When Emmerson Trotman first played professional cricket in Holland 25years ago, there was hardly any attention to the sport in the Dutchcountry

Haydn Gill24-Jun-2001When Emmerson Trotman first played professional cricket in Holland 25years ago, there was hardly any attention to the sport in the Dutchcountry.I couldn’t understand why they were getting mixed up between cricketand soccer, the former Barbados batsman said.Fifteen years later, however, cricket has developed to the extent thatHolland are on the verge of qualifying for the World Cup for thesecond time.And Trotman, who played 21 first-class matches for Barbados between1975 and 1982, is there to guide them as coach.When I first went to Holland no one really showed any interest incricket. There were a lot of foreign players in Holland because thelocals were not good at that time, he said.But now it has changed. It’s the other way around. We’ve got 95 percent of Dutch players now. The interest has picked up a lot.The heavy presence of Holland-born players is emphasised in thecomposition of the national team’s 14-man squad which is climaxing itspreparations for the forthcoming International Cricket Council (ICC)Trophy with two practice matches against a Barbados Select XI atKensington Oval today and tomorrow.The Dutch squad includes two Pakistan-born players and a NewZealander, but the other 11 were born in Holland, and a few of themhave been exposed to English cricket at one level or another.The most notable one is their captain Roland Lefebvre, a 38-year-oldall-rounder who had played county cricket for Somerset and Glamorgan.I always believe the way to go is to play your own home players asmuch as possible, said Trotman, who has been Holland’s coach for thelast four years.You have to rely on one or two foreign players no disrespect to them,but you’ve got to build your own team.Holland, however, have been set back by the late withdrawal of one oftheir most promising batsmen for the ICC Trophy which is slated forToronto from June 29 to July 17.Bastiaan Zuiderent, a 24-year-old right-hander, is currently playingfor Sussex in the English County championship. The club is willing torelease him for the tournament, but he prefers not to disrupt a seasonin which he has made his debut first-class hundred.Even without Zuiderent, Trotman believes the Holland team is more thangood enough to finish among the top three among the 24 ICC associatemembers seeking to qualify for the 2003 World Cup in South Africa.We are classified as the favourites, which I don’t really like toomuch, the 46-year-old Trotman said. I prefer to be underdogs, butwe’ve got a good side and we’ve got a fantastic chance.Holland had their only previous taste of the World Cup in 1996, butsome of the experienced players believe the current side is better.Trotman, who has also coached South African province Border, hasrecognised the rising standard of the game in the Dutch country.It’s grown tremendously and a lot of it has to do with the foreigncoaches out of Australia and West Indies, he said. The foreign coacheshave helped improve the Dutch standard of cricket. It’s up to a goodstandard now.In recent years, some of the ICC Associate members have made strides.Bangladesh have become the tenth Test-playing nation and Kenya areseeking to join them.Is Test status also a big priority for Holland?It’s not an immediate goal, Trotman said.We don’t have the population of cricketers to accommodate thatsituation right now. But we’ve got the number that we can be veryhappy with One-Day International status.The response is not surprising when you consider that the Dutchcompetitions are mainly in the shorter version of the game.But the fact that they have as many as four divisions, along with aveterans league, two women’s divisions and four Under-18 competitionssuggest cricket is really taking off in Holland.