The new, eight-team Topklasse competition seems likely to be even more closely contested than its predecessor, and it’s already clear that no team will be able to rest on its laurels.

With the league splitting into four-team sections after two rounds of round-robin matches, every game will be crucial, and for newly-promoted Rood en Wit Haarlem and last season’s returnees ACC the first target will be to make sure that they go into the second phase in as strong a position as possible.

Rood en Wit dominated last year’s Eerste Klasse after stumbling just short of the finish the previous season, and despite the loss of opener Mat Reynen, who has returned to New Zealand, and seamer Masood Khan, who moves to VRA Amsterdam, their squad will be even stronger as they battle to stay in the top flight.

Allrounder Andrew Bailey has joined them from Sparta 1888, while former VVV coach Mohammad Shahbaz will also play for the Haarlem club after three seasons with Dosti. Another acquisition is medium-pacer Vishi Sankar, who took 39 wickets for Hilversum in the Eerste Klasse last year.

These three will join a seam attack which already included long-serving coach Enoch Nkwe, Elvis Roach, Farhaad Sardha and the tall under-19 international Paul van Meekeren. Spin will be provided by Shahab Uddin, while it remains uncertain whether the club will be successful in adding a South African exchange player – rumoured also to be a spinner – to its squad.

The mainstays of the batting likely to again be skipper Jarrod Englefield, the former Canterbury and New Zealand A batsman, and Nkwe, but Bailey and Shahbaz will also be key figures in this department. This season will also give 17-year-old Sverre Loggers an opportunity to prove his potential in the top flight, while in Mats Prenen and Jaap Dickmann the club has two younger batsmen of great promise who may also get their chance.

Jason Atkinson will again keep wicket, and he too is capable of important contributions with the bat. A well-balanced squad, Rood en Wit seem likely to be much more competitive than they were last time they played in the Hoofdklasse, back in 2006.

Having succeeded in staying up last season and even at one stage challenging for a place in the top four, ACC will be aiming to go one better this time and sustain their challenge all the way through to the cut-off point at the end of July.

They will be strengthened in that ambition by the acquisition of Kamran Shafiq and brothers Rizwan and Zishan Akram from relegated neighbours VVV, although the batting will miss the mercurial talents of Bas van der Heyde, who has elected to play in the seconds.

The player-coach will again be Ryan Maron, back for his fifth season in the Netherlands and his second with ACC. He will be joined by 18-year-old left-arm spinner Michael Rippon, who played a few games for VRA two years ago when Maron was coaching there; a Dutch passport holder, Rippon is another of those talented overseas players who could in due course come into contention for a place in the national squad.

With the Akrams joining international allrounder Mudassar Bukhari, his brother Farukh, and skipper Mohsin Ghaznavi in a five-man seam attack, ACC will certainly not be short of bowling. Apart from Rippon, their options will also include home-produced seamer Ollie Lodder, Xander Udo, and spinners Ajit and Maninder Kamboj.

Then there’s evergreen former international Zulfiqar Ahmed, now 44, who is Maron’s likely opening partner and who also picked up 14 wickets last season, while the club will also be looking to former youth international Steven de Bruin to demonstrate his undoubted talent with the bat and behind the stumps.

Rood en Wit will open their campaign on 2 May with a home match against defending champions Excelsior ’20 Schiedam, while ACC will take on HCC at De Diepput.