The KNCB Board faced its constituents on Thursday evening in a long – and at times fractious – general meeting, by the end of which it was possible to say a little more about how the leadership intends to tackle the many problems facing the sport in The Netherlands.

But lots of questions remain unanswered, and if there was no concerted criticism of the Board’s approach, there were sufficient warning signs from the body of the meeting that the concerns which led fourteen prominent members of the Dutch cricket community to draft a highly critical memorandum last September have not yet been resolved.

The topic may have been cricket, but KNCB Chairman Marc Asselbergs adopted the old footballing axiom of ‘get your retaliation in first’.

In a series of presentations, he reviewed the achievements of the past twelve months, and outlined the Board’s plans for a reversal of the contraction of the sport over recent years and for the reanimation of youth cricket.

It is clear from the numbers that the problems aren’t trivial: not only has the number of teams dropped from 140 in 1985 to 108 last season, but of the 880 youth players who turn out each weekend, nearly 70% come from just eight of the KNCB’s 70 clubs. Fifty clubs have no youth section at all.

The Board proposes to tackle this situation by stimulating and supporting more initiatives at club level, arguing for the appointment of a development manager in every club and drawing up plans, recruitment materials and other aids to ensure that they are able to work effectively within an overall framework of expansion.

There should be a ‘moral obligation’ on clubs at Hoofdklasse and Eerste Klasse level to form youth sections, and the Board accepts that the decision to abolish a separate youth portfolio was mistaken. With a Board member responsible for the youth programme and a reconstituted Youth Committee, and with co-operation from the touring club Flamingo’s (a traditional supporter of youth cricket) and Still Going Strong (the Dutch version of the Forty Club), it is hoped to give new impetus to the development of junior cricket.

This ambitious programme was broadly endorsed by the meeting, although there were calls for more precision in the Board’s plans, and warnings from some clubs that the formation of youth teams was limited by the lack of sufficient grounds.

There were also complaints that plans for a further increase in sponsorship income – which has more than doubled to €175k. over the past year – were not presented in a more concrete form, and there was a good deal of regret that the Board member with the Sponsorship portfolio, Marcel Beerthuizen, was unable to attend.

That said, the budget for 2008, which assumes sponsorship income of €225k. and aims at an operating surplus of €2,270 in a turnover of €1.03m., was accepted virtually without demur. Treasurer Steven Hartman is confident that the deal for the leading Associates which is due to be agreed by the ICC Board next July and which will run from 2009 to 2013 will provide a much more secure platform for the KNCB’s activities.

After all that excitement in the first two-and-a-half hours, the rest of the meeting went by at an accelerating pace.
Asselbergs acknowledged that the appointing procedure for the new national coach had not been well handled. He did, however, confirm that the Board’s preference lay with former Scottish coach Peter Drinnen, subject to the completion of a number of formalities, which had delayed the official announcement.

He also confirmed that Bart Lubbers, the Board member responsible for international cricket, had resigned for personal reasons.

The proposal to allow Hoofdklasse club HBS Den Haag to play their home matches on an artificial outfield for a trial period of two years was approved by a large majority.

And the meeting heard about a large number of proposed changes to the playing conditions for the top competitions, including the introduction of power plays in the Hoofdklasse, the extension of the Duckworth/Lewis system to the Eerste Klasse, the introduction of automatic punishments for offences against the disciplinary code (subject to a subsequent right of appeal), and a move to inter-regional quarter-finals after the group phase of the Twenty20 competition.

After the controversy over the venue for this year’s Hoofdklasse final, the clubs have voted to restrict the venue for 2008 to the ground of one of the top four sides. All these changes, arising from the Board's consultations with the Hoofdklasse and Eerste Klasse clubs, will be hammered out in an ad hoc working party over the winter.

Earlier in the proceedings, several annual trophies were awarded. Joost Kroesen (Excelsior ’20) won the Steven Lubbers Trophy for the best under-12/13 player, Nikki Vieler (VOC Rotterdam) the David Trist Trophy at under-15 level, and Stijn Allema (Quick Haag) the Don Bradman Trophy at under-17/19 level. The Fair Play Cup went to Hercules Utrecht.