In a surprise move on Monday, the KNCB Board postponed the scheduled consultation meeting between its Top Cricket Nederland group and the clubs, which was to have taken place on Tuesday.

The meeting, the third in a series which began in September, was to have discussed the latest TCN proposals for the restructuring of Dutch domestic cricket.

But the discussion paper circulated by TCN, which sought to pursue a modified version of the proposal to introduced a two-day component in the premier club competition, so angered several of the leading clubs that they declared that they saw no point in attending. They accused the TCN leadership of ignoring the counter-arguments which they had put forward at previous meetings.

KNCB chairman Marc Asselbergs told CricketEurope on Monday that he was also concerned that there appeared to be differences between the Board’s position and that set out by the TCN document.

‘In those circumstances,’ he said, ‘it would have been premature to go ahead with a meeting which would probably have been extremely contentious and from which several major clubs would have been absent.

‘We’re in a crucial phase of the discussions, and it’s vital that we have an agreed strategy.’

Board member Gijs Tettelaar, who is responsible for the developments in Top Cricket, acknowledges that his team may have been trying to move too quickly.

But he finds it sad that many clubs are only prepared to support change until their own interests begin to be affected.

‘We have pushed the introduction of multi-day cricket at club level rather than through a regional competition because we don’t believe the regional approach is practicable – the clubs can’t be relied upon to co-operate by making their players available,’ Tettelaar says regretfully.

‘But it’s a positive thing that we have at least got the Dutch cricketing community thinking hard about the directions in which our cricket needs to go. That in itself is progress.’

The author of the discussion paper and the driving force behind the proposals, Derick Maarleveld, said on Monday evening that he was disappointed that it seemed that no further debate was possible.

‘It’s a bad sign for democracy,’ he said, ‘if the clubs are not prepared to discuss the best way forward.’

Maarleveld, too, argues that the introduction of a regional competition is a non-starter because past experience suggests that the clubs will fail to support it.

‘Too many people are obsessed with Twenty20 cricket as the solution to all our problems,’ he says, ‘but experienced first-class cricketers tend to agree that it’s in the longer forms of the game that the essential skills are learnt.’

The TCN leadership will now meet on Thursday to consider its next move.

There seems to be a real danger that a combination of the all-or-nothing approach of the TCN and the resistance of many clubs will result in little or no change being agreed – an outcome which would also run the risk of sending the wrong signals to the ICC, which will be keeping a watchful eye on the course of events in The Netherlands.