CricketEurope’s cumulative database of statistics from the top domestic division is again extended this week, and now covers the period from 1997 to 2011.

The upgrade, which adds more than 500 scorecards from 1997-2001 to the database, completes the career records of internationals like HCC’s Tom de Grooth, Voorburg and VRA wicketkeeper-batsman Atse Buurman, and Hermes-DVS seamer Ruud Nijman, as well as prominent player-coaches such as Darron Reekers (Quick Haag) – who also played times for the Netherlands – Michael Dighton (Excelsior ’20 and VOC) and Craig Cumming (VRA).

Reekers emerges as the most prolific batsman of the past fifteen years, with 7153 runs at an average of 39.96. Voorburg allrounder Tim de Leede is the only other batsman to have posted more than 7000 runs, with Nick Statham (Hermes-DVS) and Luuk van Troost (Excelsior ’20) over the 6000 mark since 1997.

Among those who scored 1000 or more runs, Reekers’s average puts him in 15th place in the overall list, which is headed by Cumming, whose four seasons at VRA produced 3350 runs at 56.78. Rupert Gomes and Dighton also averaged over 50 in this period, while the leading Dutch-produced player is VOC’s Bas Zuiderent, whose 4993 runs since 1997 have come at an average of 40.93

The leading wicket-taker over the same period is HBS seamer Sjoerd Weurman, the only bowler to claim more than 300 wickets. Weurman’s achievement is all the more remarkable because he has spent the past two seasons in the Hoofdklasse, HBS having been relegated when the top flight was reduced to eight teams in 2009.

He is followed by the Quick Haag pair Henk-Jan Mol (292) and Edgar Schiferli (288), while former Rood en Wit player-coach (and Australian Test player) Colin Miller is way ahead in the bowling averages, having taken 81 wickets in his two seasons with the Haarlem club at an average cost of 9.90.

Again, player-coaches tend to dominate, but VRA’s Pakistan-born seamer Rashid Amin’s 282 wickets only cost 14.74 apiece, and Roland Lefebvre, after returning from a successful first-class career with Somerset and Glamorgan, took 137 wickets for VOC and HBS at an average of 15.85.

These figures merely give a hint of what can be gleaned from the database, which has again been compiled largely from the official scoresheets, kindly made available by the KNCB’s Archive and Library Committee. Thanks are due to committee chairman Ted Hartman, and to the most anonymous scorers, captains and administrators who filled in the returns without which such information could not be recovered.

Not all the records are complete and correct, however, and further work is necessary in a few cases to verify the data. Any corrections and additions would be more than welcome!

But CricketEurope hopes that current and former players, and the Dutch cricket community more generally, will derive plenty of midwinter enjoyment from the updated database. A further update, extending the record back to 1992, is planned before the beginning of the new season.