Associate teams have been pushing the established order pretty hard at the 2026 T20 World Cup and as much as Netherlands want to keep that trend going they seem so starkly aware of gains that will be good for them and gains that might not be. For the moment, Test cricket fits in the second category.
The Dutch allrounder Logan van Beek went into the details on the eve of their match against the USA: “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 points to systemic issues away from home, speaking of which there’s one at home that needs to be overcome. “Right now the Dutch only play T20 and one day in the club system,” van Beek 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 T20, you know, on the day, as we can see, any 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.”
Van Beek now circled around to the other challenge that faces Netherlands and their cricketing progress – money. He started with it, initially saying “Right now the funding that we get in order to do…” and stopped so he could explain the domestic structure in the Netherlands.
“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 we get more funding through that way.”
This Netherlands team also derives a portion of its strength from overseas professionals with Dutch ancestry like Roelof van der Merwe and van Beek himself.
“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 in T20 for the Dutch.
“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.”
Netherlands’ record backs up the clarity in van Beek’s argument. This is their 11th World Cup appearance, across both white-ball formats, having played for the first time in 1996 and some of their wins resonate through history – 2009 against England, 2014 against Ireland and 2022 against South Africa.
