Rod Lyall 19/04/2025
Champions in 2024 and defeated semi-finalists last year, Voorburg will be delighted to welcome back South African Gavin Kaplan, who topped the season’s batting averages with 701 runs at 77.89, hitting four centuries and three fifties in just ten innings.
Given that he also chipped in with 15 wickets at 18.67, he had a strong claim to be the overseas player of the year, and there is no doubt that the Westvliet club missed him sorely in their last five games, when he had returned to South Africa.
He will be joined this year by two Zimbabweans, 30-year-old international Carl Mumba and former Under-19 international Patient Charumbira, the latter making the short journey from HCC.
Mumba, who played 19 times for Zimbabwe across the three formats between 2016 and 2021, will reinforce an already strong Voorburg pace attack, which includes Viv Kingma – whose appearances may well be limited by national team commitments – and the steadily-improving Mees van Vliet, even if fitness problems continue to make Ryan Klein a useful off-spinner rather than one of the competition’s most effective pace bowlers.
Charumbira, too, is a more than useful medium-pacer, as well as a hard-hitting lower order batter.
Another acquisition is 20-year-old Australian Henry Melville, who plays for Melbourne University in the Victorian Premier competition.
A wicketkeeper and useful middle-order bat, Melville will perhaps be competing for the gloves with young Cedric de Lange when skipper Noah Croes is absent on national team duty; gifted behind the stumps, De Lange’s batting showed signs of growing maturity last summer, and with a maiden Topklasse half-century behind him he will be looking to establish his place in the side.
Voorburg have also picked up former national Under-18 captain Udit Nashier, who moves to Westvliet from VRA, where he only bowled six overs of spin in the Topklasse last season and, notably, posted his maiden half-century against the club he is now joining.
The only departure is Stijn de Leede, who has decided to try his luck with Hoofdklasse club Quick Haag this season.
With Michael Levitt (when fit and available), Nehaan Gagani and Nirav Kulkarni in the batting line-up, and Laurens Boissevain and youngsters like Alejo Nota and Tom de Leede also in the squad, Voorburg have enviable strength in depth, which will likely be a crucial factor given the club’s strong representation in the national set-up.
Skipper Croes recognises that restricted availability creates uncertainties, but believes that his squad is strong enough to challenge for a place in the top four, and possibly even head the table in this year’s playoffless competition format.
‘It will be a really interesting year with a format which is very positive for Dutch cricket,’ he says, ‘and the exposure which our younger players gained last year will stand us in good stead.
‘It’s really cool that Gavin Kaplan is coming back, and Henry Melville is a genuine problem-solver, who will adapt well to changing playing surfaces.’
There are big changes at HCC, with none of last year’s three overseas back this year, and an influx of locally-based players to join a new brace of imports.
One of the latter is New Zealander Oliver White, who had the tricky task of replacing Kaplan at Voorburg at the end of last season, but is now back for a full campaign at De Diepput.
Now back with Northern Districts, where he started his career, the left-arm spinning allrounder will be joined at HCC by another member of the Northern Districts squad, South African-born pace bowler Josh Brown.
Brown has broken into ND’s Plunkett Shield side over the Southern Hemisphere summer, and will doubtless slot into the new-ball spot vacated by Adam Leonard.
Equally significant for HCC’s prospects, though, is likely to be the return of Clayton Floyd and Henrico Venter from VRA and HBS respectively: Floyd had a relatively quiet season with VRA last year, but HCC will be hoping that he can return to the sort of form which saw him claim 37 Topklasse wickets in 2021 at a cost of 7.32 apiece.
Venter, who last played for HCC in 2023, has accumulated 60 Topklasse wickets for his three clubs, but had limited opportunities at HBS last year and will be looking for a more significant role following his return to De Diepput.
Other arrivals include youngsters Mark Wolfe and Dinand van Hommel, transferring from ACC and Hermes-DVS respectively, and South African Jayden Peskin, who was Western Province CC’s Most Improved Player for the 2023/24 season.
These seven join the club’s established players, again led by Boris Gorlee, who like Tonny Staal enjoyed only intermittent success last year. Both will be looking to recover something of the form which took them into the Dutch national side a couple of years ago, and which contributed significantly to the side’s Topklasse championship run in 2023.
The same applies to the middle-order contribution with the bat by allrounder Hidde Overdijk, although he remains a very effective member of the pace attack, having claimed 15 wickets last year at 15.88.
Among the younger brigade, Teun Kloppenburg, after a very productive introduction to the top flight in which he hit three successive half-centuries, had a poor run towards the end of last season and will be looking to get back into his best form, and Shirsak Banerjee will also hope to consolidate his place in the top order.
Seamer Teun Leijer’s 17 wickets in his first season at De Diepput was a very promising start, and he will again form part of a traditionally-strong HCC seam attack, alongside Brown, Overdijk and Daniel Crowley, the leading wicket-taker last year with 22 at 25.27.
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