Best-kept secret: The Dutch's high-flying Aussie import

Scott Edwards was standing in the middle of the VRA Ground in Amstelveen last month, watching Jos Buttler go absolutely berserk.

The Netherlands gloveman, better known in Melbourne's cricket circles as the Richmond gloveman, eyed the England superstar's set-up with curiosity.

"Buttler's bombing them everywhere and Scotty's saying, 'You've got a lot of weight back?'" recounts Richmond's head coach Shannon Young, who spoke to his 'keeper after that first ODI last month, in which his England counterpart smashed 162 from 70 balls.

"(Buttler's) like; 'Yeah, I load up all my weight through my back hip and then push forward'.

"Most guys are probably in awe of watching Jos Buttler hit them everywhere, but he's got the foresight to actually say: 'OK, well what's he doing technically here?'"

Young remembers first coming across Edwards – who has caught the eye of keen observers this year with an impressive run spree in ODI series against Afghanistan, West Indies and England – as a 15-year-old. He liked what he saw from the outset.

"There was just something about him," says the Premier Cricket coach. "He was really coachable, and he has this really strong desire to get better.

"It was akin to when the country blokes come down (to Melbourne) – they just look at it differently to the metro kids. It was like: 'Oh my God, this is an amazing experience'."

Which could neatly describe Edwards' unlikely international career to date with the Netherlands, as well as what he has in front of him, including the very real possibility of appearing at a T20 World Cup in Australia.

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Among full-time Australian wicketkeepers to have played more than two matches, none have a higher one-day international batting average than Scott Andrew Edwards, who perhaps boasts the dubious title of Australia's most unknown active international player.

Think Adam Gilchrist (35.93), Alex Carey (35.42), Brad Haddin (31.53), and Matthew Wade (26.29). And while it's early days, the fact remains: not a single one of them tops Edwards' figure of 38.44 from 22 ODI appearances.

It gets better, too; far from crashing runs against low-ranking Associate nations, the 25-year-old from Melbourne's eastern suburbs has this year scored more runs (537 at 48.81) than any other batter to have played solely against ICC full member nations.

Along the way he's become the only Associate cricketer to have scored a half-century in every match of an ODI series against a full member team, completing the feat twice in series against Afghanistan in January and England last month.

Scott Edwards | ODI batting in 2022

v Afghanistan: 68, 86, 54

v New Zealand: 1, 6, 9

v West Indies: 13, 68, 18

v England: 72no, 78, 64

The run of form is a stark contrast to his first eight ODI innings following his debut in August 2018, which yielded just one half-century, and he puts it down to the simple matter of experience.

"Once you start playing these guys more and more, you get used to how they go about it, and how I've got to go about scoring my runs," he tells cricket.com.au. "The more you play, the more comfortable it is.

"I've gone through a few waves of form where in the Afghanistan and England series everything was just clicking. There was obviously a New Zealand series in between where I didn't score over 10, (so) it's just learning to ride the wave – not ride the highs too high or the lows too low – so (having) that consistency mindset when I'm out there batting, I put (his form) down to that I suppose."

From his perspective, Young believes Edwards' recent purple patch stems from "finding the level" of international cricket.

"I think he's now comfortable with the level and what comes with that is the ability to draw on lessons he's learned in the past," he says. "He's probably understanding that he's now on the verge of getting some reward for a lot of effort that goes on behind the scenes.

"Not everyone's pathway has to be from A to B. He's made some sacrifices, (he was) a 19-year-old kid in the second year of a 'sparky' (electrical) apprenticeship, so he had to give up a fair bit."

Edwards himself is under no illusions as to what it takes to succeed at international level. He views his run-scoring this year more as a stepping stone than outright success.

"Seven half-centuries (this year), it'd be nice to go on and get a couple of big ones in there," he says. "These bigger sides, that's the way they win games – you need your top scorers to hit 120, not 70 or 80.

"It's something I'm still working on and hopefully in these next few series I can get the big one."

He doesn't see much point in comparing himself to any Aussie 'keepers, past or present; though it's his homeland, the fortunes of Australia and its players are wholly irrelevant in terms of his career right now.

"For me, it's just about doing what I can for this Dutch team and finding ways for us to win," he says. "Everything else is outside noise, you can't really affect it, it doesn't change anything, and I'd just like to go about my cricket how I'm going about it."

Presently, that means his focus is fixed on leading the Netherlands in the Qualifier B tournament in Zimbabwe beginning next Monday, with the top two teams from the Dutch, Hong Kong, Jersey, PNG, Singapore, Uganda, United States and the hosts booking their ticket to the T20 World Cup in October-November.

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Edwards was born in Tonga, where his dad was working at the time, and qualifies to play for the Netherlands through his grandmother, who called the European nation home until the outbreak of World War Two when she met his grandfather and they moved to Australia.

"Through that my father and I get Dutch passports," he explains. "When I turned 18, I always wanted to spend a year overseas playing cricket, and the offer was there to play in the Netherlands."

In 2015, Edwards played for Excelsior Cricket Club on the outskirts of Rotterdam where he struck up a relationship with former Australian wicketkeeper Ryan Campbell, who went on to become the national team's head coach in 2017.

It didn't work out at the time and Edwards returned to Australia to begin an electrical apprenticeship, but the link with Campbell remained strong, and two years into the apprenticeship the call came.

"There was a tour to the UAE to actually qualify for the Super League and one of the 'keepers had a hernia, so they needed a back-up for the tour," Edwards recalls. "(Campbell) gave me a call and said, 'Do you want to drop what you're doing and come across for the tour?'

"(It would've) been silly not to take that opportunity, so I went across, and ever since I've been spending six months in the Netherlands and six months in Australia."

The right-hander is one of a handful of contracted Dutch players and supplements his income through coaching, while he also continues to ply his cricketing trade in Australia with Richmond.

In February, he made his Second XI debut for Victoria, keeping tidily but only returning scores of 0 and 21.

In that regard, the T20 World Cup could open doors; a strong showing against world-class opposition on Australian soil about a month out from the start of the Big Bash would doubtless put Edwards' name in recruitment discussions, especially in his home state of Victoria, where Sam Harper is the only full-time wicketkeeper with a contract.

And while he acknowledges he would love to be involved in the BBL, he also knows there is much cricket to be played between now and then.

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Edwards' experience with Buttler was representative of a changed Dutch approach, which came about following the ICC's scrapping of the Super League as part of the qualification process for ODI World Cups post-2023. The decision reduced the pressure on winning games to stay in the top league with full member nations, in turn freeing up the likes of Edwards to educate themselves on the job.

"For us, it's all about learning," he says. "How can we get better?

"We're still playing to win, we still believe we can upset these teams, and we've showed that when we had New Zealand 5-30 and then (against) West Indies we were on track to chase 300 before a few wickets.

"We're starting to find our brand of cricket. It's tough against these biggest nations … but we're pretty confident in how we're going.

"England was a very steep increase in terms of the way they go about their cricket. Yeah, it was pretty cool to see, but at the same time, brutal to be playing against.

"A lot of it's just execution; if you don't hit your yorker, it's going for six. It's a lot less margin for error. We dropped Buttler twice in two balls when he was on about 20 and all of a sudden, he goes on and makes 160 off 70 balls.

"Looking through batting performances, we're scoring a lot more consistently around that 240-250 mark – obviously we need to be getting more to beat these teams, but there's been a lot more consistency."

Given the level the Dutch players are accustomed to domestically (there is no first-class system in the Netherlands), the challenge of taking on major cricket nations is an enormous one.

Edwards knows it first-hand, having played 58 times now for the Dutch; during the Australian summer, for example, he went from playing Premier Cricket for the Tigers in Glen Waverley on a Saturday to battling it out with Afghanistan's superstar leg-spinner Rashid Khan in Qatar a few days later.

One major emphasis at pre-series camps is on acclimatising players to the increased ball speed.

"Going from Richmond or club cricket, all of a sudden these guys are putting an extra 15-20kph on the ball," he says. "So it's just about getting that volume in before the series to adjust back to that sort of pace."

Series against full member nations in 2022 have also served as ideal preparation for what awaits the Dutch in the coming weeks and months. After the qualifiers, the Netherlands' return home for a two-match T20I series against New Zealand in The Hague, and a three-match ODI series against Pakistan in Rotterdam, where Edwards' dad and brother will be in the crowd.

And if the Dutch can qualify for the T20 World Cup, he knows there will be a veritable army of support for him in the stands, which makes the prospect a tantalising one.

"It's a big carrot to be looking forward to, and hopefully we go well in Zimbabwe," he says. "I think Australians love to get behind the underdogs. Hopefully, if we're there we can get a little bit of orange in the crowd and a few guys getting behind us, which would be pretty cool."

Edwards is yet to come up against Australia in his international career, but if it does happen, he sees them simply as another "big nation that you want to knock off".

"When you think about it, it would be pretty cool to be coming up against the best guys that I grew up aspiring to (be)," he says. "It would be pretty awesome if it was in front of an MCG crowd – it wouldn't get much better I suppose."  

Top ODI run scorers in 2022

1. Jatinder Singh (Oman) – 16 matches, 653 runs at 43.53

2. Vriitya Aravind (UAE) – 15 matches, 609 runs at 46.84

3. Chirag Suri (UAE) – 15 matches, 550 runs at 36.66

4. Scott Edwards (Netherlands) – 12 matches, 537 runs at 48.81

5. Kashyap Prajapati (Oman) – 16 matches, 509 runs at 31.81

6. Imam-ul-Haq (Pakistan) – 6 matches, 497 runs at 99.40

7. Shamarh Brooks (West Indies) – 12 matches, 490 runs at 44.54

8. Shoaib Khan (Oman) – 14 matches, 486 runs at 37.38

9. Rahmat Shah (Afghanistan) – 9 matches, 484 runs at 53.77

10. Zeeshan Maqsood (Oman) – 14 matches, 458 runs at 35.23

Statistics dated to July 7