Bas De Leede Urges More Top-Level Cricket For The Netherlands, Offers Multiple Suggestions

The prospect of associate teams playing the Test nations outside of ICC events remains improbable in the foreseeable future and Netherlands all-rounder Bas de Leede is mindful of that reality.

Following the conclusion of their T20 World Cup campaign with a loss to India here on Wednesday, de Leede joined the chorus of players urging the authorities to organise more games against the full members, albeit with a pragmatic twist.

The Dutch have no cricket lined up until in June. De Leede, son of former Netherlands international Tim de Leede, proposed that teams like India and Australia tour the Netherlands for a warm-up game or two ahead of their big-ticket assignments in England.

"The schedules at the moment are pretty crammed already with franchise leagues and the future tours program of the ICC. So, I think it's hard to schedule full series in against top nations," said de Leede.

"...but I think one way that that could potentially be an option is when travelling teams come to England for example, that there's an option of playing a warm-up in Scotland or a warm-up in the Netherlands.

"There's ways around that where we still can get exposure of playing against the best teams and they get something out of it as well," he added.

He would also love to be part of a tri-series involving England.

"There's obviously a lot of money in big nations, playing big nations, and I get the financial reasoning behind it. But yeah, like you said, tri-nation series could be an option, even for us.

"I saw there was a post about maybe a European T20 series where England plays, Scotland plays, Ireland, ourselves, and Italy. You saw how close Italy pushed England," he pointed out.

"So there's definitely a lot of options but like you said it's normally during the World Cup it gets attention and then it sort of fades away. So, we can only hope that this World Cup might change it," hoped de Leede.

In the end, de Leede looked back on the team's campaign in India that ended with a game at the word's largest cricket stadium here.

"It's probably a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to play for so many people. I hope everyone soaked it all in. Moving forward, I think the associates have shown at what level associate cricket is at the moment.

"We can only ask for more and more opportunities against the best because that's ultimately the way that we're going to improve as a collective.

"But for us at the moment we've got nothing planned up until start of June where we have a next series for World Cup qualification," added the all-rounder.