Holland have perhaps the best pedigree of all the non Test-playing countries at the World Cup - but they are still a long way from being competitive against their superiors.

That at least was the obvious conclusion after seeing their efforts in the recently concluded ICC Champions Trophy in Colombo, where they were no match for hosts Sri Lanka and were then obliterated by Pakistan's Shahid Afridi.

No one - not even Holland's hugely experienced captain Roland Lefebvre - could bowl at the rampant Afridi, who smashed a lightning 55 not out as Pakistan raced to a nine-wicket victory with more than 33 of their 50 overs to spare.

It is no disgrace to be heaved to all parts by Afridi - when his luck holds he has the ability to do it to most bowlers in the world.

But every one of the Test-playing powers has that calibre of cricketer, and there will be no hiding place for Holland against the likes of Pakistan, India and Australia in Pool A in southern Africa.

Lefebvre and Co face an unenviable task in their mission to convince the ICC they, like Kenya, are worthy of full one-day international status.

But what the Dutch have proved is that they are the best of the rest.

Their first ICC Trophy title in Canada two years ago followed two previous runners-up spots and one World Cup experience, in Pakistan and India in 1996.

In former Somerset and Glamorgan pace bowler Lefebvre, Sussex batsman Bas Zuiderent and Tim de Leede they have at least three players who can reasonably hope for a degree of success in world cricket.

It was Jacob-Jan Esmeijer, though, who hit an unbeaten half-century to help the leading lights to their last-ball win over Namibia in the ICC Trophy final - proving there is ability in the ranks under veteran Lefebvre.

The consensus is too that the structure of the Dutch domestic game is more in keeping with a sport which is set to stay than a fad which could yet fade.

That is not so obviously the case, for example, in Kenya - a country on a similar footing in the world game.

What Holland need, though, is to produce an overdue scare against an established cricketing nation.

On the face of it that does not seem impossible. After all, Bangladesh beat Pakistan at the last World Cup in a strange match at Northampton - and they have since been granted Test match status.

The precedent is there. But whether Holland can make anything of it is another question.