Poor pullshots play tricks on the Orange
Published at 23 June, 2022In view of the batting violence during the first two Sportsbuzz.com One Day Internationals against England, it will have surprised few that the third and final game was also won by the visitors with force majeure. The 244 Dutch runs were surpassed in just over thirty overs due to Jason Roy and Jos Buttler.
Van Meekeren and Klaassen (playing instead of Kingma and Snater) had flown in, but despite two brilliant moments from Van Meekeren, they too could not make the difference. For the English, the debuting left-arm seamer David Payne came in for the injured Eoin Morgan, who handed over the captaincy to Jos Buttler.
England won the toss and chose to field first. In comparison with Friday and Sunday,
Ten opzichte van vrijdag en zondag was de crowd uitgedund, maar er zaten nog altijd een kleine 2.000 toeschouwers op de tribunes die een – hoewel wat eenzijdige - prima wedstrijd te zien kregen.
Compared to Friday and Sunday, the crowd had thinned out, but there were still about 2,000 spectators in the stands who got to see a – although somewhat one-sided – fine game.
Vikram Singh's mistimed pullshot appeared to fall on the ground but was snatched away just above the grass by Malan (16/1). Cooper was luckier; his mistimed pullshot on the debuting Payne seemed to fall into Livingstone's hands. However, he looked into the sun and didn't even get a hand to it, denying Payne his first ODI scalp for the time being.
The disciplined bowling of David Willey in particular explained the low scoring rate. The first Powerplay was already progressing, so O'Dowd and Cooper started to take a bit more risk. With some success; thanks to several nicely timed boundaries, including a beauty of a straight drive from Cooper, it was 47/1 after ten overs.
The only right-arm seamer in the company, Brydon Carse, was fast, but sometimes too short. Cooper took advantage with a blistering pull shot. The 50 partnership followed in the fourteenth over. Shortly after the drinks break, Livingstone got a second chance when he caught Cooper at deep square leg for 33. 88/2 in the eighteenth over meant that a partnership of 72 had been realised.
O’Dowd, solid as a rock, made another excellent 50 but was caught behind shortly after reaching it (119/3).
Bas de Leede and Scott Edwards also built an excellent partnership. Edwards was dropped at fine leg by Malan after a mistimed pullshot and made good use of his second life with (again) a fresh and attacking innings.
The 84-run partnership came to an end when Bas de Leede (56 and 'quietly impressive' according to one of the many cricket websites that reported on this match.) was caught off a mistimed pullshot.
Teja Nidamanuru looked lbw misreading Adil Rashid's googly. However, his bat hit the ground and apparently it was no longer possible to judge where the ‘spike’ came from. A few balls later he was dismissed, stumped off a regular legspinner of the wizard of Yorkshire (215/5).
Now the Netherlands had to advance to 270, maybe even 280. It was not to be. Van Beek was caught at mid on and Pringle was run out after a misunderstanding with Edwards (233/7).
Dutt and Van Meekeren were beaten for pace by Willey and were bowled in the final overs by Yorkshire's left-arm seamer, who will return to his old county of Northamptonshire after the season.
In the end, David Payne celebrated his first ODI scalp and not the least: he got top scorer Edwards (64) caught at mid-on. David Willey showed his class with 4-36. The Netherlands made 244.
Innings England
After his failure on day 1 and a rock-solid 73 on Sunday, opener Jason Roy now made a focused impression.
Although England started offensively, there seemed to be minimal chances. However, several inside edges and top edges still disappeared over the boundary.
In addition, in an attempt to buy a wicket or two, some bowlers tried to experiment a bit. After a flurry of boundaries a breakthrough followed. Van Meekeren was responsible for the fall of the wicket of Salt (49). The ball came in slightly and hit the middle and leg. Two balls later he bowled lefthander Dawid Malan beautifully behind the legs for a duck. 85/2 in the tenth over meant a glimmer of hope for a miracle.
Roy and Buttler however obviously batted with the handbrake on. A run a ball was more than enough to stay on target.
The only serious chances came on 137 and 183. On 137 Edwards was unable to hang on to an edge from Roy, who had just reached 50, off Dutt’s bowling. On 183, Klaassen dropped a seemingly not too difficult chance from Roy (who was on 75) off his own bowling.
After this rare opportunity, the throttle opened completely. Van Meekeren's 29th over went for 26 runs, including a curious no ball that disappeared for six, a fate that the subsequent free hit also suffered. The thirtieth over by De Leede went for 16.
Player of the Match Jason Roy (101 not out) just reached his century before Player of the Series Jos Buttler (86 off 64 balls) decided the match in the 31st over with a six of Pringle.
All in all, we look back – although of course they did not have the desired result – on three brilliant cricket days. The Netherlands has proper batsmen, excellent ground fielding and a fairly varied attack, but the gap with the reigning world champion is big. On the other hand, the previous series against the West Indies showed that the Dutch can certainly be competitive against the slightly lower ranked teams.
