt in a better place than you found it. I believe this group's going a long way to doing that."

That is true of them over the last five years. Scotland came close to qualifying for the 2019 World Cup but were on the receiving end of some poor decisions in the 2018 qualifier, which was played without DRS in its entirety. Eight members of the squad who participated in that tournament are back to put things right and they've come with an attitude of extreme determination and resilience. They treat every match like it matters more than anything else, because in their case, it does. "2018 hurt a lot of us and a lot of the squad are still here. The performances have shown that we're not going to give up," Leask said. "We are a side who, every time we play, we play as underdogs. But we play every game like it's a final. We've fought unbelievably hard in every fixture."

The Dutch say the same thing. "Going into every game in the tournament, we feel like it's a must-win game," Edwards said. Despite the pressure of the situation, he describes his squad as "pretty level-headed," going into their last, and most important game, and he has good reason to. The Dutch have managed to triumph in these crunch encounters without their entire first-choice bowling attack, the bulk of whom were unavailable due to county commitments (read: need to earn a salary rather than spend three weeks competing for a one-in-10 chance to play in a World Cup). Scotland are in a similar situation, with four frontline players missing. And therein lies the cold, hard, financial truth of Thursday's match: it could change lives and cricket boards, literally, because of the economics of the game.

In English football, the championship playoff game - the match which decides which team will be promoted to the Premier League in the following season - is known as the richest game in football, because of the massive monetary benefits promotion brings. With a guaranteed participation fee of US$1 million - more than most associates get in grants from either the ICC or their governments - reaching the World Cup could prove the cash injection to keep cricket comfortably afloat in the country that gets there. Consider that they could then also attract commercial partners, and the health of the game in the country that qualifies will receive a significant boost.

For teams who spend most of their time in the small print, this is their opportunity to do more than just steal a headline: it's the chance to make a serious statement about cricket in their country and to create the investment into its future. It's also one of the last chances to really stand out because this is the last 10-team World Cup (the next T20 World Cup is 20 teams and the next ODI World Cup will expand to 14) and, hopefully, the growth of the game will only continue from there. Now, though, it's about that one chance to "play in a World Cup in India which is a dream for our guys," as Edwards said.

Both Netherlands and Scotland have already experienced that dreams can come true and as far as the promise of a World Cup place goes neither will want to be the one who wakes up first.