Team: Netherlands National Cricket Team

The Dutch cricket team is a national cricket team representing the Netherlands. It is administered by the Koninklijke Nederlandse Cricket Bond (Royal Dutch Cricket Association) which is based in Nieuwegein in the centre of the country and is older than many renowned cricket clubs in the West Indies, Australia, and New Zealand.



Cricket has been played in the Netherlands since at least the 19th century, and in the 1860s was considered a major sport in the country. Many other sports (notably football) have long since surpassed cricket in popularity amongst the Dutch, and today there are around 6,000 cricketers in the Netherlands, making it the 25th most popular sport. The first national association, the forerunner of today's Royal Dutch Cricket Association, was formed in 1883 and the Netherlands achieved Associate Membership of the ICC in 1966.

The Dutch team has taken part in all eight ICC Trophy tournaments, winning the competition in Canada in 2001 and finishing as runners-up twice (in 1986 and 1990). The Netherlands have also participated in the 1996, 2003 and 2007 Cricket World Cups, and from 1996 onwards entered the English domestic NatWest Trophy competition (and its successor, the C&G Trophy). In 2004 they played first-class cricket as part of the ICC Intercontinental Cup, drawing with Scotland in Aberdeen and then going down to an innings defeat against Ireland in Deventer.

Several Dutch cricketers have also played at first-class level elsewhere, the most successful of these probably being Roland Lefebvre who played for Somerset and Glamorgan in English county cricket as well as for Canterbury in New Zealand. The Essex all-rounder Ryan ten Doeschate and Worcestershire batsman Alexei Kervezee are the only current members of the Dutch team to be playing county cricket. Dirk Nannes has played for Victoria in Australian first-class cricket and for Delhi Daredevils in the second edition of the Indian Premier League.

Other Dutch players to have played first class cricket outside of the Intercontinental Cup are:

    * Paul-Jan Bakker - who played for Hampshire from 1986 until 1992.
    * Tom Cooper - who currently plays first class cricket for South Australia
    * Bill Glerum - who played one first class game for the Free Foresters in 1957.
    * Dirk Nannes - who currently plays for the Victorian Bushrangers in Australia, the Delhi Daredevils in the IPL, and has played Twenty20 and ODI cricket for Australia.
    * Carst Posthuma - who played five first class games for London County Cricket Club in 1903.
    * Daan van Bunge - who played for Middlesex in 2004.
    * Andre van Troost - who played for Somerset from 1991 to 1998, and for Griqualand West in the 1994/95 season in South Africa.
    * Bas Zuiderent - who played for Sussex from 2001 to 2003.