Dutch allrounder Bas de Leede believes New Zealand seamers Trent Boult and Lockie Ferguson will pose the same dangers as Pakistan's vaunted pace duo Shaheen Shah Afridi and Haris Rauf when they meet in the World Cup on Monday.
The Netherlands slipped to an 81-run defeat to Pakistan in their championship opener on Friday with Shaheen, Rauf and Hasan Ali claiming six wickets between them.
Now the Dutch, the only second-tier Associate team at the 10-nation World Cup, must bounce back against the Kiwis who started their campaign with a thumping nine-wicket rout of champions England on Thursday.
"There's Trent Boult, who is similar to Shaheen probably. Lockie Ferguson probably similar to Haris Rauf," said De Leede.
"So, a lot of similarities. We'll take our learnings from this game and then try and adapt for the next game."
The Dutch were well-placed to chase down a target of 287 to win on Friday when they stood at 120-2 in the 24th over with De Leede (67) and Vikramjit Singh (52) together.
However, they lost three quick wickets for the addition of just 13 runs and never recovered before being bowled out for 205.
Pakistan had earlier been indebted to innings of 68 each from Saud Shakeel and Mohammad Rizwan.
"I think it was those wickets that were our downfall," said 23-year-old De Leede.
"We lost Vikram, then Teja (Nidamanuru), then lost Scott Edwards in quite a quick couple of overs, which put us on the back foot.
"It's tough to then go on and put up another partnership and try and win the game."
De Leede was the star for his team with the ball as well, taking 4-62.
He said he sought out tips on how to bat on slow, spinning tracks of India.
"I spoke to a couple of people who have experience here and asked them what they think overseas batters needed to do to succeed against spin in India," said De Leede.
