Daan van Bunge

Daan van Bunge has represented Netherlands right from age-group cricket. He was a part of the Under-15 World Cup in 1996, and on their Under-17 tour of England in 1997. He made his ODI debut for the national team in the 2002 Champions Trophy against Sri Lanka.

van Bunge was also a part of the Netherlands squad for the 2003 World Cup in South Africa. It was a memorable tournament for him as he hit a fantastic 62 against India and followed that up by picking three wickets against England. Later in 2004, he slammed the fastest hundred for MCC Young Cricketers against Surrey Under-19 reaching the milestone in only 38 balls.

During the qualifiers of the 2007 World Cup, van Bunge smashed a 118-ball 137 and put up a brilliant 242-run stand with Bas Zuiderent to defeat Denmark. However, the actual World Cup was far from a satisfying one for him. He became the poor victim as Herschelle Gibbs set a new ODI record by scoring 36 runs (six sixes from six balls) from Van Bunge's fourth over. He retired from international cricket after the world cup citing issues with his studying. However, after completing his studies in 2008, he returned back to the team.

His return was a welcoming one. He performed very well at both domestic and international level. However, van Bunge was not awarded a full-time contract as he again cited career and study demands. He was not picked in the 2010 national side and remained absent from the 2011 World Cup squad. After remaining absent from the international team for nearly 3 years, van Bunge was selected in the team for an one-off ODI against South Africa. However, he did not perform well in the game scoring only 3 runs. He later played a couple of games against Ireland and Canada and was also a part of the T20I side in 2013 in a few games but failed again.

By Sonali Dhulap

As of April 2014