With his flowing locks and baseball-backlift, ebullient opener Maxwell O’Dowd is an instantly recognisable figure at the top of the Dutch batting order. Son of former Auckland bat Alex, O’Dowd split his childhood between New Zealand and his mother’s homeland of the Netherlands, where he lived until his early teens. In part a product of the youth system at Auckland, whom he represented at under 19s level, and in part of the venerable Royal Haagsche Cricket Club, where he played youth cricket while his father was player-coach for the club during a second stint in the Netherlands. Despite the family moving back to New Zealand O’Dowd continued to represent the Dutch at age-group level. He turned out for the Dutch under 15s and under 19s before making his debut for the senior side against Papua New Guinea in 2015, in the Netherlands’ opening match of the final Intercontinental Cup, going on to make his T20I debut in a bilateral series against Nepal two weeks later. Initially seen as a T20 prospect, O’Dowd would be picked for the Netherlands squad that won through the 2015 T20 Qualifier and for the disappointing ensuing 2016 World T20 campaign, that saw the Dutch exit in the preliminary round before O’Dowd got a game.
 

Despite his unconventional set-up at the crease, in practice O’Dowd reverts to a comparatively orthodox stance pre-delivery, notably circumspect early in the innings and at his strongest hitting down the ground. A First Class century against Ireland in the Netherlands’ penultimate Intercontinental Cup fixture in 2017 is testament to a sound technique, and he boasts an average over 40 in red-ball cricket, though his career in whites for the Dutch was cut short by the tournament’s abolition later that year.
 

Despite his unconventional set-up at the crease, in practice O’Dowd reverts to a comparatively orthodox stance pre-delivery, notably circumspect early in the innings and at his strongest hitting down the ground. A First Class century against Ireland in the Netherlands’ penultimate Intercontinental Cup fixture in 2017 is testament to a sound technique, and he boasts an average over 40 in red-ball cricket, though his career in whites for the Dutch was cut short by the tournament’s abolition later that year.