Significant changes are afoot in Dutch domestic cricket, with the top three divisions reverting to eight teams as from 2026.
After a long process of discussion and consultation, the KNCB informed the clubs on Saturday that the changes would be put in train as from this season.
The proposals were drawn up by a nine-man working party, including Board member Reinout Scholte, competition overlord Adriaan van den Dries, and administrators from seven clubs, a cross-section of those taking part in the top three divisions.
Scholte said this week that the Board had undertaken the review of the competitions in response to the debate in a February 2024 general meeting about changes to the structure of recreational cricket.
“Those specific changes were not accepted by that meeting,” Scholte added, “but the Board recognised that we needed to future-proof the competitions, and strike a better balance between serious, competitive cricket and the recreational game.
“The league pyramid as it has existed in recent years has been like a figure with big feet, huge hips and a tiny head, and we needed to step back and look for an improved system.”
Responding to calls for a clear vision for the domestic leagues, the working party took on board a recent report from the Dutch Olympic Committee (NOS*NSF), which reviewed top competitions across a range of sports.
“We were convinced,” Scholte says, “that since our greatest opportunities in international cricket are in the T20 format, it did not make sense that our domestic T20 Cups were not as well structured as the 50-over competition.
“We agreed that in future there should be double round-robins in both 50-over and T20 formats, and there are simply not enough playing dates available in a Dutch summer to achieve that with ten-team divisions, where you would need a minimum of 36 matches.
“That was the basis for our conclusion that we needed to go back to eight-team divisions.”
Apart from an emergency post-pandemic arrangement in 2022, when there were twelve teams in the Topklasse and eight in the Hoofdklasse, there have been ten-team divisions in the top sections since 2017, when the Board decided to expand from the eight-team competitions which had been in force for seven years.
The changes mean that three teams will be relegated from the Topklasse at the end of the 2025 season while the Hoofdklasse champions will be promoted, while no fewer than five sides will drop down from the Hoofdklasse to the Eerste Klasse (Division 3).
In a partial compensation for this, the Eerste Klasse will be split into two eight-team sections from 2026, so that the total number of teams playing in the top three divisions will increase marginally from 30 to 32.
In contrast to the last two occasions when the size of the top divisions was being changed, in 2009 and 2016, there will be no play-off between the champions of the lower division and the highest-placed of the relegation-threatened teams; in the case of the Topklasse, for example, the side finishing eighth will simply be playing in the Hoofdklasse in 2026.
The transitional arrangements also mean that there will be no finals round in the coming season; instead, there will be a full double round-robin of 18 matches, with the team finishing on top of the table being declared the national champions.
The 50-over leagues will run during the first part of the season, from 26 April to 3 August, with the T20 competitions, comprising a single round-robin in this transitional period with semi-finals and a final, commencing on 10 August.
It will also be another very busy summer for the national men’s team, and clubs are likely to be without their Dutch internationals for much of the season.
Scotland and the UAE will be in the Netherlands between 2and 16 May for a League 2 series, and the Dutch will then travel to Scotland for another League 2 engagement, this time involving the hosts and Nepal, from 1 to 19 June.
After a one-week break the Netherlands will be hosting the European qualifier for the 2026 Men’s World T20 Cup, a five-team tournament also involving Guernsey, Italy, Jersey and Scotland, from which two places are available in the global event in India and Sri Lanka.
No sooner will that have been decided than the inaugural European T20 Premier League is, after many false starts, scheduled to get under way, running from 15 July to 7 August.
All of which means that, with English county-contracted players most likely unavailable for most if not all of the summer, the Dutch-based internationals are unlikely to play much of a part, at least in the season’s 50-over league.
Which in turn raises questions about whether the clubs will see the point of employing professionals who are going to be unable to turn out in more than a few games – and that threatens the viability of a system which has underpinned the successes of the national men’s side over the past decade and more.
Players who could conceivably be affected by this include national captain Scott Edwards and fellow wicketkeeper-batter Noah Croes, who are currently turning out for Richmond and Melbourne University respectively in the Victorian first-grade competition; Logan van Beek, who is enjoying considerable success with New Zealand first-class side Wellington; and South Africa-based players like Michael Levitt and brothers Ryan and Kyle Klein.
The obvious solution would be for the KNCB to give such squad members central contracts, but the parlous financial position which the Board reported to the December general meeting, requiring substantial cutbacks across all areas of the Bond’s activity, makes this impractical.
Scholte acknowledges the problem, and says that the KNCB is in discussions with the affected clubs and with the Dutch Cricketers’ Association about possible solutions.
“The most important thing is to be honest and open about the situation,” he says, “and we all want to find a way forward which is fair for the clubs, the players and the national team.”
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