In the midst of the debate about restructuring at every level of Dutch cricket, it is interesting, and perhaps even instructive, to look back at the season which is just coming to a close.

On the international scene, it has been a year of decidedly mixed fortunes.

The great achievement, of course, was the qualification for next year’s World Twenty20 tournament, bringing with it the huge prizes of a $US250k. cash injection and matches against England and Pakistan at Lord’s next June.

It was the result of a supreme team effort, from the initial victory over Kenya, in which The Netherlands recorded the highest total of the tournament, to the battling win over Scotland which secured the Dutch qualification and must have given national coach Peter Drinnen a very special kind of satisfaction.

But against that, and the encouraging performances of the A team in their tournament at the end of August, must be weighed two losses in the Intercontinental Cup, at home to Ireland and Kenya, and a fairly dismal European Championship, in which The Netherlands were not only thumped by Ireland and Scotland but managed to lose to Italy as well.

Two factors played a big part in these disappointments: the unavailability, through injury or through rival commitments, of a number of key players, and a lack of adequate preparation which has nothing to do, on the whole, with a lack of commitment by players and coaches, and everything to do with poor support from the KNCB. The absence of match practice in advance of the European Championships, and the squad’s last-minute arrival in Dublin, meant that the players faced an Italian side which had arrived early and played a warm-up game.

The lesson of the Intercontinental Cup match against Namibia had evidently not been learnt, but it is to be hoped that the triumph in Belfast, which demonstrated what could be achieved by a squad which had been together for a week and had played four one-day matches, will mean that a Dutch side will never again be sent onto the field so woefully underprepared.

Individually, there are several players who have made significant progress on the international stage, or who have produced evidence that they have a future there. Left-arm spinner Pieter Seelaar staked a strong claim for the Most Improved Player award, bowling splendidly in four-day, one-day and Twenty20 matches alike, while Eric Szwarczynski, with two ODI fifties, cemented his place in the batting line-up and Mudassar Bukhari (pictured above) not only used the new ball to great effect but revealed in Belfast that he could do equally well bowling at the death.

Among the players appearing for the first time, Rifaiz Bakas showed that he has a real contribution to make at the top of the batting order, while Lesley Stokkers, too, made a promising debut, showing great fighting qualities in his partnership with Atse Buurman in the Intercontinental Cup match against Kenya.

It was a year of change in the Hoofdklasse, with last season’s champions, VRA Amsterdam, just squeaking into the play-offs only to be comprehensively beaten by Quick Haag and VOC Rotterdam, second in the table for the past two years but now without a match-winning coach like Michael Dighton or Xavier Doherty, finishing a disappointing seventh.

Quick, for several years a strong unit which never quite realised its potential, really came good in 2008, losing only three times on their way to the play-offs. But in the final they were beaten by an HCC side which was not only equally strong on paper, but performed better on the day.

Overseas coaches again played an enormous part in the Hoofdklasse, as indeed they are paid to do.

Excelsior’s Mark Cleary scored most runs (801) and took most wickets (40), completing in three seasons the remarkable allrounders’ double of 2000 runs and 100 wickets. Antonio Mullins (Hermes-DVS) also performed well with both bat and ball, while Wes Thomas (Quick Haag) and Shane Deitz (HBS Den Haag), neither of whom is renowned for his deadly bowling back home in Adelaide, picked up plenty of wickets as well as scoring 556 and 619 runs respectively.

Four other coaches made more than 500 runs: VRA’s Ryan Maron (773), HCC’s Johan Myburgh (772), Sparta 1888’s Mohammed Wasim (691) and VVV Amsterdam’s Mohammed Hafeez (561).

But another encouraging feature of 2008 was the response of several leading Dutch players to Peter Drinnen’s demand that members of his squad should ‘dominate’ in domestic cricket.

Darron Reekers (Quick), for example, almost doubled last year’s aggregate with 692 runs at 40.71, while Peter Borren (VRA), with seven half-centuries among his 670 runs, showed admirable consistency with the bat as well as taking 23 wickets.

Quick’s Geert Maarten Mol, taking second most wickets after Cleary with 34 at 18.91, was another who upped his game significantly, also scoring heavily opening the innings for much of the season and finishing with 404 runs at 31.08.

All told, thirteen Dutch-born or –qualified players had batting averages over 30 (as against eight in 2007), and the same number claimed 20 or more wickets. That’s no grounds for complacency, but it does provide a certain basis for further improvement.

Having said that, only Quick and HCC were consistently able to field eleven players who looked at home with the demands of the Hoofdklasse, while at the lower end of the table Voorburg, VVV and Sparta struggled all season to compete.

ACC again dominated the Eerste Klasse, and earned a return to the top flight – regardless of any restructuring decisions that may be made over the winter. It will be interesting to see whether they are better able to cope than they were during their last, one-season sojourn in the top division in 2007.

There is no shortage, either, of other matters that need to be addressed: the perverse KNCB version of net run rate and rain rules which are evidently too opaque for some umpires clearly need to be reformed, while it is a matter for real concern that no fewer than three Hoofdklasse clubs were unable to use their own ground for at least some part of the season.

The most glaring case is, of course, HBS Den Haag, whose experimental artificial outfield was delayed by mistakes by the local authority and who played their home games on a Klein Zwitserland ground which, to put it gently, presented enormous problems to batsmen.

The quality of both pitches and outfields should be an issue of high priority for the Bond, and somehow or other the local authorities must be persuaded that grass is not put under a death sentence if you cut it to the proper length for a cricket ground. It is ridiculous that the national final should be played on an outfield where the most sweetly-timed cover drive comes to a halt before it can reach the boundary.

Let a final statistic illustrate the point. Wesley Thomas, one of the classiest batsmen to grace the Hoofdklasse in recent years, averaged 50.55 for Quick this season, but while his average away from home was 68.20, at Nieuw Hanenburg he could only manage 35.83. Might that not have something to do with the physical conditions?