Deventer will host two of this season’s Clydesdale Bank 40 League matches, joining Amstelveen and Rotterdam on the Dutch extension of the English county circuit.
The Salland club revealed at the weekend that it would be welcoming Middlesex and Derbyshire to the Schootveld complex it shares with football club Kon. UD, in the Netherlands’ first two home matches of the 2011 campaign.
The matches will be played on Thursday, 12 May and Tuesday, 17 May respectively, and will follow the Orange Lions’ first four away games, to be played between 24 April and 2 May.
Het Schootveld is the Netherlands’ newest ODI venue, having received definitive recognition in August 2010, but it also has the oldest turf square in the country, and pitches there are in many people’s opinion the best available.
Salland chairman Theo Sikkema said on Sunday: ‘It’s fantastic that we can already offer Deventer these two outstanding matches. We have already had the first e-mails from supporters in England who want to come to Deventer to support their team.
‘We will be working hard to make this into a real cricket festival.’
The matches against Kent and Worcestershire on 17 and 18 July will be held at the Hazelaarweg, the VOC ground in Rotterdam, while the VRA ground in Amstelveen, which hosted the first two home matches in last season's campaign, will be the venue for the games against Sussex and Yorkshire on 30 and 31 July.
Thurlede, the Excelsior ’20 ground in Schiedam, successfully hosted two matches last season, but its new square was stretched to the limit by a heavy schedule, which unexpectedly included two World Cricket League matches transferred at very short notice from Voorburg.
Having made a fairly modest start in the CB40 competition last season, winning just one of their twelve matches, the Orange Lions will be looking to build on their experience there and in the forthcoming World Cup to give a better account of themselves this time. One can only hope that the Dutch cricket community turns out in force to support their team, and more than match the travelling support of their opponents.
The full home programme is:
Thursday, 12 May Middlesex Deventer Tuesday, 17 May Derbyshire Deventer Sunday, 17 July Kent Rotterdam Monday, 18 July Worcestershire Rotterdam Saturday, 30 July Sussex Amstelveen Sunday, 31 July Yorkshire Amstelveen