Young Dutch squad face UAE in four match T20 series

The veritable smorgasbord of European cricket continues with the Netherlands men’s XI (currently ranked 13th) and the UAE (16th) facing off in 4 T20 Internationals, starting with the first match today from the VRA Ground in Amsterdam.

With a number of players unavailable through County and GT20 Canada commitments, Dutch coach Ryan Campbell has taken the opportunity to select a number of younger players, like Tonny Staal and Hidde Overdijk from HCC cricket club in The Hague, Philippe Boissevain of Voorburg CC and Sebastiaan Braat who plays for the Schiedam-based team Hermes DVS.

In his two years in the role, Campbell has executed a deliberate strategy of exposing previously unheralded youngsters at the highest level to help develop and grow the depth of local talent in Dutch cricket. The endeavour appears to be paying off considering recent results, especially the 3-1 (2-0 ODIs, 1-1 T20Is) scoreline against Zimbabwe in late June.

“This is a very important series for us. We haven’t called back any of the County players, nor those in Canada. I am looking forward to seeing the performances over the four matches, which will be in the front of my mind when we sit down to finalise the squad for the T20 World Cup Qualifier in October,” Campbell told Emerging Cricket.

Fresh off leading VOC Rotterdam to the inaugural European Cricket League title Pieter Seelaar continues as national captain and Scott Edwards, who topped the ECL batting charts, will be the wicketkeeper. Stephan Myburgh is also back in Orange for his first chance back in around a year.

Unlike the Dutch, UAE has recalled the majority of their players from the GT20 in Canada, although there are reports two remain in Brampton and will miss this series.

Fixtures (all matches start at 4.00pm CET)

• SAT 3 August, VRA
• MON 5 August, VRA
• TUE 6 August, Voorburg CC, Groene Zoom 20, Den Haag/Voorburg
• THU 8 August, Voorburg CC

Netherlands squad:

Pieter Seelaar (C), Philippe Boissevain, Sebastiaan Braat, Ben Cooper, Scott Edwards, Brandon Glover, Vivian Kingma, Stephan Myburgh, Max O’Dowd, Hidde Overdijk, Tonny Staal, Saqib Zulfiqar, Sikander Zulfiqar.

UAE squad:

Muhammad Naveed (C), Rohan Mustafa, Ashfaq Ahmed, Rameez Shahzad, Muhammad Usman, Muhammad Boota, Zahoor Khan, Qadeer Ahmed, Ahmed Raza, Sultan Ahmed, Ghulam Shabbir, Darius D’Silva, Zawar Farid, Waheed Ahmed.

Reserves: Abdul Shakoor, Chirag Suri