Dutch national coach Peter Cantrell has named a total of 20 players in two twelve-man squads for the Dutch side's two-match visit to The Netherlands next month. Denmark will play Netherlands A in Rotterdam on 9 June, and the full Dutch side in Utrecht the following day.

Three players who were part of the A side which took part in the recent EurAsia Cup tournament in Abu Dhabi - Peter Borren, Atse Buurman and Maurits van Nierop - have earned a call-up to the main team, joining nine who were on the March tour to South Africa and Kenya.

Essex commitments mean that Ryan ten Doeschate is unavailable, while Tom de Grooth and Victor Grandia step down to the A side. There is no place for Billy Stelling in either side, and Pieter Seelaar was unavailable because of college commitments. Bas Zuiderent is named in the full squad, although he will almost certainly not play because he has an examination on 10 June. De Grooth receives some compensation for being dropped by being made captain of the A team.

Cantrell has also included in the A squad two experienced internationals who were in neither Africa nor Abu Dhabi, seamer Sebastiaan Gokke and off-spinner Adeel Raja. Both will get a chance to reassert their claims against those of the younger players.

The selection of Buurman in the full side is particularly interesting, given the presence of first-choice wicketkeeper and vice-captain Jeroen Smits. Buurman's efforts with the bat in the Gulf have evidently won him a place as a batsman as well as providing cover for Smits, whose batting attainments are modest. The presence of a genuine wicketkeeper-batsman in the squad would increase Cantrell's options as the World Cup nears.

Attention will naturally fall on who is likely to be omitted when the final selection is made. With the A squad not exactly over-endowed with batting - a possible line-up is de Grooth, van Nierop, Eric Szwarczynski, Buurman, Alexei Kervezee, Borren and Raja - it is likely to be one of the five seamers (Grandia, Gokke, Mark Jonkman, Ernst van Giezen and Mudassar Bukhari) who is left out. On the other hand, since the point of the exercise is to give an opportunity to as many players as possible, it may be one of those selected for both matches who carries the drinks.

The batting resources of the full side seem much stronger, with Bas Zuiderent, van Nierop, Daan van Bunge, Tim de Leede, Kervezee, skipper Luuk van Troost, Borren or Buurman, and Darron Reekers constituting a potentially powerful line-up. Edgar Schiferli, Smits and Mohammad Kashif would then complete the side. But the top Dutch batsmen will need to perform much more consistently if they are to issue a serious challenge to their international rivals over the next twelve months.

One worrying feature of the landscape for Cantrell is the lack of promising young players - or, for that matter, more experienced ones - forcing their claims on his attention. After the two Danish games Dutch sides in various constellations will play a total of nine further matches before the end of the summer: three against the MCC, two against Sri Lanka, and four in the European Championship in Glasgow. In addition, players on the fringes of the squad will have fifteen or so Hoofdklasse games to string together a convincing series of performances.

Thereafter, Cantrell will surely be looking to create a settled squad for the ODIs and Intercontinental Cup games in South Africa in November-December, the World Cricket League in January, and a proposed ODI tournament against Kenya and Scotland. It seems pretty unlikely that anybody who hasn't staked a claim by the end of August will then come into consideration until after the World Cup.

But given the medium-term strategy of the KNCB's Technical Committee, focussed on the 2009 World Cup qualifying tournament, and with the first members of Roland Lefebvre's Dutch Lions project beginning to make their mark in senior cricket, there's everything to play for - and to work for - for ambitious young Dutch cricketers.

The two squads are as follows:

Netherlands A v Denmark (9 June): TN de Grooth (HCC, capt.), PW Borren (VRA), M Bukhari (VVV), AF Buurman (VCC), ES van Giezen (VOC), SF Gokke (Excelsior '20), VD Grandia (VRA), MBS Jonkman (HCC), Mohammad Kashif (VOC), MWA van Nierop (VRA), Adeel Raja (VCC), ES Szwarczynski (VRA)

Netherlands v Denmark (10 June): LP van Troost (Excelsior '20), PW Borren (VRA), DLS van Bunge (Excelsior '20), AF Buurman (VCC), Mohammad Kashif (VOC), AN Kervezee (HBS), TBM de Leede (VCC), MWA van Nierop (VRA), DJ Reekers (Quick Haag), E Schiferli (Quick Haag), J Smits (HCC), B Zuiderent (VOC).