Aryan Dutt has red-circled February 10 and February 18 on Google calendar. On February 10, the Netherlands all-rounder is hoping to play in front of his family members at New Delhi and eight days later he could be in the playing 11 to face India at the world’s largest cricket venue — the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad.”I am very happy to be back in India. I didn’t get the time to come back after the 2023 World Cup. But I’m delighted to be back here and for it to be another World Cup makes it even more special,” Dutt said.The Netherlands will face fellow Associate nation Namibia at the Feroze Shah Kotla in the national capital, and Dutt is hoping to that a few of his family members will be present during the match.In his formative days, Dutt had also spent a couple of years in Chandigarh to sharpen his cricketing skills.”My family will be watching the game and if time allows me I will go see them too. So, I am eagerly waiting for an outing in Delhi,” he said.However, the biggest moment for him and the team will come on February 18 when they face defending champions India in front of a roaring one lakh fans.Dutt understands that such opportunities will not come very often, and he wants to make the most of what he gets.”It is a very special opportunity. India is obviously one of the best in the world and they are the defending champions. So, it’s a great opportunity to compete with them and that size of a stadium does make it pretty cool,” he noted.But the 22-year-old, who has so far played 53 ODIs and 26 T20Is, is not overawed by those personal and professional possibilities layered with multitude of emotions.Dutt wanted to give a good account of himself during his second visit to India, after a not-so-memorable outing in the 50-over World Cup on these shores in 2023.The off-spin all-rounder could only make 70 runs across nine matches, but fared better with the ball taking 10 wickets.”Our focus is on preparing the best we can and will take one game at a time. For example, the last time when we played in Delhi it was a pretty flat wicket. So, we will assess the conditions and go from there, and hope to notch some good results for us this time,” he added.However, the Dutch side has not played any international match since facing Bangladesh in an away white ball series in September 2025.Dutt said his team would have liked some more matches in the run-up to the ICC showpiece to gain exposure to various match situations.”Our preparation has been great. But, obviously, we would have liked some more games before an event like this (World Cup). But I’m sure with the pre-camp opportunities that we have, we can have a team that is best prepped as anyone else, and everyone too can be prepped at their best,” he said.Netherlands will play two warm-up matches against Zimbabwe and Australia at Colombo, and Dutt hoped it will set the team in the right direction.”Netherlands was cold and snowy. So, it was only indoors training we got out of it. But coming to Sri Lanka has definitely helped us all to finish the prep we all needed before the tournament starts. Now, we need to execute those positives on the field,” he signed off.