Sloppy England sneak home

Kevin Pietersen (right) and Andrew Strauss
12 April 2012

England overcame a shoddy performance in the field and a wonderful hundred from Holland's Ryan ten Doeschate to avoid a shock defeat at the start of their World Cup campaign.

Andrew Strauss (88) and Jonathan Trott (62) did most to help their team home by six wickets with eight balls to spare - statistics which flattered England after some late hitting from Ravi Bopara, in pursuit of 292.

Ten Doeschate's career-best 119 raised the prospect of a second successive defeat against unheralded Holland in major tournaments, and kept the outcome in doubt almost throughout.

The Essex all-rounder hit three sixes and nine fours in an outstanding 110-ball innings to ensure Holland set a tough target, and posted by far their highest score against a Test-playing nation.

But it was not quite enough this time for the Dutch, who memorably beat England at their most recent attempt - in the opening match of the ICC World Twenty20 at Lord's in 2009.

Strauss and Kevin Pietersen got a taxing chase off to an excellent start, racing to 105 without loss in under 18 overs. But Pietersen then revisited his unenviable knack of getting out to left-arm spinners when he hit Pieter Seelaar straight to short extra-cover for 39.

It was clearly Strauss' intention to complete the job, having charged to his 50 in only 34 balls. But he could not find the boundary again after doing so nine times in his half-century - and his consolidation ended when, at the start of Mudassar Bukhari's second spell, he pulled to deep square-leg where Tom Cooper took a fine running catch.

Trott had done his reconassaince by then, and appealed as the ideal candidate to manage the remainder of England's innings on a very good batting surface. But after a typically hard-working 50, he had not bargained for Wesley Barresi - who pulled off an excellent leg-side stumping as Trott lost his balance to Ten Doeschate's medium-pace.

After Ian Bell then lost his middle-stump to the last ball of Ten Doeschate's 10 overs, it was down to new batsmen to scramble the last 52 runs in seven overs.

Happily for England, Paul Collingwood and Bopara, both with 30 not out, were up to the task.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in