Sometimes what isn’t said in a meeting can prove to be as significant as the discussion which actually takes place.

That may prove, in due course, to be true of the short debate in Thursday evening’s general meeting of the KNCB which led to the approval of the request by Hoofdklasse club HBS Den Haag to be allowed to play their home games on an artificial outfield for at least the next two seasons.

Even allowing for the fact that club representatives were rapidly tiring in a meeting which had already lasted more than three hours, and that those who came from the most far-flung areas were beginning to worry about the possibility that their cars would turn into pumpkins before they got home, there was a marked contrast between the discussion eighteen months ago, when the meeting firmly rejected any thought of such a radical departure, and the rather desultory debate this week.

It must be acknowledged that HBS, supported by the KNCB’s own Accommodation Committee, had done its homework, and spokesman Pim van der Vegt was able to argue convincingly that the new ground could scarcely be worse that the one that his club have been playing on for the past few seasons.

And the fact that the proposal was strongly underwritten by Ton van Huut, the Accommodation Committee’s chairman, gave additional weight to his arguments. As did the fact that with the local authority and the club having already taken the decision, the KNCB was effectivel presented with a fait accompli.

But there were several points which might reasonably have been made by any opponents of the pilot scheme, but weren’t.

It is, for example, striking that there seems to be no Plan B: it has been agreed that there will be a review in autumn 2009, but what happens if, notwithstanding the assurances that the new generation of artificial surfaces have proved under test conditions to be suitable for cricket, rival clubs – or even HBS themselves – decide in mid-season that there are fundamental problems? It would be reassuring to know that the question had at least been thought about.

It is one thing to measure the bounce of the ball or the response of the surface to weather conditions, but what about the implications for young seamers, running in hard and planting their front foot in the delivery stride, ball after ball, over after over? Maybe it will be fine – but we’ll only know once it starts to happen.

And let’s suppose that such fears prove to be groundless, that the ground behaves itself beautifully, that batsmen are encouraged to hit cracking cover drives all along the ground, that fieldsmen are able to hurl themselves around without fear of injury, and that the enthusiasts for artificial grass receive nothing but encouragement from the experiment?

Where will that leave us?

Sebastian Archbold from Kampong, one of the few Dutch clubs with a turf square but also one with a large hockey section, a very small cricket one, and a local authority as keen as any to install artificial pitches in the name of economy and efficiency, received little support in his anxiety that the acceptance of the new HBS ground would put the future of their own facility in doubt.

And it was striking that nobody mentioned the current situation in Deventer (as already reported by CricketEurope), where there is already a possibility that the oldest turf pitch in the country will disappear under artificial pitches.

The local authorities need little encouragement to accelerate the drive towards artificial grass, and Van Huut’s cry of ‘if you can’t beat them, join them,’ on the surface a counsel of realism, just might turn out to be a recipe for a defeat for cricket in the longer term.

Nor do the footballers and hockey-players need much encouragement to take advantage of the existence of all-weather pitches to extend their seasons further. It is already difficult to keep young cricketers in the sport, with cricket’s rivals creeping relentlessly across the summer.

On 16 April 2006, in the light of the previous discussion, I wrote: ‘What seems necessary is a clear strategy from the KNCB, one which lays down both the minimum and the optimal facilities for the development of Dutch cricket and gives the national body itself and its member clubs the ammunition they need in dealing with government agencies and other sports.’

Eighteen months on, the Accommodation Committee has invested a good deal of time and effort trying to ensure that we get the best artificial surfaces possible, but there is no sign of a more proactive policy to define and argue for the optimal physical facilities for cricket’s development.

Individual clubs in Den Haag and Schiedam are working hard to develop turf squares, but where is the overall plan, which establishes the number and ideal location of turf pitches needed for hosting big international tournaments and the highest levels of domestic cricket; the number of grounds with grass outfields and good artificial pitches we require; and the places where an entirely artificial ground is adequate for clubs’ foreseeable needs.

With such a document, the KNCB would be in a position to get into serious discussion with the Vereniging van de Nederlandse Gemeenten (the Dutch national body for local authorities) through its daughter-institution, the Vereniging Sport en Gemeenten (Association for Sport and Local Government), with the Dutch Olympic Committee (NOC/NSF), and if necessary with the government itself.

These are discussions that the clubs cannot possibly win on their own, but a comprehensive national policy might give the cricket community a chance to hold the line against the steadily rising tide of synthetic green.