Pieter Seelaar, believes he has learnt to cope with the loss of key Dutch players from his team, with at least three first-choice players certain to play in the T20 Blast rather than the opening ODI against England in Amstelveen on Friday.
Colin Ackermann, Fred Klaassen, and Roelof van der Merwe will all play for their respective counties on Friday night, while Paul van Meekeren would have if he hadn’t injured his ankle. Timm van der Gugten and Brandon Glover, both members of the Netherlands team for last year’s T20 World Cup, are also not participating in the England series.
In principle, the KNCB (the Dutch board) can compel counties to release players under the ICC’s “mandated release” regulations, but in fact, players are hesitant to jeopardise their county contracts by missing significant portions of the English domestic season. Klaassen, who played in the Blast for Kent on Tuesday night and will fly to Amsterdam on Wednesday morning before the third ODI, characterised the scenario as a “juggling act.”
“It’s a question I’ve had to answer now on a number of occasions,” Seelaar said on Thursday. “It is frustrating, but you kind of get to live with it. We’ve played four [full] series in the Super League and you always want to have the best players available at all times which is, unfortunately, not true.
“But it also created opportunities for other guys and I think we showed in the West Indies series that we can still be competitive without having – arguably – our best side out. That comes with heart from the guys who want to show how good they are and what they can do at this level. It’s frustrating, but it’s something we deal with.
“You can’t get any higher than that while playing against England. It would have been lovely to have them, but that isn’t how things operate these days. It would be good if anything could be altered, but I suppose it’s quite difficult.”
Eoin Morgan, his rival, and Adil Rashid both made their England T20I debuts in the 2009 game, and Seelaar stated that a third win in this series would be “great.” “It might be a scar for England but for us, it’s just joyful memories,” he said.
