Cricket: Dutch summer fixtures and a new call-up to the squad

Ben Fletcher tends to spend his summers in Bournemouth, driving up and down the country in his 2003 Toyota Auris to pitch his case in club games and for Dorset, waiting for his phone to ring. For a phone call offering him a trial, or even better, his first professional contract.

So when Ryan Cook, the Netherlands head coach, shot him a message last week informing of his first International call-up, it ended a nervous wait over the weekend for the 24-year-old.

“Cooky was at the IPL (Indian Premier League) and he shot me a message, ‘I really want to call you, but the schedules are just so hectic with the time zones. But congratulations. I know how much this means to you and how hard you work.’ I won’t be deleting that message, I was pretty happy to get that one,” he told Dutch News on the eve of the team’s departure to Dundee.

Fletcher, VRA’s 6ft 5ins left-arm seamer, has been named in a 15-man squad to take on Nepal and Scotland in Dundee for four Cricket World Cup League 2 ODIs which act as qualification for the 2027 World Cup.

With 12 wins from 20 matches, the Dutch currently sit second only two points adrift of the USA and have the opportunity to strengthen their standing at the top. With four ODIs and a T20I series to follow in Glasgow with the majority of UK-based county players unavailable, he is highly likely to make his debut at some stage.

Raised in Dorset, Fletcher is half-Dutch through his mother’s side of the family, originally from Leiden but now based in Amsterdam, with whom he now spends the summer.

His has been a circuitous journey. Prior to joining VRA last year, back home, he spent his summers turning out in the Nottinghamshire Premier League for Wollaton CC on Saturdays and back for Dorset in the National Counties set-up on Sundays. All this while waiting for his phone to ring for an odd second XI appearance on the county circuit.

“It’s been a grind,” he says in a distinct southwestern accent.

“On a Friday night, I would drive up from Bournemouth to Nottingham. A four and a half hour drive, play my club game on a Saturday, get straight back in the car. Do the four and a half hour drive back down south to play for my Minor County, Dorset. If I was lucky enough to be in a position where I was getting a twos game in the week, I’d go straight from the Dorset game to wherever the twos game was being played.”

At various points, he has managed a trial game each for the second strings of Nottinghamshire, Somerset, Glamorgan and Northamptonshire without so much as a second opportunity let alone a professional contract.

Switch to the Netherlands

It was at Wollaton two summers ago that Paul McMohan, a former Nottinghamshire off-spinner currently working with the ICC as their Senior Legal Counsel, shot him a text encouraging him to make use of his Dutch passport and put in a word for him.

Two weeks later, Ryan Cook got in touch expressing his interest and Teja Nidamanuru, the Dutch middle-order batter, invited him to spend a season at VRA.

“It’s a completely different world to what it looked like a year before, waiting for the phone to ring as a twos player, just hoping for a gig. I just thought, ‘you know what, I might as well put all my eggs in one basket and see where it goes’. It was my first taste of Dutch cricket and it’s been fantastic.”

Things could have hardly gone better. He finished the season as VRA’s leading wicket-taker in the Topklasse, third overall, and in no time was fast-tracked into the national setup playing for the Netherlands ‘A’, even finding a spot on the plane for the pre-season tour to Cape Town over the winter.

It is obvious that Fletcher was on Cook’s and Chief Selector Jeroen Smits’ radar, his towering left-arm bowling brings the kind of variety the Dutch have been unable to find in Fred Klaassen’s absence.

If he can bowl the Dutch to a yet another T20 World Cup appearance with a spot up for grabs at the Qualifiers at Voorburg next month, it would cap off a meteoric rise.

Form guide and team news

The Netherlands are on a hot streak, winning five of their last six completed ODIs, with Scotland and Nepal appearing regularly on their schedules of late. They will be without Bas de Leede and Klaassen, the only two changes from the home series last month with Fletcher and Wesley Barresi coming in.

Scotland, who are placed fourth currently have handed recalls for batter Liam Naylor, left-arm spinner Olly Davidson (CWCL2 only), fast bowler Gavin Main (T20Is) and a maiden call-up for Essex batter Mackenzie Jones.

Nepal came unstuck off the bottom of the table in the most dramatic fashion – winning off a wide off the last ball with a wicket to spare – in Monday’s series opener to start a new era under head coach Stuart Law but need to string together a series of wins to be among the top four and earn a spot at the World Cup Qualifier.

All matches will be live streamed free on ICC.tv.

Squad:

The Netherlands: Scott Edwards (C, wk) Shariz Ahmad, Wesley Barresi, Noah Croes, Aryan Dutt, Ben Fletcher, Viv Kingma, Kyle Klein, Michael Levitt, Zach Lion-Cachet, Paul van Meekeren, Roelof van der Merwe,Teja Nidamanuru, Max O’Dowd and Vikram Singh.

Fixtures:

CWCL2 – 50 overs, start 11.00 AM local time (Scotland)

T20I series, start 3.00 PM local time (Scotland) – T20I squad to be announced separately