The Dutch national squad sets off on its African safari on Friday knowing that its task is straightforward if demanding: only two outright wins, against Bermuda and Canada, will be enough to make The Netherlands the third European side to reach the Intercontinental Cup final in its first three years.

In retrospect, the third afternoon of the opening match of the competition, when the Dutch were unable to prevent Kenya avoiding the follow-on, has left them at a serious disadvantage, since Canada have secured outright wins against both Kenya and Bermuda in Toronto and now know that denying The Netherlands victory in Benoni would take them into the final.

Given that the Dutch will probably need to take forty wickets over the two games, it will be the bowlers who will play the more crucial role in South Africa.

It is, therefore, especially galling for Dutch coach Peter Cantrell that his side will be missing two strike bowlers, in Edgar Schiferli and Darron Reekers, through injury. Much will now depend on two South African-born seamers, the veteran Billy Stelling and Essex all-rounder Ryan ten Doeschate, and on the promising youngster Mark Jonkman, who will join the side fresh from the ICC Winter Training Camp.

Cantrell will also be looking to his young spinners, Muhammed Kashif and Pieter Seelaar, backed up by the leg-spin of Daan van Bunge, to secure vital wickets.

At the same time, the Dutch batting will need to perform more consistently than it did during the 2006 European summer, and Bas Zuiderent, ten Doeschate and van Bunge, the most experienced of the top order, plus teenager Alexei Kervezee, Tom de Grooth, and newcomers Eric Szwarczynski and Peter Borren, will have to make the most of the conditions if they are to give their bowlers the protection of solid totals.

Two factors may well work in favour of The Netherlands. One is the schedule, which means that they open the tour with the Intercontinental Cup match against Bermuda, who have already lost to Canada and had the worse of a draw with Kenya, and will also have played in an ODI tri-series against both opponents before taking on the Canadians in what is likely to be the group decider.

And the other is the absence of three key players, in experienced skipper John Davison, Ian Bilcliff, and Geoff Barnett – all of whom have played first-class cricket in Australia or New Zealand – from the Canadian squad. While the Dutch will be without allrounder Tim de Leede for the Bermuda match and skipper Luuk van Troost against Canada, the fact that Davison and Bilcliff in particular will not be playing is likely to hit the Canadians hard.

That said, Canada will certainly not be a pushover. With five players with a Caribbean background and six more who originally hail from the Subcontinent – slow left-armer Kevin Sandher is the only Canadian-born player in the squad – they will provide a stern test in both the Intercontinental Cup match and the tri-series which precedes it.

Opening bowlers Henry Osinde and Umar Bhatti have done consistently well in the Cup so far, the latter taking ten wickets the victories over both Kenya and Bermuda, and while the side’s form in the Americas Championship was indifferent there were valuable individual performances from opening batsman Sandeep Jyoti and from Sandher.

Much is likely to depend on the battle between Osinde and Bhatti and the Dutch top order, and on how well the weakened Canadian batting is able to deal with a Dutch attack which is also well below full strength.

Bermuda, on the other hand, have had even more of a roller-coaster year, winning the Americas Championship but struggling on the Kenyan leg of their African tour. But they, too, will present The Netherlands with some problems: left-hander Irving Romaine was in fine form with the bat earlier in the season, although he has not yet made runs in Kenya, and he, like seamers Stefan Kelly, Ryan Steede and Kevin Hurdle, will have benefited from their time at the Pretoria training camp.

And with Saleem Mukuddem the success-story of the matches in Kenya, taking six for 50 in the Intercontinental Cup match and three for 45 in the first ODI, and a batting line-up which includes Kwame and Janeiro Tucker, the experienced Clay Smith, and Glamorgan’s David Hemp, it would be dangerous to write them off.

Everything points to three fascinating weeks of cricket, at the end of which we will know a great deal more about the relative strength of the three sides in both forms of the game.