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The story
Cricket was first seen being played on Dutch soil in the 1780s by an English traveller in Scheveningen, and by the turn of the 20th century, Dutch teams were touring England regularly. Cricket was one of the most popular sports in the Netherlands in the 19th century, surpassed since by many other sports, most notably association football. Cricket even found enough of a following to survive the German occupation of the country between May 1940 and May 1945. The sport, famously dismissed as "unmanly and un-German" and "insufficiently violent" by Adolf Hitler himself, endured thanks in no small part to the dogged enthusiasm of local players, who shrugged off the requisitioning of grounds and restrictions on weekend travel – not to mention the presence of thousands of heavily armed Nazis and the bombing of the main sports dealers in Rotterdam – to organise as many as 300 matches a year.
The KNCB has been an associate member of the International Cricket Council since 1966. There are a few cricket grounds in the Netherlands which are officially sanctioned by the ICC to host ODIs such as Amstelveen, Rotterdam and Voorburg. It hosted one of the matches of the 1999 Cricket World Cup, though the Dutch did not participate in that tournament.
The Dutch participated in the 1996 Cricket World Cup, 2003 Cricket World Cup, 2007 Cricket World Cup, and 2011 Cricket World Cup. In their debut campaign, they lost all of their matches barring a respectful performance against England. They qualified for the 2003 edition after winning the 2001 ICC Trophy, with their only win of the World Cup tournament coming against fellow qualifier Namibia. It was around this time that stars and excellent cricketers like Ronald Lefebvre and Ryan ten Doeschate started emerging to make Dutch cricket much more strong.
Present day
The Dutch qualified for the 2007 World Cup with a fifth-place finish at the 2005 ICC Trophy. The Dutch struggled in the tournament, losing their first two games, with South African Herschelle Gibbs notably hitting Daan van Bunge for six sixes in an over. They did recover to beat Scotland by eight wickets in their last game. After failing to qualify for the 2007 ICC World Twenty20, they qualified for the 2009 ICC World Twenty20, where they shocked host England at Lord's.
After years of stagnation, the women's game is also developing rapidly in the Netherlands. Recently, the women's team outshone the men's team and they were given Test cricket status by the ICC in 2007 unlike their male counterparts. They played their inaugural Test match against South Africa Women in 2007.
The Dutch men's team qualified for the 2011 Cricket World Cup by coming third in the 2009 ICC World Cup Qualifier. Although they lost all of their matches, the Dutch gave England a fright in Nagpur, where Ryan ten Doeschate smashed 119 runs. The result was 292 - 296/4.
2010 turned out to be a memorable year for Dutch cricket as they defeated two Test-playing nations, Bangladesh and Zimbabwe.
The Netherlands cricket team participated in the Intercontinental Cup and Intercontinental Cup One-Day while the women's team won the 2011 Women's European Championship Twenty20. More recently, they participated in the 2011 Women's Cricket World Cup Qualifier where they came third in Group A, thus gaining both ODI Status and World Cup participation.
From Wikipedia’s article on Royal Dutch Cricket Association, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5