The next twelve months present big challenges for Dutch under-19 cricketers, as they prepare for the possibility of two tournaments on the road to the 2010 ICC Under-19 World Cup.

Their first task will be to finish in the top two of next season's European Championships, which will for the first time be a six-team competition with Jersey and Guernsey joining the traditional four Division 1 teams.

That in itself will require them to raise their game significantly, since Ireland and Scotland have generally been superior to The Netherlands in European youth tournaments over recent years.

There is, however, every incentive to do so, since the champions and runners-up from the European Championships will progress to a World Cup qualifying tournament in Kenya next November 2009, where ten teams – two from each of the ICC's five regions – will contest five places in the World Cup proper, also scheduled for Kenya in March 2010.

It would be a huge achievement for The Netherlands to reach the final tournament, something they have done just once before – in 2000.

But there are grounds for cautious optimism as the winter training squad, recently named by KNCB director of youth cricket Roland Lefebvre, begins its preparations.

At the core of the 19-man Dutch squad there is a handful of experienced and enormously talented cricketers: Worcestershire's Alexei Kervezee, who at the age of 18 has already got 18 full ODIs and 11 first-class matches under his belt; 17-year-old Tim Gruijters, who is seen by Warwickshire as an exciting prospect and who enjoyed considerable success with the ball playing for Aston Unity in the Birmingham and District League last season; and wicketkeeper-batsman Stijn Allema, who created a great impression during this year's European A championship.

To these three can be added five more who were in the squad for this year's European under-19 tournament: seamers Ferdi Vink, Mels Hartman and Olivier Klaus (all of whom are playing in Australia over the winter), and leg-spinners Vinoo Tewarie and Lucas Brouwers. Tewarie is in India this winter, while Brouwers is in South Africa.

Several of these players already have experience of Hoofdklasse cricket, as have 17-year-old wicketkeeper-batsman Tobias Visée (a regular for HBS Den Haag for the past two seasons) and Voorburg allrounder Floris Kingma.

Lefebvre will also be looking to other younger players to take the step up from the under-17 side. They include Bloemendaal batsmen Quirijn Gunning and Matthijs Luten, HCC's seamer Philip van den Brandeler, and Jinnah left-armer Wajdan Alim.

And he has also included two promising 15-year-olds, in Rood en Wit seamer Paul van Meekeren and Hermes-DVS allrounder Sebastiaan Braat, both of whom were in the under-15 side which played in this year's Clico Under-15 tournament in the Caribbean.

The established Dutch Lions players, however, have no grounds for complacency: a comprehensive survey of youth cricketers over the past month has resulted in one or two new names being added to the squad. They are Kampong legspinner Bavvik Nana, Sparta 1888 opening batsman Gagan Singh, and ACC's left-arm seamer Nizar Sayed.

With the group due to be whittled down to fifteen or so at the start of next summer, there will be plenty of work to be done over the winter. The players who are in The Netherlands for the close season will in part be training with the senior squad as they prepare for the challenges ahead.