Four clubs go into the finals day of the inaugural Nachenius Tjeenk Twenty20 Cup this Saturday with their eye on not only the trophy, but also the top prize of €10,000. It’s a curious fact that winning the premier Dutch competition, the Hoofdklasse, carries no financial benefit, while this new event is comparatively richly rewarded.

With the weather set fair for the weekend, the KNCB is hoping that the finals day will attract a large crowd, reaching out beyond the supporters of the four participating clubs. Hermes-DVS Schiedam, the hosts, have put a lot of effort into making the day a success, and would naturally be delighted if their side were to crown it all by walking away with the cup, and the prizemoney.

But the other winners of the regional finals, VRA Amsterdam, Quick Haag and Rood en Wit Haarlem, will naturally have other ideas.

Quick may go into the semi-finals as favourites to take the title. They have a powerful batting line-up, with Jeroen Brand, Job van Bunge, Darron Reekers, brothers Henk-Jan and Geert Maarten Mol, Australian coaches Sean Clingeleffer and Chris Rawson, and captain Edgar Schiferli all capable of playing destructive innings.

They came through the tough Den Haag group unbeaten, twice racking up 190 in their twenty overs, and will present a formidable threat to the other sides. Nor is their seam attack negligible, Somesh Kohli joining Schiferli, Reekers, Brand and the Mols, with Lesley Stokkers adding a spin option should one be needed.

The luck of the draw pits them against VRA in the first of the day’s semi-finals, starting at 10 a.m. It’s a match which many Dutch cricket fans would have seen as a worthy final, with the form side in Twenty20 cricket taking on the team which has dominated the Hoofdklasse for much of the past decade.

But VRA have yet to demonstrate that the game’s shortest form suits their style, and they had to come from behind to win the Amsterdam group, having lost to VVV in the first pool match. In players like Tjade Groot, Ryan Maron, Peter Borren and Wesley Barresi they have their share of hard-hitting batsmen, however, and skipper Darrin Murray, top of the batting averages in the Hoofdklasse, played a near-perfect Twenty20 innings in a match against the Flamingo’s on Wednesday evening, hitting 67 in just 37 balls.

They will be weakened by the absence of Eric Szwarczynski, and there are doubts over Borren’s ability to bowl because of a nagging knee injury. Newcomer Sohail Bhatti will lead the seam attack, but with Adeel Raja, Mangesh Panchal, Jeroen Oskam, and Neil Fairbairn all in the mix, VRA may rely on spin to a greater degree than any of the other sides.

Hermes-DVS came through the tightest of all the regional groups, although the outcome was undoubtedly affected by bad weather. They have the advantage of playing at home, on a ground where their seam attack, led by Robin ter Plegt and Ruud Nijman with Erik Hartong and Harro Seelaar as back-up, supported by the spin of Pieter Seelaar and Pankaj Joshi, can frequently be a handful.

The question is whether their batting is powerful enough to match the other sides, although with Nicky Statham in his best batting form for years they certainly cannot be written off. They will miss ex-coach Greg Todd, who played in the group phase, but will have another former coach in Gavin McRae, who showed in last week’s Hoofdklasse match against Excelsior that he can still be very effective with both bat and ball.

Their opponents in the second semi-final are Rood en Wit, who easily won the weakest of the four groups, entirely comprising Eerste Klasse clubs. Having seen their hopes of winning the Eerste Klasse and returning to the Hoofdklasse take a heavy blow last weekend, when they lost to Quick Haag 2 and Dosti, they will be more determined than ever to cause an upset by seeing off the contenders from the top flight in the Twenty20 Cup.

Their trump card is coach Nathan McCullum, who has just been included in the New Zealand squad for the Twenty20 World Cup in South Africa next month. A McCullum innings is capable of winning one of these games all by itself, and Hermes will need to get him early if they are to have a chance of reaching the final.

Rood en Wit will be without his fellow-Kiwi Shaun Haig, who guested for them in the last regional matches, but captain Jarrod Englefield, with plenty of first-class experience in New Zealand but now living permanently in The Netherlands, also adds class to the batting.

There is more doubt about the bowling, but McCullum is also valuable in this department, while the experienced Farhaad Sardha will give little away.

Such are the uncertainties of Twenty20 cricket that any one of these sides could take this inaugural competition. The one certainty is that there will be plenty of action at Sportpark Harga this Saturday.