Email This Article To Someone!We knew in advance it wasn’t going to be easy. With the ICC in its wisdom only including two qualifiers in the World Twenty20 championship – despite the successes of The Netherlands and Ireland in England last year – the task facing the Dutch squad, and indeed all its rivals, was a far from inconsiderable one.
The Netherlands have been the perennial bridesmaids for a long time now, and in the event the outcome in Dubai and Abu Dhabi confirmed that they were where they have been since the World Cricket League Division 1 tournament in Kenya in 2007: frustratingly, just short of claiming a place amongst the best.
The exception was the predecessor of this tournament, where they reached the final and would have made it to England even had a third place not become available because of Zimbabwe’s withdrawal, but elsewhere, in every form of the game, there is clear evidence that while the Dutch are good, they’re not quite good enough.
So it should surprise no-one that they fell at the final hurdle this time, although to be honest the killer was probably the fence they failed to clear early on, losing to the UAE in their second game. Had they won that one, they would have gone into the Super Four with two crucial points, and the win over Afghanistan might well have been enough to take them through. If we had some bacon we could have bacon and eggs . . . if we had some eggs.
There are already those who are blaming team selection, and demanding wholesale changes, but I have to say I think that’s complete nonsense. This is a strong, experienced squad, with most of its key players veterans of the successful South African campaign and the epic victory at Lord’s.
It’s probably true, though, that one vital factor here was the retirement of Jeroen Smits. That’s not a criticism of either Peter Borren’s captaincy or Atse Buurman’s keeping – it’s simply a recognition that Smits’s influence on and off the park played a key part of the side’s successes, and it will take time for them to adjust to his absence. Those who campaigned for years for him to be dropped should now have the honesty and generosity to admit just how important he was.
Borren and his men went into each game with a clear strategy, and when it worked, they won. Three half-century opening partnerships between Alexei Kervezee and Eric Szwarczynski, scored at better than a run a ball in the powerplay overs, set up the wins against Canada, Kenya and Afghanistan, but when they failed to get a start, the Dutch lost. Either there wasn’t a Plan B, or if there was – as when Mudassar Bukhari came in as a pinch hitter against Ireland – it didn’t work either.
Those two defeats came in completely different ways, although they had one or two factors in common. In a tournament where 150 was generally a winning score and 130 a losing one, the failure of the Dutch to defend 164 against the UAE was truly awful, especially after they had the bonus of run-outs of their opponents’ two most dangerous batsmen, Arfan Haider and Saqib Ali.
I have seldom seen a poorer effort by a Dutch team in the field: bowlers unable to hit the right areas, missed chances, and some sloppy ground-fielding. Yet essentially the same side produced a decent performance against Kenya the next day, and a very good one against Afghanistan.
No doubt the first-day injury to Edgar Schiferli upset the balance: Ryan ten Doeschate was pressed into service as Bukhari’s new-ball partner, but he went for 7.41 an over and conceded too many wides. Bukhari, bowling some way below his best on pitches which offered little assistance, was even more expensive, at 7.74.
Spin was clearly the key – again, this didn’t exactly come as a shock – and Pieter Seelaar and, once he came into the side as Schiferli’s replacement, Mohammad Kashif did well both as containing bowlers and as wicket-takers. The UAE, with at least five spinners, and Afghanistan owed their success to more ample slow bowling departments, but Ireland proved that a quality seam attack could do the job as well. Trent Johnston’s spell against the Dutch in the final Super Four match was an object lesson in how to create pressure by consistent, controlled seam bowling.
Mark Jonkman was probably the best of the Dutch seamers, and I might have been inclined to give him the new ball, although I understand the argument that he bowls better when he doesn’t open. In any case, his return to the side was a welcome development, and it will be interesting to see how he fares in Kenya.
Returning to the batting, there was again a certain lack of consistency, although in a tournament such as this that isn’t perhaps so surprising. Daan van Bunge’s 48-ball 76 against the UAE was by far the finest of the competition by a Dutch batsman, at least of what I saw – unfortunately, I missed the opening game, having been persuaded to go to Abu Dhabi instead.
But Van Bunge’s dismissal against Ireland, coming down the pitch to George Dockrell’s first ball, was one of the worst moments in a batting performance which was generally fairly dire, and the middle-order collapse in the UAE game prevented the side from reaching 180-plus and putting the target beyond the opposition’s reach.
There do, I think, need to be changes, but they don’t have to do with strategy, tactics or, in the short term, team selection. The problem goes much, much deeper.
If the KNCB is serious about its declared objective of becoming the top Associate nation, root-and-branch measures need to be adopted. It’s evident from the performances of the national youth teams that the Dutch Lions programme is still having, at best, extremely limited success. The failure of the Under-19s to finish in the top six – top six – in Toronto in September should have set the alarm bells ringing.
And the flow-through from the Dutch Lions to serious contention for the national squads – or rather, the comparative lack of flow-through – is an equally clear indication that all is not well with the underlying structures of coaching and domestic competition.
Bringing in Dutch passport-holders from far-flung lands may be a short-term solution, and one which will be necessary if the side is to be seriously competitive in the ECB Pro40 and next year’s World Cup. But it shouldn’t be the long-term plan, and that’s where some hard thinking needs to be done over the coming months.
