The KNCB’s inaugural national Cricket Congress, held in Amsterdam last Saturday in conjunction with the spring general meeting, can be accounted a qualified success.

Attended by some 70 people – a reasonable number, but perhaps a little disappointing given the importance of the topics under discussion – the Congress was designed to provide an opportunity to debate the future of the sport in a more open manner than is possible within the confines of a business meeting.

The core of the event comprised five parallel groups, which reported back to a plenary session immediately before the general meeting. This inevitably meant that the reporting phase was somewhat compressed, and there was no opportunity for further discussion of the cross-currents resulting from the parallel sessions.

It also appears to have had an effect on the general meeting itself, which was a fairly tame affair in comparison with its recent predecessors. With some of the most important issues already having been discussed in the Congress, there seemed to be much less appetite for detailed discussion in the meeting.

Perhaps the most significant idea to emerge from the event was something which had in any case been taking shape behind the scenes: a proposal for a modified organisational structure for cricket in the Netherlands.

This was discussed in a group led by Youth Committee chairman Derick Maarleveld, who drew some interesting comparisons between Dutch cricket and the structure in Australia.

Only 4 per cent of Australia’s 540,000 cricketers take part in the higher-level competitions, Maarleveld pointed out, whereas in men’s cricket in the Netherlands the figure is 35%.

This suggests that broadening the sport’s base in the Netherlands was a high priority, a view supported in other groups dealing with youth recruitment and the diversification of forms of the game.

To that end, discussions over the winter between the Board and the Youth Committee have led to a proposal to build two parallel organisational structures, respectively Top Cricket Nederland (TCN) and Social Cricket Nederland (SCN).

A first step in this direction was subsequently taken by the general meeting, which elected Gijs Tettelaar and Albert van Nierop to the Board as portfolio holders for senior and junior ‘Top Cricket’ respectively.

In the end, of course, the success or failure of this approach will be determined by what the new organs actually do, and that will depend in large measure on how the ideas developed in the other parallel groups – not to mention the Board and its committees – are put into effect.

The most disturbing statistics remain those which show that more than 60% of the KNCB’s member clubs have no youth team, and it is equally a matter for concern that, with some of the biggest and most active clubs heavily represented at the Congress, the absentees included many who most need to get their act together if Dutch cricket is to flourish.

It is also a little worrying, to some of us at least, that in some quarters the Twenty20 format is seen as a panacea to cure all the game’s ills.

No doubt it is true that the Dutch media, and especially television, are likely to find the smack-bang-wallop of Twenty20 a more attractive ‘product’ than, say, a four-day international against Kenya.

And that for many social cricketers the shorter form of the game would be preferable to a whole day given up to a 40- or 50-over match.

The success of last season’s experiment with a national Twenty20 competition suggests that further developments in this direction, as part of an integrated national plan for the development of Dutch cricket, have much to recommend them.

But some of cricket’s most important skills and disciplines can only be developed in longer forms of the game, and there is plenty of evidence that young Dutch cricketers already get insufficient opportunity to practise them under truly testing match conditions.

One really starts to worry when it is suggested, as it was at one point on Saturday, that the pace of life in the Netherlands is just too hectic to accept a game which takes a whole day – never mind three or four days – to play. If that became the watchword, we might as well give up and let everybody go off and play baseball.

There is, fortunately, little sign so far that the KNCB is minded to begin a Gaderene rush towards Twenty20 cricket.

And one of the most positive features of the day was the initial presentation by new national coach Peter Drinnen, who outlined his approach to the sport and to coaching, reported on the recent tour to Namibia and the UAE, and took the opportunity to mark out a bid for next winter’s international programme in preparation for the all-important World Cup qualifying tournament next spring.

The challenge for the projected Top Cricket Nederland will be to ensure that the growth of Dutch cricket is led by continued success on the international field, and that the upper levels of the domestic game are built to maintain that success for the future.