Going into the World Cup Qualifying tournament in New Zealand last month, the Netherlands were widely regarded as favourites. In the event, courtesy of a batting collapse against Namibia and a blitzkrieg Kenyan batting assault, they finished seventh, not only missing out on qualification but also, as was later decreed, forfeiting the ODI status that they had enjoyed since 2006.

The prevailing reaction from Dutch fans, naturally, has been one of shock and dismay. But when one looks beyond simple expressions of surprise, a curious dichotomy of opinion emerges in the Dutch cricket community - between declarations of despairing resignation and barely-disguised delight. The hang-wringing, hyperbole and bold declarations of the death of Dutch cricket that erupted across social media sites following the defeat were matched by a strange form of Schadenfreude from those who seem to regard the success of a national team dominated by foreign-born players as as much a hindrance as a help to cricket in the Netherlands. What both these extremes have in common, however, is inaccuracy and unhelpfulness.

The former reaction is perhaps the more understandable, and even as the dust settles and the shock fades it is clear that the consequences of this unforseen failure will be substantial. By failing to make the super-six stage of the tournament, the Netherlands will not only miss out on the World Cup, but will be relegated to Division 2 of the World Cricket League, drop out of the Inter-Continental Cup, and be stripped of ODI status. Each carries significant implications with regards to both fixtures and funding.

In terms of the latter, the result will see the Dutch not only miss out on the direct qualification grant, but also drop down to the lower tier of the ICC's High Performance Program. The ongoing negotiations regarding future disbursements from the ICC's revenue surplus make the precise financial implications difficult to quantify, but given the reported "unanimous support" for the principle that "a larger percentage from the increasing Associate Members' surplus will be distributed to the higher-performing non-Full Members", it seems that the Netherlands have picked an unfortunate time to drop out of the top six Associates. Despite the reassurances from the ICC that Associates in general will be better off, there is no guarantee that Associates outside the top six will not lose out in real, let alone proportional terms.

In terms of fixtures, the outcome of the qualifier also means more than simply missing the World Cup. The seventh place finish leaves the Dutch squarely outside the top-flight of Associate nations for at least four years, lacking any certainty in terms of playing programme, and the loss of ODI status will make arranging matches against full-members challenging in the extreme. This, compounded by the loss of CB40 fixtures, leaves Oranje with a fixture list that's currently sparse to say the least. This in turn will affect the ability of the KNCB to attract and retain sponsors, given the existing uncertainty regarding the future of the ABN AMRO deal, there is good reason to worry about the eventual effect on the bottom line.

Yet despite this bleak picture, Dutch cricket is hardly facing bankruptcy. The Netherlands will not drop out of the HPP and TAPP entirely or immediately, and there are provisions for parachute funding to soften the blow. Likewise, the sponsorship deal with ABN runs through 2015 and, despite the gloomy prognostications of many, there is no certainty that it will not be renewed. Moreover, a substantial portion of the KNCB's expenses are tied up in the national team's programme, and a lighter fixture list will doubtless alleviate some of the financial pressure. With an increase to the ICC's Associate and Affiliate budget expected in nominal, if not proportional terms, there is no reason to believe a financial collapse is imminent. Indeed in the recent past Dutch cricket was getting by on far less than what it can reasonably expect in the next couple of years.

Similarly, in purely cricketing terms, there is reason to think twice before joining the ranks of the facebook doom-mongers. On the face of it the Netherlands' campaign in the World Cricket League was disastrous, ending with them in 9th place, down from 3rd in the previous cycle. Yet it is difficult to argue that this is a true reflection of either the strength of the team or of their performance over the last four years. The Dutch missed out on direct qualification via the league stage by the narrowest of margins, and can point to two games dropped against Scotland before the significance of the competition was known, and being denied a chance at two points against Canada in their penultimate game due to inadequate conditions at the the ground, as reasons to feel aggrieved that they did not finish higher. Even at the tournament itself they won four of their six games, and won them convincingly, despite having to field a below-strength team throughout, eventually missing the sup-six stages by a NRR deficit of 0.03. That the Netherlands now find themselves shunted out of the top rank of Associates says as much about the capricious nature of the ranking scheme as it does about the team's performance over the previous four years. Though rapidly improving rivals such as Nepal, Papua New Guinea and the UAE will doubtless prove sterner competition than the Dutch have faced in the past, it is difficult to imagine the Netherlands languishing outside the top tier for more than a cycle.

Yet there are plenty who not only see this performance as proof of the abject failure of the current approach to the national set-up, but seem to welcome it as heralding some sort of renaissance for cricket in the Netherlands. According to this view, the ICC funding procured by international success was largely funneled into the KNCB's administration or used to pay for the national team with little left over for domestic development, whilst the attendant conditions skew priorities toward the continued pursuit of international results. At the same time, the foreign-born players brought in to secure that success are characterised as lacking commitment to Dutch cricket, or standing in the way of native talent and thereby discouraging the aspirations of young Dutch cricketers. Now that they have failed, and given the expected drop in funding together the fact the Netherlands team selection will now have to comply with development criteria, a number of foreign-born players will be either ineligible or unaffordable and thus, we are assured, the process of rebuilding can begin on Dutch foundations.

The trouble with this narrative, aside from the rather unpleasant hints of xenophobia and disregard for the huge contributions of foreign-born players to both international and domestic cricket, is that these foundations are currently shaky at best. It is worth remembering that the Netherland U19's, from which the core of this team would be drawn, have of late fared little better than the senior team. They similarly missed out on the World Cup, recording only two wins in last season's qualifier and dropping games to Jersey and Guernsey.

That is not to say that there is no talent to be found in the current crop of youngsters; Joost Kroesen, Wessel Coster, the Zulfiqar triplets and of course young Bas de Leede, to name but a few, all show great promise. Some of these names may sound familiar, and doubtless this familiarity will bring comfort to those traditionalists who imagine that cricket in this country is now free to return to the bygone idyll that they remember. But for the rest of us it should be tell-tale sign of the real issue, namely the risk of dwindling participation in the game from those outside an inward-looking community. The hard truth is that there are less than 1000 youngsters playing age-group cricket in the country, and clubs struggle to attract new participants from outside the existing cricketing community. The sad fact is, given the diminishing profile of cricket in the Netherlands, the best natural talent in the country probably wouldn't recognise a cricket bat if you mugged him with it. By this token, the travails of the national side are symptomatic of problems in the sport at large, and it is little but a comforting fiction to imagine that foreign players have been the cause of these problems when in truth they have merely been masking them.

In short, the problems facing Dutch cricket are the same as they were before, and neither their cause nor their solution is to be found in the national team. Those who see a loss to Kenya as an irrecoverable catastrophe are guilty of hyperbole to say the least, but those who would blame the decline on the ICC or the KNBC's prioritising of international performance are similarly mistaken. The fact is that this argument had largely been settled, albeit not without some rancour, before the team set foot in New Zealand. Even at the ICC development priorities were already shifting from pure performance to a more participation-focused agenda. Likewise the KNCB's attention has recently shifted toward the domestic set-up and especially youth policy, in partnership with clubs - who have had to compromise and sacrifice in terms of revenue and scheduling for the benefit of youth development. And here there is yet cause to be found for optimism.

Even without the pressure of financial constraint and development criteria forcing their hand, the KNCB were taking steps to shepherd young Dutch players into the national set-up. The last two years have seen first team debuts for players such as Vivian Kingma, Paul van Meekeren, Quirijn Gunning, James Gruijters and others (indeed the only recent foreign-born debutant, Ben Cooper, owes his cap more to an irresistible weight of runs than deliberate policy), and the Ned-Sco pro-series, designed in no small part to provide young prospects with exposure to international cricket, is to be expanded into a full competition this season. There is even cause to hope the trend of declining youth participation may be arrested, and perhaps reversed, if initiatives such as Tip-and-Run and the Bilingual Schools Challenge continue to bear fruit.

Nonetheless the project of rebuilding the game in the Netherlands cannot be accomplished solely or even principally by administrators; rather coaches, parents and volunteers at club-level, to whom it inevitably falls to produce and develop young players, will have the greatest role to play. If that prospect allows participants at all levels to feel more invested in the national set-up, and perhaps goes some way toward healing the unnecessary rift between the clubs and the board, then this development may yet turn out to be a blessing in disguise. Turning crisis into opportunity is a cliche more easily parroted than practised no doubt, but rummaging through the attic for some matches and an urn won't help anyone.