Author: tkcricket

Rod Lyall & Bertus de Jong 20/09/25

So, as the season nears its end, it’s time for us to come up with our seventh Topklasse Team of the Year.

RL: Once again, we cannot avoid the issue of overseas players, and how many we should include. Arguably, we could name a side like:
Janett (VOC), Doyle-Calle (Hermes-DVS), Kaplan (Voorburg), Walbrugh (HBS), Melville (Voorburg), Brown (HCC), Bangs (Kampong), Shahzad (Punjab-Ghausia), Ruffell (VRA), Ralston (Excelsior) and Rossouw (HBS)
which wouldn’t be too much of a travesty, but while it might make a point, it wouldn’t be a totally fair reflection of the season so far. So perhaps the sensible course is once again to give preference to local, or at least Dutch-qualified, players wherever possible, while including a small number of the most influential imports.

So here goes:

Starting with the openers, the first name on my sheet is that of Cedric de Lange (Voorburg), still eligible to play in the KNCB’s Under-17 competition but already a Topklasse regular, with 634 runs this season at 42.27. No other locally-produced opener has shown anything like the same degree of consistency, with some, like VRA’s Vikram Singh and HCC’s Tonny Staal, having distinctly disappointing returns. Musa Ahmad (Punjab) spent most of the season at three, but his promotion to opener brought him plenty of runs, and his 621 at 42.40 earns him a place in one or other of these positions. If we were to go for an overseas to partner De Lange, then Daniel Doyle-Calle’s 711 at 64.64 (at a strike rate of 105) for Hermes, although he fell away somewhat towards the end of the season, makes him the outstanding candidate.

BdJ: De Lange is probably the easiest pick this season for what one suspects will be the first of many TK team of the year appearances. The 17 year-old doubtless has a bright future ahead of him both in the Topklasse and indeed in Orange, his maiden international call-up coming earlier than even he might have hoped one imagines. The second opener is a tougher pick, however. Musa Ahmad indeed did well opening, but with only four appearances at the top of the order probably doesn’t qualify. It’s perhaps recency bias that summons VOC’s Scott Jannet to mind – his unbeaten 83 in the relegation play-off arguably the single most consequential innings of the season. Conversely, we perhaps shouldn’t discount Doyle-Calle’s weight of runs merely because the lion’s share came at the start of the season. DDC’s early season form was a big part of Hermes’ dominance over the first few weeks of the competition, and ensured they had a cushion of safety even as their title challenge rather sputtered out.

There’s a rather more crowded field for numbers three through five, though again overseas players feature heavily. Voorburg’s Gavin Kaplan is an obvious contender again, while strong cases might be made for Kampong’s Lane Berrry – whose 684 runs for the champions came at an average over 50 and a blistering strike rate of 124, while VOC’s Danish number 4 Monty Singh also had an excellent debut season, and had his long commute from Denmark not limited him to ten appearances the Bloodhounds’ season might have looked rather different. Among the locals Kampong’s Pierre Jacod deserves at the very least an honourable mention among the batters with 403 runs at 57.57, though he’s generally been at his best further down the order. For my money though, we should probably stretch our definition of local players to include those set on qualifying for the Netherlands again. That would make room for Tayo Walbrugh and Johan Smal who, though both still a few months from eligibility (much to the frustration of the aforementioned selectors as the injuries and unavailabilities mount up ahead of the impending Bangladesh tour) have already been training with the national side and one imagines will be donning the Orange sooner rather than later. Walbrugh once again finished top of the run tables with 831 at an average of almost 60, while Smal was just two spots behind, his 715 runs at 55 crucial to keeping VRA in the top half of the table while other senior bats at the Bos seemed to struggle all season.

RL: There’s obviously a serious danger that our final eleven might start to look very like the satirically-intended one I named at the outset! The lack of outstanding local candidates is due to a mix of factors: the tendency of the clubs to pack their sides with overseas players, thus limiting the opportunities for their own products, combines with the presence of relatively few young Dutch players of genuine quality and the fact that the top Dutch batters either played relatively few games or had disappointing seasons. Only eight Dutch-qualified players figure in the top twenty of the batting averages, and of those Scott Edwards played only nine times for Kampong (and had five innings) and Noah Croes (Voorburg) one more. If we agree that Jacod ought to bat at six or seven, and if I’m allowed to insist that we only include one overseas in the top/middle order (Walbrugh again, for my money), then I’d want to make a case for two of Wes Barresi (465 runs at 42.27), Boris Gorlee (628 at 39.25) and Noah Croes (372 at 41.33). Or perhaps . . .

. . . all three, if Croes keeps wicket. Equally, Edwards’ 260 at 65.00 from his extremely limited opportunities is a pretty strong case too. If we’re going to confine ourselves to keepers with a more frequent presence, on the other hand, then the top candidates are probably Mark Wolfe (HCC) and Asad Zulfiqar (Hermes), with 20 victims apiece. VRA’s Jack Cassidy had 28, but then we’re back with the overseas vs. locals debate again. Zulfiqar bats higher up the order than Wolfe but had a fairly disappointing campaign with the bat, while young Wolfe, batting lower down, played some useful innings when the HCC top and middle order had struggled. So on balance I’d probably be inclined to give him the nod.

BdJ: Well it seeems every year we’re destined to have the same tussle, as to whether to adhere in our Topklasse Team of the Year selection to a rule that hasn’t applied in the actual competition for the better part of a decade now, and was more honoured in the breach when it did. If we are to make current Dutch-eligibility rather than Topklasse performance the principal qualification for this exercise we may as well just name the national team and have done with it. In a similar vein, while Scott Edwards doubless does a fine job with the gloves in Orange I frankly draw the line at picking a wicketkeeper here that basically never keeps wicket in the Topklasse. Edwards and Croes have a total of 7 appearances behind the stumps between them this season, and to my mind picking either as Topklasse keeper of the year would send us deep into the realm of farce. Monty Singh scored more runs and effected more dismissals than both combined despite missing half the season, away playing for Denmark rather than the Dutch. If we must look to Dutch-eligible glovemen then I’d argue Kampong’s actual keeper Damien van den Berg has a stronger case, doing a fine job behind the stumps and setting the tone at the top of the order with some 400 runs at a run-a-ball. The Crows’ Lucas del Bianco had a comparable season with the bat, but a glaring 30 byes probably disqualifies him there.

Turning to seamers we are inevitably confronted with a familiar quandry, as the two leading quicks in the comp are likewise non-Dutch-eligible. HCC’s Joshua Brown took 34 wickets at 15.32 while VRA’s Peter Ruffel claimed 33 scalps at 16.55, and both were crucial to keeping their sides in the top half of the table. There is however a tad more local competition in the fast bowling stakes, with Hermes skipper Sebastiaan Braat’s 30 wickets at 16.67 earning him a spot in the top five, closely followed by Kampong captain Alex Roy, who picked up 29 wickets at 14.52 while leading his side to the title. TK TOTY regular Hidde Overdijk also deserves an honourable mention at the very least, his 26 wickets coming at just 13.69 apiece.

RL: Maybe we should pick two sides, one limiting ourselves to, say, two or three overseas players, and the other a No-Holds-Barred team, a bit like the one I ironically suggested at the outset? I for one hope that the KNCB finally gets a grip on the nuclear arms race of overseas player recruitment over the winter!

Turning to the spinners, we’ve already mentioned Musa Ahmad, Wes Barresi and Pierre Jacod in our discussion of the batting, and if all three make it into the final eleven we have a pretty reasonable array of slow bowling. Even I, though, would find it difficult to go past the Crows’ Jayden Rossouw, the competition’s leading wicket-taker with 38 at 19.37. With four off-spinners this attack would, admittedly, have a certain sameness about it, but we have to play with the cards we’re dealt, and left-armers and leg-spinners have not been conspicuous among the wicket-takers this year.

BdJ: I’d argue that four slow bowlers of any ilk would be a bit much in a season largely dominated by the quicks, but picking four right arm finger spinners of whom only two made the top ten wicket-takers seems entirely excessive. Nonetheless I’m going to have to give at least an honourable shout-out to one more right-arm tweaker here, namely VOC’s Arnav Jain, who may only have bagged 19 scalps this season but went at just 3.44 an over. If offspin is generally seen as a defensive art there’s a strong case to be made that that’s a better showing than the relatively leaky Barresi or the objectively expensive Ahmad. Among the purveyors of more esoteric or aggressive spin there’s only one genuine stand-out, namely Hermes’ leggie Hikmatullah Jabarkhail. His 32 wickets at 16.5 played a big part in the Schiedammers’ early dominance, and would make him a sure pick were it not for his hailing from Belgium. Similarly Excelsior stalwart Lorenzo Ingram to my mind has a better case than either Ahmad or Barresi, with more wickets at a better average than either and at an economy of just 3.29 – the best of any front line bowler in the competition – and a better batting average to boot. But Ingram of course, despite a Topklasse career spanning well over a decade, is not yet eligible to play for the Netherlands.

I will once again plead that we ought be picking a Topklasse XI rather than a Dutch development squad here, and point out that even if we were picking the latter at least those on track for eligibility should be accorded equal treatment, but will defer to experience when it comes to the final word…

RL:One might take the position that given the apparent indifference of the clubs to the fututre of Dutch cricket, our own annual selection might at least serve by contrast as rebuke or aspiration, but on the other hand there’s a strong case for reporting things as they aare. Considering the our differing positions on the overseas question, it’s remakable how little divergence there eventually turned out to be in our preferred selections. While I remain sceptical of treating palyers on the path to qualification as though they were already there, I’ll concede Smal has a marginally stronger claim than Musa to a place, at least a batting slot. While Ingram has not even comitted to that path, he is unquestionably a long-standing servant of the Dutch domestic game, and indeed would add variety to an otherwise offspin-heavy spin attack, so once again am happy to defer to my colleague there. On the keeping question, Cassidy certainly had a fine season, helped no doubt by the quality of the quick bowlers he’s kept to. Van den Berg’s fewer dismissals are balanced by fewer byes conceded, and there’s little to choose between them in terms or runs scored except the rate at which they scored them, so on balance van den Berg edges it irrespective of the overseas question. Finally it seems to me that given his side’s success and his on contibution to it, Alex Roy is the outstanding candidate to captain our team of the year.

Touch wood by the time we come to do this exercise next year the KNCB may have found a way of encouraging or forcing clubs to rectrict their use of overseas players, if not we’ll doubless again be wrestling with this dilemma, and hopefully diverting you all by arguin it out in public. For now though, here is TKcricket’s 2025 Team of the Year:

Daniel Doyle-Calle (Hermes), Cedric de Lange (Voorburg), Johan Smal (VRA), Tayo Walbrugh (HBS), Lorenzo Ingram (Kampong), Damien van den Berg (Kampong), Pierre Jacod (Kampong), Sebastiaan Braat (Hermes), Alex Roy (c) (Kampong), Joshua Brown (HCC), Jayden Rossouw (HBS).

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