Hard on the heels of the information that the format for next season’s Clydesdale Bank 40 League will remain unchanged comes the draw for the three groups, with the Orange Lions matched up with three of the same sides they faced in 2010.

Since that means return visits to Headingley, where they opened this year’s campaign with a respectable performance against Yorkshire, Lord’s and the County Ground in Derby – scene of their one and only victory – it will to some degree be the Mixture As Before.

But there will be three new opponents in Kent, Sussex and Worcestershire, all of whom present interesting challenges. Visits to Canterbury, Hove and Worcester will, moreover, add a good deal to what promises to be a slightly more relaxed summer for the men in orange.

One of the issues Peter Drinnen and his side will have to confront is how to maintain momentum across twelve demanding matches. After a decent start to their debut season, which included a narrow defeat at home to Essex as well as that victory over Derbyshire, the exhausted Lions fell away badly in August, not only losing all their matches but proving unable to raise their game when they needed to.

The weather, of course, was against them, especially at Chelmsford where the combined effects of a heavy shower, a less than glowing performance by the Essex ground staff and the Duckworth/Lewis system robbed them of what little chance they had of again running the county close. And the two matches in Rotterdam simply bordered on the farcical.

But those are conditions the county players deal with day in and day out, and once the Dutch had lost the surprise factor which worked in their favour in May, the difference between fulltime professionals and part-timers was only too clear.

Much attention will naturally fall on the Worcestershire fixtures, where the Orange Lions will encounter national team-mate Alexei Kervezee. He will doubtless be determined to do better than Essex’s Ryan ten Doeschate, whose contribution was twice limited to 2, both innings totalling just 11 deliveries.
Worcestershire are, though, largely a team without big names, and they finished only fifth in Group A last season. Former England ODI batsman Vikram Solanki will be one to look out for, but as they plan their campaign Drinnen and skipper Peter Borren will possibly be eyeing the Royals as candidates for an upset defeat.

Sussex and Kent – the fact that they’re next-door neighbours makes them naturals for a South Coast double weekend – both finished second in their respective groups in 2010, and neither will be easy opponents.

Sussex have England keeper Matt Prior, spinner Monty Panesar, Ed Joyce of Ireland, England and (probably) Ireland, not to mention Murray Goodwin, a former Zimbabwe Test batsman who is also a former coach at Excelsior ’20 Schiedam. And Kent are captained by another former Test batsman in England’s Robert Key, while they also have South African international Martin van Jaarsveld and an old acquaintance in South African-born Scottish seamer Dewald Nel.

It all amounts to a mouth-watering prospect, and one can only hope that Dutch cricket fans respond by turning out in larger numbers than they did in 2010. The crowds for the Lions’ home games were generally disappointing, with visiting county supporters sometimes outnumbering the locals. Sportsmen need support, and one cannot help feeling that as Chris Wright tore in to bowl the crucial final over for Essex in the Amsterdamse Bos on 21 May, the vociferous cheering of his fans helped to give him the edge over the nervous and comparatively inexperienced Dutch.

It will be a crucial season, in more ways than one. The ECB evidently came close to restructuring the competition for next season, and the voices challenging the right of the Netherlands and Scotland to take part will doubtless be louder and more numerous in a year’s time, unless these sides can take a big step towards the level which their opponents take for granted.

And of course, with the 2011 World Cup in the past, and cricket’s New World Order perhaps excluding the Associates from the planned ODI League and future World Cups, there will be an underlying question about what it’s all for.

The answers need to be given on the field, and Drinnen’s side will have twelve opportunities to demonstrate why the leading Associates have a legitimate claim on a place on that stage.