Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya turn mentor mode on, share words of wisdom with Netherlands players; gift signed jerseys

Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya, and others of the Indian team interacted with the Netherlands players after the conclusion of their match.

India finished their group stage campaign on a high with a win over the Netherlands, finishing the initial stage of the T20 World Cup with four wins from four games. The Dutch didn’t have the best time of it in the tournament, with a sole victory against Namibia but three losses, seeing them knocked out.

Suryakumar Yadav shakes hands with Logan van Beek of Netherlands. (PTI)

Nevertheless, the Netherlands provided an excellent contest to India in Ahmedabad to close out their group encounter. Despite plenty of promos and build-up claiming India would be using this match as some sort of batting practice to rack up close to 300 runs, that proved to be nowhere near the case – a spirited performance saw the Indian team posting 193, before the Dutch batting put on a decent showing across the board to score 176/7 in response.

Following that match, Indian and Netherlands players rewound from the match and interacted with each other at the Narendra Modi Stadium, with the BCCI social media channels capturing the interactions as Indian stars spoke to Dutch players including Bas de Leede, Scott Edwards, and the impressive Aryan Dutt, while also signing balls, jerseys, and other memoribilia for the children and families who had travelled.

Memorable moment for youngsters travelling with Dutch team

Indian captain Suryakumar Yadav was spotted in conversation with his opposite number Edwards, seemingly sharing a few tips and tricks regarding batting as he illustrated a few tactical options, before Hardik Pandya was also spotted in conversation with Dutt, who took 2 wickets on the day with both openers Abhishek Sharma and Ishan Kishan falling to him.

Indian players were also captured signing autographs and t-shirts with messages on them for other players as well as coaching staff, while the short video ended with a young boy getting a hat signed by Suryakumar.

Netherlands head home with plenty of crucial experience for their younger players and a base to build on, and will be aware that being a little more clinical against Pakistan in that memorable opening game would have left them in with a chance of progressing through to the next stage of the tournament.

Nevertheless, as they fly home, the focus shifts to India as the title defence continues heading into the Super 8 stage.