by Tim Wigmore
England were already out of the tournament by the time they faced the Netherlands in their last group game, but no one would have made the associates favourites. England were still the big boys in this contest. The Dutch didn’t see it that way.
They batted first and set 134 for England to win. Borren was not happy with this at the innings break. He felt that they had not pushed on in the death overs as they should have done. In hindsight he said they had an above par score. The pitch was tired, as was shown in the Sri Lanka v New Zealand match that immediately followed this match. In that match Sri Lanka set New Zealand 120 to win and bowled them out for 60. To see a full member side struggle as they had against the Sri Lankan bowlers must have pleased the Dutch, although it would be unlikely for any of them to ever admit it.
Looking back, he thought they would have to bowl well to win. Borren, ever the perfectionist, isn’t convinced that they did. They could have executed their plans even better. Watching from the outside, they seemed to get things spot on. They bowled England out for 88 with Mudassar Bukhari and Logan van Beek the stars as they picked up three wickets each. The point where there was no way back for England was the wicket of Ravi Bopara as he departed to leave his side 74/7 with only the bowlers left to come.
Van Beek was the bowler, Seelaar the catcher. For Seelaar the time that his side had playing county cricket helped playing England. These players weren’t unknown to them; the Dutch had played against England and done well against them before. There were no mysteries; they were not overawed or star-struck by the England players.
This was a clinical performance that saw them sweep aside a full member nation. England will no doubt have been disappointed with how they played, but the Netherlands were worthy winners. The most striking part of discussing this match with the players involved is that they seemed underwhelmed by this win. They won against England, but the real focus is the games that they should have won but didn’t. England was a consolation victory. This tells you a lot about the belief that Borren and his side have in themselves.
Dutch cricket has a long association with the English county game, not least from cricketers who have played for county sides. Fast bowler Andre van Troost was a Somerset stalwart throughout the 1990s. Roland Lefebvre also played for Somerset before moving to Glamorgan and playing a leading role in their victorious Sunday League campaign in 1993. In 1995, the Netherlands national team were playing in the one-day cricket knockout competition. They competed every year up until it went from straight knockout to a league format in 2006, although they were already knocked out of the 2003 event in 2002 qualifiers.
A Gentlemen of the Netherlands side toured England a few times at the turn of the 20th century, with an MCC side returning the favour in 1902. Despite that, cricket in the Netherlands remained very much a local sport. There were a few players who did make some waves in England, J.E. Rincker, Carst Posthuma and Henri van Booven among them, but it wasn’t until after the Second World War that cricket spread out from the elite that played the game in its beginnings.
After the war, an influx of immigrants from former British colonies saw people bring a love of the game with them and that opened things up to a wider range of people in the Dutch clubs. It seems that this was welcomed by most, even though it changed the make-up of the clubs. Having more cricketers was good for the game but those new cricketers didn’t venture overseas to play. It wasn’t until Paul-Jan Bakker got a deal with Hampshire that a Dutchman played county cricket as a professional. He was joined by Roland Lefebvre and Andre van Troost when they started playing for Somerset in the 1990s, but these Netherlands players in county cricket are few and far between.
Bakker had a successful career with Hampshire as a bowler, playing for the county for six seasons. Lefebvre made his first-class bow for Somerset against Oxford University in 1990. Van Troost joined him at the West Country side a year later, making his first appearance against a Surrey team that featured a young Waqar Younis and an even younger Graham Thorpe.
Van Troost turned out for Somerset for seven seasons, mostly in first-class cricket. By the mid-1990s Lefebvre had been forced to retire from county cricket due to injury, but alongside Bakker he was a member of the first side from the Netherlands to compete at a Cricket World Cup.
Even now, Lefebvre talks in excited terms about getting to play cricket for a living. It was his dream. As a youngster he used to drive into Rotterdam with packed lunches and deckchairs to watch Test cricket on a big screen outside a news agency. It was his passion, it was his hobby and it became his job. ‘I had posters of Viv Richards, Graham Gooch and David Gower on my bedroom wall,’ he recalled.
The chance to join Somerset first came about thanks to an appearance against England A, where his Dutch team beat a strong England side that included Nasser Hussain, Alec Stewart and fatefully, Peter Roebuck. It was Roebuck who first discussed the possibility of Lefebvre getting a gig at Somerset and that set the wheels in motion. He was a mainstay of the Somerset team the next season.
The highlight for Lefebvre came in 1993 with Glamorgan. ‘I was probably the missing link in that Glamorgan side. At the same time I was playing with Viv Richards in his last year in professional cricket. He is just the most amazing person I have played with. The inspiration, the aura, the energy he exudes was just amazing. It is something that I will never forget in my lifetime.’
Lefebvre is now involved in Dutch player development and van Troost was briefly the CEO of the KNCB until he decided cricket administration was not for him. Bakker was the coach of the Dutch team, albeit briefly, in 2007. These men were the trailblazers who helped turn Netherlands cricket into a force on the international stage. All of them played a part in getting them to the World Cup in 1996.
Since then some Dutch players have turned out in county cricket, but not as many as those from Ireland and Scotland. Ryan ten Doeschate was playing county cricket before he played for the Netherlands, having been an Essex regular for over a decade. Bas Zuiderent was at Sussex from 1999 to 2003. Dirk Nannes has had various county stints, though not all would consider him Dutch. In recent times it is only Alexei Kervezee, who plays for Worcestershire, but no current members of the Dutch national squad have a county contract.
This is something that Borren would like to see change. ‘[Playing county cricket] has never been anything for me, but for some Dutch players it should be something they do in the future. It is a healthy thing for Dutch cricket. There is a young guy called Viv Kingma who could be a sensational bowler who swings the new ball at 140kph. He is an incredible talent, not just by Dutch standards but by any standards. It is a good pathway, and playing in England can help us develop our players.’
As is often the case with county cricket, there was a decision to revamp the one-day competition for the 2010 season. The 18 first-class counties were to take part along with a Minor Counties composite team called the Unicorns. Scotland and Ireland were also invited to participate. Ireland declined, deciding that they were better served by trying to play more international games than being ‘the 19th county’. The Netherlands were asked if they would take Ireland’s place and they readily agreed. The competition lasted for four seasons before the inevitable reshuffling of the county fixture list saw the involvement of these additional teams brought to an end.
The first season was a tough one for the Dutch; they won just the one match, against Derbyshire. The next two seasons were more positive. In 2012 the Dutch were in contention for a semi-final spot for most of the competition. They won five of their first seven games and spent much of the group stage at the top of the table. They weren’t there to make up the numbers.
Seelaar found taking part in the tournament a positive experience. ‘I thought it was a really good thing for us. It was a massive disappointment to be out of that tournament when the schedule was restructured. We were competing. Not to point the finger or to be unkind, but if you look at the results Scotland got they only won two or three games. Whereas we were conte
nding for top spot in 2012.’
The exposure to county cricket helped when it came to playing England in the World Twenty20. So much of elite sport is about belief. If you can clear your mind of the fear of failure and have faith that you deserve to be playing at that level you have gone a long way to winning. After that it is just a case of doing what you have done thousands upon thousands of times in practice. When the Netherlands walked out to bat against England in Bangladesh at an ICC world event, none of the players on the opposition overawed them. They had played them, and beaten them, before.
‘By the third year we were thinking to ourselves, “These are just average county players”,’ Seelaar said. ‘Every time we played them it was their overseas star that was getting the runs. We didn’t feel like we were worse than them.’
For Borren, playing regular cricket was the part that he liked most. ‘As a Dutch team we are pretty used to going on tour, and we are pretty used to playing tournaments, but to have regular games throughout the summer at Test grounds and on good surfaces, week in week out was really good for our development as a side.’
As with all things where a full member and an associate are involved, the arrangement only lasted as long as it suited the English cricketing authorities. Once it was decided to move to a 50-over competition that was split into two groups, the Dutch were dropped like a holiday romance. It could be that we see the Netherlands playing in county cricket again, but we may have to wait a while.
To become a cricketer in Europe having not come from a family with links to the sport is a matter of happenstance and commitment. It is something that you have to make a real commitment to from an early age. Playing cricket in a country where it is on TV, where you play it at school, where it is an established and mainstream sport. Those things are easy. Deciding that cricket is to be your game when most of your school friends will not have a clue about it, is a brave decision. Not one for the faint-hearted, we will never know how many promising cricketers have turned their backs on the game because it meant spending less time with their friends for something few understand.
One of the first to make an impact in domestic cricket having learnt the game in mainland Europe was Ole ‘Stan’ Mortensen. A Danish tax inspector in training when he was first spotted by an English county, he discovered cricket by accident. The teenage Mortensen was walking past a field one day when he saw a sport he had never come across before. There were men wearing white clothes chasing a red ball around. He sat on a bench and watched for a while, trying to work out what was going on. Eventually one of the players asked him if he was interested in playing.
A talented natural sportsman who wanted to be active all the time, Mortensen agreed readily to coming back at the weekend to learn more about this weird game. He came to the ground fresh from playing in a football match and keen to find out more. No sooner had he arrived than he was being asked to play. He had never held a cricket bat, cricket ball or even fully understood the rules. He batted at 11 and top-scored. He was hooked. His immediate success gave him ‘real motivation to learn – it kick-started my career’.
For Seelaar, his introduction to the game was similar but less down to happenstance. Many football clubs in the Netherlands also play cricket. While the cricket section is smaller, many clubs run cricket sessions for the youngsters playing football to introduce them to the game. With cricket not being part of the school curriculum, this is often the first introduction to the game that a Dutch youngster has. Seelaar said for the most part, people in the Netherlands don’t know it is a sport or that it is played by the Dutch. You need to be led to it; it won’t find you.
‘Once you are in love with cricket,’ Seelaar reflected, ‘there is no way back. It has got you.’ But without the sport being widely played in schools the chances of that happening to a young person in the Netherlands are remote. It was clear to the coaches that Seelaar had a natural ability for cricket and they were quick to take him to one side and ask him to play the game more often. That push towards the game was all that was needed to get him more involved and he had the bug.
That is not to say that being a cricket-playing youngster was easy. Seelaar admits that by the time he was a teenager he nearly walked away from the game. His friends would refer to cricket as a ‘geek sport’, and as the teenage instincts to fit in and impress became all the more important to him he seriously considered packing it in.
This is a problem not just in associate countries, but elsewhere. Cricket isn’t a sport that is all over by 12noon on a weekend, leaving you free to meet friends, male or female. Cricket requires sacrifice in terms of time. The chances are you will be gone for the whole day and that means seeing less of your friends than you would like. The old stagers of your cricket club who smell of sweat and Deep Heat are not as appealing as a pretty young thing who wants to go to the cinema with you.
One of the aspects of associate cricket that is most obvious when you speak to the players is the sacrifices that they needed to make to play the game. It isn’t an easy choice to play cricket. Whereas in full member countries there is a career path that is well-trodden and clearly marked, in associate nations cricket is not a career choice. It is only in the last few years that the KNCB has been able to offer professional contracts to players, but even then only five players made the cut. When you think that the UK has around 400 county players and many more people who are paid to turn out for club sides, it shows you the divide that exists.
If you decide that you are going to make international cricket your hobby, you will need an understanding family, partner and employer. There will be late-night training sessions after a full day’s work. There will be times when you are paying out of your own pocket for equipment, travel and accommodation. There will be annual leave that is used for travelling to play cricket and family celebrations missed to represent your country.
Any sportsman who makes it to international level will have made countless sacrifices; those in associate cricket nations like the Netherlands have done so with virtually no chance of financial reward and worldwide fame.
The challenge for the KNCB is to grow its player base. All those involved are aware of this and know the obstacles that it faces for this to happen. There is no cricket in schools apart from the odd ‘taster’ session and club cricket is losing playing time to football and hockey. Young cricketers are being tempted away by other sports that take less time to play and cost less money for their parents.
Roland Lefebvre said that in his role as high performance manager at the KNCB he hasn’t seen ‘athletes’ coming through the age-group programmes. Those boys and girls are taking part in other sports. The question for the KNCB is how it makes cricket an attractive option as a young person’s summer sport. By 2018 it wants 80 per cent of the team to be players who learnt the game in the Netherlands. That is a target it will have to move mountains to achieve.
On-field success is one of the ways that you draw people into the sport and by getting in ‘hired guns’, as Peter Borren has described them, is one way that you can do that. However, that is a short-term solution that doesn’t address the real issue – playing numbers. With so few people taking part in the game, the other associates that are coming up on the inside of the Dutch will fly ahead and disappear out of sight.
Dutch cricket is run by good people but if they want to stay as one of the big boys outside of the mainstream, or even still challenge to get inside the club, they need to make the game a mainstream choice for Dutch kids. For Borren, Test status has no interest for him. They don’t play four-day cricket in the Netherlands and the chances are they never will. He wants his side to get permanent ODI status and regular high-class opponents to play against.
There is no reason why cricket cannot do this. There is constant harping about ‘preserving records’ as if that is what the sport is for. As if cricket is about filling up dusty yellow books with numbers so that they can be brought down once in a while and looked at. In other sports there are no such f
ears. Football is no worse off with the leading international goalscorer being Ali Daei of Iran. Rugby still has context with Daisuke Ohata of Japan as its leading international try-scorer.
Cricket is so much more than that. It is a sport that you can truly fall in love with, and with every passing year, you learn more about it and yourself. We should want to spread that joy, not tell ourselves that other countries are not worthy of it. Don Bradman played against weak sides, so did Garry Sobers, Brian Lara, Shane Warne and Sachin Tendulkar. To suggest that by keeping the footprint of cricket as small as possible helps the sport is blinkered and illogical. Look at what the Dutch have done with virtually no money and some 5,000 players. Think what they could do with some extra cash and 10,000 players, or 20,000. Open the door, let them in, fund them, and watch the sport we love grow.
Kenya by Tim Wigmore
PRIVATE security companies in Nairobi employ over 100,000 people. Tranquillity is hard to come by in Kenya’s capital but the Gymkhana Club, a ten-minute drive north of the city centre – notorious traffic permitting – provides it. It is a private members’ club opened by a former British Governor of Kenya that has all the features of exclusive establishments the world over: swanky restaurants, tennis courts, a swimming pool, a snooker room and much more.
Encircled by jacaranda trees, the Gymkhana Club Ground is a magnificent setting for cricket and has staged games for over a century. Yet it has not hosted an international match since 2010. For one glorious day, on 24 February 2003, the Gymkhana Club Ground was the fulcrum of the cricketing world. Kenya were hosting their first game in the Cricket World Cup, against Sri Lanka. ‘Just the fact that Sri Lanka were playing us at home was a big, big thing for us and the cricket fraternity,’ captain Steve Tikolo reflected. ‘Imagine a World Cup match being played in your own backyard.’