The Dutch plans for their Intercontinental Cup match against Scotland in Aberdeen later this week have been disrupted by an injury to batsman Eric Szwarczynski (pictured right).

Szwarczynski broke a bone in his hand while batting at a squad practice on Monday, and is likely to be out of action for at least three weeks, and probably longer. That means he will very probably also miss the Intercontinental Cup match and two ODIs against Bermuda later in August.

He will also be out for the national Twenty20 finals on 11 August, and much or all of the run-in in the Hoofdklasse competition for his club, VRA Amsterdam.

But the immediate concern is the effect on a Dutch squad already weakened by the absence of top players, including Bas Zuiderent, and the unavailability through county commitments of Ryan ten Doeschate.

National coach PJ Bakker has added VOC batsman Maarten van Ierschot to the party as a replacement for Szwarczynski.

Van Ierschot has had a reasonably profitable Hoofdklasse season so far, making 301 runs at 27.36 as an opener for his club, and he is currently 18th in the national averages.

It is a worrying feature of the Dutch scene, however, that Bakker had thin resources to choose from: with experienced players like Tim de Leede, Luuk van Troost and Daan van Bunge having retired from international cricket after the World Cup and Zuiderent unavailable, there is hardly a wealth of talent knocking on the door.

The Hoofdklasse batting statistics are largely dominated by overseas professionals and older players who are not available for the national side.

But with a line-up comprising Tom de Grooth, Alexei Kervezee, Nicky Statham, van Ierschot, Peter Borren, Geert Maarten Mol, Atse Buurman and Mudassar Bukhari, The Netherlands will go into the Aberdeen match determined to give a good account of themselves.