Roland Lefebvre
Flamingo since 1984
He does look like a cricketer
Roland Lefebvre's first encounter with cricket took place on the field of Victoria in Rotterdam, where his father played. Hans Molijn, Hanjo Braakman and "Prik" Dorhout Mees belonged to the cricket team there and were good enough to throw a ball to Roland and his older brother Ernest every now and then. They were very young, but already very eager. This became clear when they started playing cricket on the street with a tennis ball. From the sidewalk on the other side, they bowled against a garage door that acted as a wicket. Cutting was impossible there because of a wall on the side of the garage entrance. Hooking went fine.
So well though, that a ball ended up in a neighbour's bathroom through a folding window, taking several bottles on the windowsill with it along the way, and causing a fierce roar. The noise disturbed the neighbour. She was so worried that a burglar had targeted her home, that she locked herself in the basement. She was only released when her husband came home from work!
Encourage older brothers
On the playground of the Rotterdam Hildegaert School, cricket was lusty, which resulted in a fierce competition between Roland and Ernest. One never wanted to stay behind the other. When Roland hit a six, Ernest did everything he could to hit a six much further. Then, Roland was still a leg spinner, which was perhaps not surprising, as a much later study showed that many good spinners have an older brother who stimulated them.
Strong age group 62/63
After having the street as a school, Roland reported to VOC where he first went to play football and the following summer to cricket. Roland: "My first real cricket memories at VOC relate to Wednesday afternoons and Saturday mornings with Bill Wignall, the old English pro who patiently taught us the basics of the game. Soon we were also on the VOC on Sunday to see the first with René Schoonheim, Tonny Bakker and Rob van Weelde in action. As young people, we were lucky that the 1962/63 age group was strongly represented. Not only at VOC, but throughout the Netherlands. Many of us could be found at VOC every day and if we were not there, various Test series were completed in the streets of Hillegersberg."
Flamingo junior tournament
After Bill Wignall, the West Indian, Luther Wiltshire was a major influence on young Roland's playing. He was able to enrich the English thoroughness taught to Roland and his friends with West Indian flair. The VOC youngsters began to build up a good reputation and in 1978 were almost unbeatable. The highlight of their existence was a win in the Flamingo junior tournament. The final thereof was played on August 15, 1978 between VOC and HBS and ended in a victory for the Rotterdammers. For the first time they received The Silver Flamingo. Roland won the bowling prize, a pair of gloves that he could collect from cricket supplier Pieter van Vliet.
From leggy to medium fast
After gaining experience in the lower teams, Roland was allowed to participate for the first time with the big boys of the first VOC at the tender age of fifteen. He sat with his leg guards waiting for two and a half hours until René Schoonheim would go out. In vain. The wicketkeeper was looking forward to it that day and composed a century. In the following two seasons, Roland was allowed to play more often, but only at the age of eighteen, joined as a regular.
He had already undergone quite a development by then. Starting as a leg break bowler, he had his breathrough in the winter to the first at the instigation of Rob van Weelde, who saw that the VOC had a surplus of spinners, skilled in the faster work. To make his legs stronger, he ran up and down hills with his mentor on his back. Not without results. In the first game in which he practiced his new craft, he took 3 for 15 in 15. Still, bowling was not his main preoccupation at the time. The emphasis was very clearly on batting. It is almost impossible to develop two disciplines at the same level, he now says.
Netherlands against the World Team
Roland Lefebvre excelled on the Dutch cricket fields for about ten seasons. He just got better and better, as a batsman and as a bowler. In the first discipline he performed on July 16, 1984 against HBS, through 14 sixes and 9 fours, scoring 151 runs without going out. A victory however did not result from that achievement. The rain was a bummer. In that year the VOC became champions, which earned the club the congratulations of mayor Bram Peper. Of course, Roland also got through to the Dutch national team. His second appearance was immediately memorable. On September 2, 1983, the Netherlands was allowed to compete against a World Team with cannons such as Kapil Dev, Clive Lloyd, Sunil Gavaskar, Allan Lamb and Malcolm Marshall. Contrary to habit, Dutch television paid ample attention to this match. Commentators John Wories and Frans Henrichs could really let off steam.
Final ICC Trophy
1986 was also a remarkable year. "We started with three matches against India on the fields of Tegenbosch, De Kieviten and Hermes. Cracks like Kapil Dev, Ravi Shastri and Mohammad Azharuddin played for India against whom we could not do much. Very important that year was the battle for the ICC Trophy. The final at Lord's, in which we competed against Zimbabwe, was thrilling. Although we lost this match by 25 runs, I have always believed it was an unnecessary defeat. Zimbabwe came in at 243 for 9 and our answer at 109 for 2 was so promising that nothing seemed to stand in our way of a win. But then the rain came, followed by a collapse the next day and then injuries to Ron Elferink and Steven Lubbers, who both had to use a runner. These and the fact that Steve Atkinson missed three catches explains the defeat."
Playing under pressure
In the winter of 1987, Roland traveled with Bob Goldman to New Zealand where he played for the East Coast Bays Cricket Club in Auckland. There he learned with Steve Brown (coach Sparta) and Gary Langridge (coach HCC) what playing under pressure and taking your own responsibility means. "I wish every top-class player such a learning experience. You get outside of your comfort zone and just become more resilient."
Scouted by Somerset
1989 was a great season for Roland. He brought nearly a thousand runs to the board, plus quite a few wickets. His achievements did not go unnoticed on the other side of the North Sea. It wouldn't be long before the Dutch star would be launched there. That same year, Lefebvre played a qualifying match for the MCC at Lord's against Ireland. The MCC team was captained by New Zealander Martin Crowe, an extremely solid batsman with a classic strokes repertoire. He spent years as an overseas player for Somerset, a county he immediately drew attention to with the new talent.
In 1989 there was a riot in the cricket world over Mike Gatting et al's "rebel tour" to South Africa, which was a huge loss for the English Test team. As many permanent players were lost, fresh blood had to come in, for example from the A-team that visited the Netherlands in 1989.
The Press interest in this trip was therefore enormous. Captain of the English was Peter Roebuck who would serve Somerset for 17 seasons. In The Sunday Times of May 13, 1990, he described how England A lost to the Netherlands almost a year earlier despite tactical interventions by an almost inscrutable genius - Roebuck was himself a captain - a result that led to hysterical fits of laughter in Cricket's motherland. He had associated all kinds of things with Holland: clogs, canals, windmills and tulips, but cricketers? And there was also a particularly good one. He recommended him to Taunton.
Somerset’s coach Jack Birkenshaw picked up on both signals and at the end of August came a phone call to the Netherlands. Would Roland report to the West Country for a pot against Glamorgan? It turned out to be a formality, although the 76 runs the Dutchman scored must surely have strengthened Somerset in their belief that they had made the right choice.
That same month, Roland traveled to Heathrow where he met his Somerset teammates for a pre-season trip to the Caribbean. Worcestershire with Ian Botham in the ranks also went in that direction. The group stayed in a luxurious hotel on Paradise Island. The omens could have been worse.
Immediately, the Dutch acquisition was fully accepted, partly because it soon turned out that he had a lot to offer. Together with Ian Swallow, another newcomer, he found shelter in the home of opener Nigel Felton, who had left for Northamptonshire in 1989. It was a nice hideaway in Bishops Lydeard, a few miles outside of Taunton, with the added attraction of a pub with the name "The Bird in Hand" right next door. Incidentally, there was something special going on with Swallow. On the day he signed his contract, Somerset's chief executive had the shock of his life to find that the bowling hand that picked up the pen counted only two and a half fingers. The other half had remained in Swallow's mother's washing machine. The amputation did not prevent Swallow from developing into a creditable off spinner who once bowled 7 for 95.
Debut against Gloucestershire
Roland's first game was on April 26, 1990 in Taunton against Gloucestershire. He still remembers clearly how lonely it was there for a moment in the shadow of the two church towers. Doubt crept in. The ball in his hand felt strange. Trembling, he wondered whether he could still do it, whether he would experience a terrible failure. It was not too bad. Already after his first steps he felt the rhythm was there. His grades in the first innings were excellent. The 5 for 30 in 15.1, including 2 wickets in his first 7 balls, earned him the match ball, a trophy for his trophy cabinet. With the bat it went a little less well, but who would not like to go lbw after three runs to a yorker by Courtney Walsh, one of the greatest of all time.
He does look like a cricketer
After the first day, John Woodcock expressed his appreciation in The Times about the Dutch Somerset crack-to-be. This authoritative journalist, whose One Hundred Greatest Cricketers (1998) stirred many pens, wrote with a sublime sense of understatement: 'I suppose there is no reason why he should not, but he does look like a cricketer.' To understand: in addition to the 'brisk medium pace' and the fast arm action that Woodcock liked, he saw a fine fielder and a good batsman in Roland.
Teammate Peter Roebuck was also impressed. In The Sunday Times he praised Roland's passion and intelligence. And with his racy temperament it was also perfectly fine.
To Glamorgan
Everything seemed to be on track, but in 1992 the tide turned. It happened in March on an MCC tour to the Leeward Islands on the tiny island of Nevis. Sussex's off spinner Bradleigh Donelan, perhaps a bit frustrated because he didn't play, was so annoyed by some water splashes on his kit during a drinking break that he directed his anger at Roland. His arm turned out not be able to withstand a hefty karate kick. Back in England he had surgery, but when he was ready to play again, in June, he could only whistle for a starting place and after a while, was told he could go. This prompted a reaction from ex-teammate Peter Roebuck. "Have my old pals at Somerset gone stark raving bonkers," he wrote with foam on his lips. Who let a man with these abilities just go? Yet Roland spent his last Somerset days in the second. Somerset’s chief executive Peter Anderson allowed him to talk to the many counties that recognized his talent. It became Glamorgan. The West Country had become dear to him.
Vivian Richards
He came into a team with brilliant names: Hugh Morris, Matthew Maynard and, far above all, the West Indian giant Vivian Richards. It was a good season for the men from Wales and for Roland Lefebvre. He took 33 wickets in the county championship matches, 2 in the Benson and Hedges Trophy, 6 in the NatWest trophy and 18 in the Sunday League matches, a competition that Glamorgan won in the final match of the season to beat Kent in Canterbury.
It was a distinguished year for Glamorgan. In the final table of the county championship, it only had to put up with two competitors above and, as a dash of whipped cream, there was still a semi-final place in the battle for the NatWest Trophy.
Roland had emerged as a colourful cricketer by 1993 and was very popular with the public. His bowling had contributed in no small part to Glamorgan's rise, especially in limited overs cricket. He could be ruthlessly economical, even when the match had reached its final stage. But this wasn't his only virtue. Over the years he had developed into a true all-rounder. He could handle his bat like a buccaneer hungry for loot and his fielding was excellent. Nothing escaped his attention on his one-man patrol along the boundary.
Heavy injury
His name was established, and it was with horror that a year later Glamorgan fans became aware of a serious injury that had struck their idol from overseas. It was a real horror story. Glamorgan was not initially in a good position in a Sunday League match against Durham, but thanks to Roland, he could have turned the tide and was about to snatch victory from the clutches of defeat. The tension was almost unbearable. Whipped up by the frenzied audience, he tried to put everything into a delivery that would be catastrophic for him. He "heard" a muscle in his groin tear, felt indescribable pain, and knew that much, if not all, was over. He later told a reporter that it was like grabbing a towel with a small tear in the middle and pulling it apart in one go. At first, he thought he would only have to miss the rest of the season, but it soon became apparent that the healing process would take much longer. In early 1996 he tried to make the most of the World Cup in India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. However, the load was too much, and his injury played up again.
Roland was not yet lost to Dutch cricket. After stops in Israel and South Africa, he returned to the national league in 1999. A year before, he had visited England to play a NatWest match with the Dutch team against his old county Somerset. In Taunton it turned out that he had not been forgotten.
High-Performance Manager KNCB
After his active career ended in 2002, Roland became a Development Officer at the KNCB. He rose through the ranks in the years since and today holds the responsible position of High-Performance Manager. The KNCB has grown from a small organization with three people in the office. Roland bears, among other things, responsibility for all representative teams. What are we going to do? and where are we going? are questions that concern him on a daily basis.
When asked about the top three cricketers with whom he has dealt with in his rich career, he cites as number one, "master blaster" Viv Richards, number two South African Jimmy Cook and third Matthew Maynard. For him Hors Category is Nolan Clarke, in the Netherlands sometimes a bit undervalued, but in Roland's opinion a real winner about whom Malcolm Marshall wrote in his autobiography Marshall Arts: 'I was never short of top-class club cricketers and teachers who had played the game, to offer me advice. To Nolan Clarke I owe more than most. "A better compliment is hard to imagine.
Roland has been a Flamingo member since 1984. Due to his frequent national and international obligations, he has played less for it than he would have liked, but is very fond of the club. Mainly due to his involvement in youth cricket, about which he has regular contact with Wulf van Alkemade, the club does not play an insignificant role in the Dutch cricket world, in his opinion.
