Rod Lyall

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The first impression on entering VOC's indoor facility on the outskirts of Rotterdam is of highly-structured chaos.

A dozen or so track-suited figures, ranging in age from their twenties to their fifties, are working individually or in pairs, rehearsing cover drives, picking up and returning tennis balls, or collecting the ball beside the stumps. The assistant tutors coaches' coaches, Ed de Moura Correia and Fazil Mahmoud, are moving quietly through it all, offering encouragement and advice.

Further down the hall, beyond a net dividing wall, Philip Hudson and Roland Lefebvre, the assessors, are watching intently as two of the participants are going through their paces.

It's assessment day at the European Cricket Council's latest Level One coaching course, and 29 aspiring coaches are going through a rigorous three-stage examination of what they have learned.

One thing that quickly emerges is how diverse the group is, and how wide their range of ambitions – they include average club players, others with years of experience in the Hoofdklasse, and at least one member of the current national squad. For some, the course is a basis for working with young players in their own clubs, but several are already thinking about moving on to Level Two, and for Dutch off-spinner Adeel Raja it just might lead to a career in coaching.

'I've already done a Level Two course in South Africa,' he says, 'which is more or less equivalent to Level One here. But I'd like to go on to Level Two in September, but I have to pass this one first. After that, who knows?'

Some of the participants are aware of the possible benefit to their own game, and it's obviously never too late to learn: seam bowler Jan Balk (seen batting right), who has been playing in the Hoofdklasse and Eerste Klasse for ACC Amsterdam for nearly 25 years and is now forty, is in doubt that his own cricket will be better for the experience.

'You forget the basic things, especially when you've been playing for a long time,' he says. 'Like the pull shot – it's easy when you're told how to do it, but they don't always tell you how to do it. Practising with a tennis ball gives you a chance to get into balance, and to see what you've been doing wrong.'

The point is reinforced by Hermes' Mandy Kornet, one of three women on the course: 'Often during the classes I've thought: Oh, so that's what they meant … you get a clearer view of what coaches have been telling you.'

She and the other women participants agree that it's important to get more women involved in coaching.

'We understand the girls better than men can,' they say, 'and we can help to help them to develop their cricket. That's important for the future of the women's game.'

For Ed de Moura Correia, who, along with Fazil Mahmoud – both of them Dutch-based ECB Level Three coaches – assisted the ECC's Richard Cox in running the course, it's been a valuable experience, and one with a long-term purpose beyond increasing the number of qualified club coaches in The Netherlands.

'We want to become more self-sufficient,' he says. 'At present, whenever the KNCB organises a Level One or Level Two course, instructors have to be flown in from England. But part of the process is for Fazil and me to gain the knowledge and experience to be able to run such courses ourselves.'

De Moura (right) notes the difference between coaching coaches and working directly with players.

'As you move up the ladder,' he says, 'the emphasis changes – here it's got much more to do with communication and people management skills, with a bit of sports psychology and issues like child protection.

'With such a diverse group it's a challenge catering for everybody's needs, and you inevitably spend a bit less time with the more experienced people.

'Our aim is to make sure that we have as many good passes as possible, and to give all the participants enough self-belief that they can go out and do a good job working with young players.'

He's impressed by the overall standard, and thinks that there could be as many as a dozen from the group who are ready to go on to a Level Two course at the end of the summer.

For ECC ICC European Development Officer Philip Hudson, too, the course is part of a long-term strategy.

'It's clear from the feedback we get from the member countries,' he says, 'that coach education is top of everyone's list of priorities.

'And that's why we've run more of these courses in the past three or four months than we had in the eighteen months before that, since I joined the ICC Council.'

Germany, Belgium, Greece and Switzerland are among the other countries where Level One courses are currently running or have recently taken place.

'And by encouraging the participation of Level Three coaches on the training side,' he adds, 'we're laying the foundations of a more independent system in countries like The Netherlands.'

Back in the hall, the practising of basic skills continues.

Pair by pair, the participants have to demonstrate specified tasks in batting, bowling and fielding, and then they sit a multiple-choice theory paper.

Later in the afternoon, the Dutch under-12 squad arrives, the raw material for the third element of the assessment, an exercise in group coaching.

Outside, VOC's youth football teams are locked in battle. But here the future development of Dutch cricket is being given a powerful boost.