This was a worth watching match with a lot of Drama. Netherlands won the toss and decided to bat first. We soon found out that Netherlands have a very stable batting order. They batted sensibly especially RN ten Doeschae who was immaculate in both batting and bowling. The England did not show much spark in their bowling except for Swan who bowled exceedingly well. It was very amusing to see English players field like rookies and especially during the last stages of the match where fielders seemed to have no clue of where they should be and were strolling in ground like a loose heard. It was a poor show of command and control and an example of weak captaincy on part of Strauss. One of the reasons in our opinion for such preposterous behaviour by English team was that they did not expected the Dutch team to perform so well and were not mentally prepared for such onslaught. Nevertheless the Dutch team surprised everyone by their batting and at the end of their batting innings we thought that they might even win the match.
When the English came to bat they seemed much more composed and started like professionals, may be because the Dutch bowling was not nearly as good as their batting. It was a good change to see Peterson opening for English. Andrew Strauss showed his class while batting. The Dutch in the field were also brilliant but what they lacked was a good bowling attack. They mostly have medium pacers with almost same style of bowling which created no difficulty whatsoever for English batsmen, on the contrary it allowed them to settle. Moreover during later portion of their bowling inning Dutch seemed less keen to restrict singles which is almost never a good idea. The bowlers did not ball according to their field placement, it was amusing to see bowlers bowling on the leg side with fielders on off side. Weak bowling on part of Dutch and English batting depth in our opinion cost Dutch the match.
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