There were few surprises in Ryan Campbell’s Dutch squad for the World T20 Cup in October (and hopefully November), with just three changes to the fifteen names from those who were at the Qualifier in 2019.
There are returns for left-handed opener Stephan Myburgh and allrounder Logan van Beek, both of whom made their case effectively during the northern summer, and for 21-year-old Bas de Leede there is reward for a year of steady progress.
They come in at the expense of Tobias Visée, Shane Snater – both of whom are named as reserves – and of Tonny Staal, who appears to have been overtaken by De Leede as the most promising of the younger brigade.
Myburgh, now 37, has played 48 T20 Internationals for the Netherlands, making 1293 runs at an average of 30.79 and at a strike rate of 125.66; his last appearances in the format were in 2019, but he narrowly failed to make the cut for the Qualifier.
He could be an effective opening partner for Max O’Dowd, although depending on the balance of the final side that role could also go to either Ben Cooper or to wicketkeeper Scott Edwards.
Van Beek did not play for the Netherlands between 2017 and 2021, but he has come back into the reckoning this year with some strong performances in ODIs, as well as for Derbyshire in the ECB’s Vitality Blast.
He joins a pace unit which also includes Fred Klaassen, Brandon Glover, Timm van der Gugten and Paul van Meekeren, who get the nod ahead of Snater and Viv Kingma; the latter again misses out, having continued to be plagued by injury worries.
Spin options will include the left-armers Roelof van der Merwe and Pieter Seelaar – another with injury problems over the recently-concluded Dutch summer – and the leg breaks of Philippe Boissevain, with the off-spin of Colin Ackermann also at the skipper’s disposal.
Ackermann will, of course, also play a key role in the batting line-up, where he will rejoin Ryan ten Doeschate as well as O’Dowd, Myburgh, Cooper, Van der Merwe and Seelaar, and possibly De Leede.
All in all, it’s a versatile outfit which is not short of potential match-winners and which looks well-suited to conditions in Oman and the UAE, although nobody will be underestimating the task ahead of them as they take on Ireland, Namibia and Sri Lanka in the tournament’s opening phase.
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