Cooper's whirlwind week ends in World T20 berth

It's been a whirlwind week for Tom Cooper.

Last Friday, the South Australia batsman and former Australia A representative was dropped from the Redbacks' Sheffield Shield team – a disappointing year with the bat finally catching up to him.

Less than a week later, on Thursday, Cooper was added to the Netherlands squad for the World T20 in India.

"It's an unbelievable opportunity, it has been over the years," Cooper told cricket.com.au today.

"One door closes, another opens up another opportunity. It was disappointing not to score enough runs to stay in the Shield side, but a World Cup is a pretty exciting contest."

Cooper, whose mother was born in Netherlands New Guinea, last represented the Netherlands two years ago in the 2014 edition of the World T20 where he was the tournament's second-highest run-scorer, behind India's Virat Kohli.

He hasn't represented the Dutch since, but when the men in orange heard about his omission from South Australia's Round 8 Shield side, they jumped at the chance.

Having contacted the 29-year-old about playing in the World T20, which starts on March 8, the Dutch brought him in to the 15-man squad in place of Sikander Zulfiqar, just four days before the ICC cut off date.

"I went to them (Redbacks selectors), got their thoughts on it and fortunately they were happy to release me to go play in a World Cup," Cooper said.

The Netherlands were the only Associate nation to qualify for the Super 10 phase in the 2014 World T20, and have Bangladesh, Ireland and Oman in their group in the first round, with the winner to progress to the second stage of the tournament. 

Quick Single: World T20 squads

The right-hander has a fantastic record for the Netherlands, averaging 49 in 23 one-day internationals and 32 in 15 T20s with an impressive strike rate of 136.

But he comes into the World T20 off the back of a tough year for the Redbacks, averaging just 17.78 in seven first-class matches with a top score of 52.

While Cooper has struggled this summer, he's not the only one.

At the time of writing, only four batsmen – Ben Dunk (825 runs), Cameron Bancroft (654), George Bailey (651) and Matt Renshaw (632) – have scored more than 600 Shield runs.

"It’s been very frustrating," Cooper said of his own season.

"It's been a lean year for quite a lot of guys. If you go looking through the stats, in previous years you have a lot of blokes getting close to the 1,000-run mark.

"Looking at it this year it doesn't look like too many are going to reach that mark."

While Cooper doesn't use it as an excuse, he says the grassier pitch at the Adelaide Oval has made batting more difficult on a surface that has historically been a batsman's paradise.

And Cooper says the lush wickets have also produced more outcomes in four-day cricket, which sees the Redbacks third on the Sheffield Shield ladder with three outright wins.

"They (Adelaide Oval groundstaff) left a bit more grass on the wicket which isn't ideal for batsmen," Cooper said.

"But from the Redbacks point of view we've been winning games and having games have results which in the past there's been quite a few draws which has always made it hard for us.

"With my batsman hat on it's not ideal but as South Australian Redback it's held us in good stead to push for a Shield final at the end of the year."

Looking ahead, Cooper's goal is still to represent Australia at the highest level.

He played for Australia A against South Africa A in Townsville in August 2014, scoring a pair of half-centuries in the two first-class fixtures, but is yet to take the next, big step.

Despite this season's setback, the dream to one day play for Australia is still alive.

"The way the summer's gone it's probably a bit further away than I would have liked," he said.

"It's every young kid's dream. That definitely hasn't gone away.

"It's about finding the right formula to push back into the South Australian team and hopefully score a lot more runs in the years to come."