Dutchmen Flying High As England Shocked

England Cricket reached a new low at Lords in the opening match of the ICC World Twenty20 as they were beaten by a Netherlands side made up almost entirely of amateurs.

Stuart Broad made a complete mess of two run out chances, and missed a chance for a caught and bowled in his final over, before missing the stumps yet again in the final ball to allow Dutch batsmen Ryan ten Doeschate and Edgar Schiferli to run an overthrow and win the game.

The disastrous ending to the day for England came as a huge shock to the the team, who started without Kevin Pietersen and Graeme Swann, and fans alike, who strolled away from a rain soaked Lords as the Dutch players and fans celebrated the biggest achievement in their cricketing history.

After the cancellation of the opening ceremony and a twenty minute delay to the start of the game due to the weather, Dutch captain Jeroen Smits may have been regretting putting England in to bat as openers Ravi Bopara and Luke Wright reached the first ever 100 partnership in Twenty20 Internationals for England in just 11 overs.

Bopara (46) looked the more fluent of the two before he skied a delivery from Essex team mate Ryan ten Doeschate, and was caught at Long On.  The less fluent Wright, who seemed to struggle with his timing, made 71 before he too fell to ten Doeschate.

That was not before Owais Shah (5) and Eoin Morgan (6) both left the field after disappointing shows in the middle, both giving simple catches to deep square leg and backward point respectively.

Captain Paul Collingwood (11) was next fall, again giving a simple catch to the Dutch, as England failed to capitalise on a fantastic start, adding only 60 runs in the last nine overs, and only 13 in the last two, a desperate showing from a team that missed Kevin Pietersen in their batting line up.

The Dutch side were no doubt bouyed by a target of only 163, when at times it looked like being more like two hundred, but their innings couldn't have started worse, with James Anderson picking up the wicket of Alexei Kervezee in an opening over that cost just two runs.

Darron Reekers (20) was not going to fall as easily, and his big hitting set the tone for the rest of the innings as the Netherlands effortlessly kept up with the required run rate with some quickfire runs from Tom de Grooth (49) and Peter Borren (30) putting the Dutchmen in a position to grab an unlikely win.

Despite the late wickets of Borren and Daan Van Bunge (8) the Netherlands were left needing 16 from 10 balls with the Essex all rounder ten Doeschate at the crease with bowler strike bowler Schiferli. 

Eoin Morgan summed up the day for many of the England players when he had the chance to all but win the game for England as ten Doeschate launched a Sidebottom delivery his way, only to parry his attempted catch over the boundary for four.

The men in Orange were left needing seven from the final over, but with Stuart Broad as the bowler there was still work to be done.  Bowling around the wicket, Broad fielded from his own bowling first ball, only to miss his underarm attempt to run out the frantic batsmen.

Worse was to come for Broad as he collected the second delivery, opting this time to dive for the stumps ball in hand, removing the bails in time, only for replays to show Broad dropped the ball before breaking the stumps, leaving the Dutch four balls to score five runs.

ten Doeschate then blasted a ball back at Broad, who took the sting out of it, but couldn't stop the single, before the Dutch pair scampered through for a single to the wicket keeper, a single from the fifth ball of the over set up a grandstand finish, with the Dutch needing two from the final delivery.

Broad once again collected the ball from his own bowling, and instead of holding the ball and settling for a tie and a 'super-over', he took a shy at the stumps, missing again and allowing the jubilant batsmen to take a second run on the overthrow.

The second run sparked huge celebration among the Dutch contingent in the crowd as the players and staff from the team sprinted onto the field to celebrate, completing a lap of honour as the England professionals slowly left the field looking as if they wanted a hole to open up and swallow them.

England now need to beat Pakistan on Sunday to stand any chance of reaching the Super Eight stage of the tournament they were talking about winning hours before the Netherlands game.  Paul Collingwood claimed he was 'shocked' by the result, and he won't be the only one in World Cricket who will find it hard to take in this fairytale win for the Dutch amateurs.