Old Dutch hand Matthew Mott chasing success against Orange to avoid being red-faced

Four times at this World Cup, a coach has come up against - and beaten - a team that they used to represent as a player: Jonathan Trott (Afghanistan) and Chris Silverwood (Sri Lanka) against England, Grant Bradburn (Pakistan) against New Zealand, and Chandika Hathurusinghe (Bangladesh) against Sri Lanka.

Matthew Mott, England's coach, will hope to extend the streak on Wednesday in Pune. His adopted side face Netherlands with Champions Trophy qualification on the line and Mott's position under scrutiny: he is 18 months into a four-year contract, but a seventh defeat in eight games would put him under real pressure.

Mott is as Australian as they come: he grew up on the Gold Coast and made more than 3,500 runs across a decade-long Sheffield Shield career for Queensland and Victoria. Yet he also played professionally for a third team: Netherlands, who he represented for two List A games as an overseas player.

Long before the days of franchise cricket sustaining players through the off-season, Mott spent several years playing in the Lancashire League, but in 2003, he went off the beaten track and joined Excelsior '20 in Rotterdam. Most clubs had an overseas player: a young Grant Elliott pipped Mott to the honour of being the Hoofdklasse's leading run-scorer.

Mott enjoyed it enough that he recommended a Gold Coast team-mate named Brett Crichton to Voorburg CC for the following summer. "It meant we had a free overseas player for a year," recalled Tim de Leede, who represented Netherlands at three different World Cups and whose son, Bas, will feature on Wednesday. "We used to be a very small club, so we were very, very happy."

Towards the end of the season, Mott was asked to play in the preliminary round of the following season's Cheltenham & Gloucester Trophy, county cricket's 50-over knockout competition. On debut for the Dutch, he scored 45 not out in a win over Cornwall to set up a fixture against Gloucestershire; he returned the following summer for it, taking two wickets and then making 41 in a heavy defeat.

De Leede, who played alongside Mott in both games, believes that his coaching aspirations may have started that summer. "As an overseas player in the Netherlands, you have to start coaching at your club - seniors and kids. Maybe it started then and he liked it?"

Mott referenced his time in the Netherlands during his first interaction with the media in the England job last summer. "I did play cricket many years ago," he said, looking out over the VRA ground in Amstelveen. "Looking at this ground, it's come on leaps and bounds."

It was an idyllic way for Mott to start with England: a three-match series in the baking sunshine, with thousands of travelling supporters drinking Amstelveen dry. They racked up a world-record total of 498 in the first ODI and won the series 3-0 while hardly breaking a sweat.

Jos Buttler made 162 in the first game - 56 runs more than he has managed across seven innings at this World Cup - and took over from Eoin Morgan as captain straight after that tour. His partnership with Mott brought immediate success in the form of last year's T20 World Cup in Australia.

But England's defence of their 50-over crown has been a mess, with Saturday's 33-run defeat to Australia in Ahmedabad representing their second-best result. They will need at least one win and possibly two to finish in the top eight and seal a spot in the 2025 Champions Trophy; failure to do so will leave Mott vulnerable.

He has found himself under growing pressure as this World Cup has worn on, not helped by Morgan's suggestion that there is "something else going on" than simply players being out of form collectively. Mott pushed back against those comments and while some react better to defeats than others, there has not been any obvious rift in the squad.

Instead, the sense is that England are a team bereft of confidence, without the relevant experience and muscle memory of recent ODI success that helped them get through the setbacks they encountered on home soil four years ago. Mott's task is to revitalise a group that has played together so often, but will never again.

Rob Key, England's managing director of men's cricket, will return to India this week and will rejoin the team in Kolkata ahead of Saturday's fixture against Pakistan. Key holds Mott's future in his hands but was also ultimately responsible for appointing him; sacking him so early into his tenure would not reflect well on his judgement.

There is a simple route for England to quieten talk about Mott's position: to win on Wednesday, and win well. If Mott's brief time in Dutch orange was a success, failure in Pune would leave him red-faced.