Logan van Beek is not hiding behind clichés. On the eve of Netherlands’ T20 World Cup group match against the USA he spelt out where Dutch cricket sits – and where it doesn’t.
“I think Test cricket at this stage is not a focus because it could be one of those things where we do really well, we get qualified and then we play one Test in two years, which is just you know, it doesn’t help.”
That sentence lands hard because it is, essentially, the situation. The Dutch have no first-class competition at home, limited finance, and a playing group scattered across the globe. Test cricket sounds lovely, but the numbers don’t stack up.
Key facts first
• Netherlands are appearing at their 11th global tournament (across 50-over and T20 formats).
• The current side is made up of locally-based players and overseas professionals with Dutch ancestry.
• There is no domestic red-ball structure in the Netherlands.
Van Beek’s short, sharp summary of the domestic landscape underscores the point. “Right now the Dutch only play T20 and one day in the club system,” he said. “There’s no first-class cricket. No one plays first-class cricket in the Netherlands. They don’t have a red-ball [tournament] at all. And there’s only a couple of us that play first-class cricket in the squad.”
In other words, asking an Associate side to jump from 20-over shoot-outs to five-day matches is a stretch. T20, he argues, keeps the dream realistic and the doors open. “In T20, you know, on the day, as we can see, any team can beat any other team. One-day cricket, it gets a little bit longer. So the quality normally rises when you come to Test cricket. Quite often, the better team will win on the day, and that’s where the pool of players needs to be, and the first-class system needs to be at a level that is challenging and competitive, so that when you go and play Test cricket that you’re actually competitive.”
Money talks
Everything circles back to funding. Van Beek began a point, paused, then half-laughed at the simplicity of it. “Right now the funding that we get in order to do…” He left the sentence hanging, but the meaning was clear enough: resources dictate ambition.
“So I think, right now, I think our focus is on T20 and 50 overs and and making the final stages of these tournaments, and if we can make the final stages of these tournaments, then our push is that, you know, sponsors funding. Our ranking goes up and we get more funding through that way.”
Put plainly – win white-ball matches, boost profile, attract sponsors, repeat. It is a sustainable loop in a way that scheduling the occasional one-off Test is not.
Overseas pros, local benefit
The Dutch model relies on dual-nationals: Roelof van der Merwe, Colin Ackermann, Paul van Meekeren and van Beek himself all learn their four-day craft elsewhere. That arrangement could be threatened if Netherlands were suddenly granted Full-Member status, triggering overseas player rules in other countries.
“For example in my situation, I obviously play in New Zealand as a first-class cricketer and if we at the Dutch get Full Member status then I would become an overseas [player] in New Zealand so then I can’t play first-class cricket in New Zealand and then I have to only play one-day and T20 for the Dutch.”
He is matter-of-fact about the implication. “So I think right now it works well for the Dutch that guys can come in play and then also go back to their kind of local nation be a first-class cricketer. So maybe down the down the track [Netherlands could push for Test cricket], but right now T20, one day, it works well.”
Context, not hype
Dutch successes in white-ball cricket are well-documented: beating England at Lord’s in 2009, stunning Ireland in 2014, toppling South Africa in Adelaide in 2022. Those results happened because the side is built for the sprint. Sustained, red-ball excellence requires infrastructure that – at present – simply is not there.
A quiet, incremental approach might not grab headlines, but it seems the pragmatic route. Invest in youth, keep the pathway open to county and provincial cricket, target Super 12s and Super Sixes, bank the ICC prize money, and revisit the Test dream when the base is broader.
For now, van Beek and the Dutch are comfortable staying in the fast lane of white-ball cricket, even if the red-ball highway is the romantic route. It’s hard to argue when the evidence – and the budget sheet – adds up the same way.
