With the latest weather forecast for Thursday’s Ascension Day holiday looking a good deal more promising, Dutch cricketers will have their fingers firmly crossed in the hope that there is no repeat of the opening day’s washout.

For those who are about to embark on the Clydesdale Bank 40 League adventure time in the middle is especially important, and coaches, managers and the players themselves will be hoping that the rain stays away, permitting a full series of matches to be played.

The pick of the day’s Hoofdklasse fixtures may well be the clash between defending champions Excelsior ’20 and their predecessors from 2008, HCC. Once again the HCC ground is unavailable – the demands of the footballers are becoming increasingly ridiculous as their season bleeds into mid-May – and the match will be played at Klein Zwitserland.

It will feature two of the centurions from Sunday’s round, in Excelsior player-coach Ed Cowan and HCC exchange player Imran Nackerdien. Their contributions had a big hand in their side’s victories, but in both cases the bowlers played a significant part as well.

With seamers Mark and Maurits Jonkman, Bernard Loots and Philip van den Brandeler, backed up by the offspin of Johan Myburgh (whose four-wicket haul finished off Rood en Wit), HCC have the more impressive attack, and it will provide a severe test for Cowan, Daan van Bunge and the rest of the Excelsior batsmen.

But with Tom Heggelman combining effectively in a new-ball partnership with Usman Malik and former international Seb Gokke as first change, Excelsior will be hoping to be able to put the home side under pressure as well in what should be an extremely interesting encounter.

The other winners from Sunday, Hermes-DVS Schiedam and VRA Amsterdam, will be looking to consolidate their start to the season at home to ACC and Rood en Wit respectively.

A Nick Statham century set up Hermes’ victory over Quick, but Derek de Boorder also made a promising start with the bat. But it is the bowling which has been the Schiedammers’ mainstay in the past, and ACC’s batsmen struggled at the weekend on a bowler-friendly pitch against VRA.

Player-coach Ryan Maron will need more support from the rest of the top and middle order if ACC are to make match-winning totals, although the bowlers gave them a decent start until they ran into the international combination of Eric Szwarczynski and Tom Cooper. Mudassar Bukhari looks out of sorts, but he is the kind of player who can suddenly produce a match-winning performance from out of nowhere, and he may find the Harga straight boundary irresistible.

For Hermes, the return of left-arm seamer Ernst van Giezen adds another dimension to the attack, and in international spinner Pieter Seelaar they also have a potential trump card. This could be another match where runs are at a premium.

The miserable spell of weather recently probably means that the ground in the Amsterdamse Bos will not be the batting paradise it has sometimes been by mid-May, but even so VRA’s batsmen will no doubt relish being back on their own turf for their encounter with Rood en Wit.

The Haarlem side failed to gel against HCC on Sunday, but it is certainly not short of talent or experience, and it is surely only a matter of time before the new recruits combine effectively with the longer-standing members of the side.

Shahbaz Bashir did well with both bat and ball against HCC, while Vishi Sankarasubramaniam proved that he will be a real asset in the attack. But VRA are never a comfortable prospect at home, and with Sohail Bhatti, Masood Khan and Adeel Raja all having made a good start with the ball they will go into this game with a good deal of confidence.

In the remaining match, VOC Rotterdam have home advantage against Quick Haag in a game both sides, having lost on Sunday, will be very determined to win.

VOC made a better fist of their run chase against Excelsior than Quick did against Hermes, the latter collapsing for 71 for no wicket to 137 all out, and the ‘Haantjes’ will need to improve a good deal on that effort if they are to mount an effective challenge.

With three wickets and a half-century Geert Maarten Mol stood out for Quick, while player-coach Jono Boult also made a promising start. Of the rest of the top and middle order only Alex Pototsky reached double figures, however, and the others will need to hit form quickly to give their side a chance.

VOC’s relatively modest attack, with new recruit Andrew Hoogstraten playing in the seconds as he recovers from injury, conceded the highest total of the day on Sunday, and that will be a cause of some concern to skipper Maarten van Ierschot. But there’s no doubt about the quality of the batting, and their battle with the Quick attack should be one of the more interesting encounters of the round.

With a 50% record last week, I’m considering throwing away the crystal ball, but for what they’re worth my Ascension Day tips are: Hermes, Excelsior, VRA and VOC (who were, incidentally, though not necessarily in that order, my pre-season candidates for the top four . . . ).