The domestic season is upon us and that is always a good time to reflect on how the winter season has gone. No-one can claim that it has been boring. In October national coach Peter Drinnen parted company with the KNCB after nearly 6 years. Then followed two global qualification tournaments,. one successfully concluded (the World Twenty 20 in the UAE), one not (the 2015 World Cup in New Zealand).

Subsequent removal of ODI status from the Netherlands national team for the coming four years after a ten year period (on the basis of one tournament!), and related ICC funding cuts followed. And as if it couldn't get any worse there was Gruijtersgate. But then a brillant performance at the World Twenty20 in Bangladesh got us all smiling again.

Well I said all. The status if the game here in the Netherlands is such that the exploits of Myburgh, Malik et al were much more world news than at home. Where in 2009 the victory over England received wide coverage in all the Dutch media a second successive and resounding Twenty20 win hardly registered at all between the football, hockey and all the other sports the Dutch find more interesting and important than cricket.

Bubbling under all this has been a lively ongoing domestic debate in between the KNCB and the clubs, in particular at the general meetings in December and just last month, about how to give the game in the Netherlands a much-needed boost and to arrest the decline in the number of active cricketers. It's not that there has been a shortage of recent initiatives from the top to bring in new cricketers, specifically young ones: the bilingual cricket challenge, cage cricket, street cricket, more indoor tournaments etc. but in this modern age of short attention spans in a country where cricket is not embedded in the culture it is a massive challenge.

In this small world that is Dutch cricket – and don't forget we're talking about only around 50 clubs across the whole country, fewer than 5000 cricketers in total, around 1000 juniors and in 2013 only 9 senior ladies teams – it is counter productive for clubs and national administrators to indulge in a blame game. We are all in this together.

Everyone has an opinion and that is healthy but it is crucial that the coming four year period without ODI's, and also without CB40/YB40 40 over matches for the national team against the counties – what great timing to exclude the Netherlands (and Scotland) from the English domestic tournament after four years - is used wisely to shape a new national team in the proper context of the game as a whole in the Netherlands.

It was made clear at the most recent general meeting that no drastic steps will be taken in terms of revising the contracts of players in the current national squad – after all the attempt to return to the top of the associates ladder starts in earnest already in less than a year. Also emphasised at the meeting last month was that the process of finding a permanent successor to Peter Drinnen has been put on hold.

So the stataus quo will be preserved to some extent. Important in going forward however is the realisation of the national high performance centre at the Kampong club in Utrecht, a proposal for which has already been submitted to Dubai. The KNCB regards this centre to be of fundamental importance to the growth and development of young home grown talent, which must feature more prominently in national teams going forward.

Drinnen had begun to integrate a number of young players into the national squad – Viv Kingma, James Gruijters and Quirijn Gunning all made their senior debuts in 2013. It would be madness not to continue along this path. There is an abundance of young Dutch talent around – have a quick glance at the scores for the opening round of Topklasse matches and you will notice that the leading run scorers for ACC, HCC and Excelsior were respectively Saqib Zulfiqar, Tonny Staal and Tim Etman – all still teenagers.

Vinoo Tewarie and Matthijs Luten were the two top scorers for VRA and Lesley Stokkers was top scorer for Hermes DVS – all three are in their early to mid twenties. And another teenager Rahil Ahmed got Dosti off to rip-rollicking start against Quick with 35 at a strike rate of around 200!. Dutch born-and bred batsman dominating the batting lists in the Topklasse is something we're not used to and very encouraging.

In terms of recent performances of young players I must mention that of 21 year old Sebastian Braat for the South Holland Seafarers against the Scottish Highlanders in the initial round of the North Sea Pro Series matches at Voorburg. In the Twenty20 on the Sunday he top-scored in losing cause with 41 from 31 balls. A day later in the 50 over match a day later he again came in at 8 in an identical situation (52 for 6). This time he found a partner, Hermes DVS teammate Pieter Seelaar, and together they added 137 for the seventh wicket, which if it had been for the full Dutch team would have been a national record. Seelaar scored 58 and Braat 95 not out in 78 balls and the target of 206 was reached with plenty of overs to spare. And Braat's main suit is supposed to be his fast- medium bowling, which incidentally was also very impressive in both matches. A genuine all- rounder with a bright future.

As I wrote in my 2013 pre-season review, last year represented a watershed in the policy of most of the leading clubs. Many of them expressed the wish to give more priority to their own young players and less to imports from overseas. Even fewer foreign players can be fielded this season than last (only two as opposed to three in 2013) so this is a no-brainer for the clubs, but it so important for the national team going forward as more and more local talent is given a chance to shine, and is evidently doing so witness the first round of Topklasse scores and results.

The Topklasse will indeed be fascinating to follow this season for a number of reasons. There are a couple of new new international faces from Test playing countries – New Zealand batsman Daniel Flynn at Quick and Australian leg spinner Fawad Amad at HCC. I can confidently predict that the Topklasse will be one of the most closely fought in recent memory. There are no weak teams. Newly promoted VOC have strengthened considerably with the acquisition of Amol Muzumdar from Quick and Ashan Malik returning to his home club.

But to return finally to the past six months, the abiding memory is indoubtedly the performance of Borren's boys in Bangladesh: the improbable run chase against Ireland with a world record 19 sixes struck from just 83 balls, Stephan Myburgh's 15 sixes and a place in the team of the tournament, Ashan Malik as equal highest wicket taker, Myburgh and Tom Cooper second and third highest runs scorers behind the imperious Virat Kohli, Timm van der Gugten's pace and dot balls the convincing victory over England and the performance against South Africa, which should have also produced a win.

It does seem a little bit like the end of an era for this particular team. The same 11 players played all 7 matches in Bangladesh and finished with a bang. But Michael Swart has possibly played his last match for the Netherlands and whether Tom Cooper and Timm van der Gugten will appear again will probably depend on their Australian commitments.