After a rainy build-up, the sun was out at the Adelaide Oval and Zimbabwe captain Craig Ervine was happy to bat first after winning the toss in their Group 2 clash against Netherlands.

Zimbabwe, who are still in with a chance to make the semi-finals, brought in Luke Jongwe as their only change in the XI. He replaced fellow allrounder Brad Evans, who Ervine said, "picked up a little bit of a niggle versus Bangladesh". Ervine also stressed on their batters to do well and said that the start has been a little bit of an issue for them.

Netherlands captain Scott Edwards was not too fussed about bowling first on a pitch that had an even covering of grass. Bas de Leede, who suffered a cut under his right eye after missing a pull off a Haris Rauf short ball, recovered from his concussion and was back in the XI. Logan van Beek, who was drafted in as de Leede's concussion sub, replaced Tim Pringle from the match against Pakistan.

It is the first time the Adelaide Oval was hosting a match in this competition and the dimensions were short, square of the wicket on either sides and stretched to about 81 metres down the ground.

Netherlands and Zimbabwe were both playing a T20I for the first time at the venue, though Zimbabwe have played - and lost - three ODIs in the capital city of South Australia.