Yesterday the English people woke to find on the front page of their papers that their prime minister, Gordon Brown, had been gloriously humiliated. Little did they know that their country would face humiliation of a different kind later that day.
But this time, the humiliation wasn't over some expenses scandal, it was at the hands of the so called cricketing 'minnow' nation, The Netherlands.
From the word go the day was destined for disaster. Low, grey clouds rolled over the english countryside and brought an end to the opening ceremony before it had even started, and so it was that ICC president, David Morgan, stood up in front of of the dull crowed at Lords and apologised. A spokesperson for the ECB then came out and said the alternate to a colourful opening ceremony would be the cricket.
The ECB can thank the Netherlands for putting on such a professional yet thrilling show, because the indifferent looking and Ashes concerned England side could hardly do more to look as drab as the weather.
The Dutch romped home to produce a last ball, 6 wicket victory that was later described by Netherlands captain Jeroen Smits as "the biggest day in Dutch cricket". The english scrapped to a modest score of 162/5 off their 20 overs after being sent in by Smits. They came out confidently and with all the belief, hitting 4 sixes to the Englands 0, and never really looked like falling short.
The utmost credit must be given to the performance of the Dutch in the field. Aside from the firey pace from Dirk Nannes, the attack was led by a couple of scratchy medium pacers and a rather orthodox left arm spinner. But the ground fielding was superb, Smits' mixed and matched his bowlers well, and importantly, they held their chances, all three of which were things the english failed to reproduce in the Netherlands' innings.
Edgar Schiferli and Ryan ten Doeschate are a far cry from some of the top-notch pacemen going around, but they proved that when you stick to the basics, you reap the rewards. They bowled accurately to well placed fields, and did well to keep England to 100 off around 10 overs. Dirk Nannes, the experienced Australian, bowled an extremely good spell at the top of the innings, and was ultimately too quick for the inexperienced England late order hitters Robert Key and James Foster towards the end.
When ten Doeschate removed openers Ravi Bopara and Luke Wright after the flying start, the rest of the English batting struggled to get the wily Dutch bowlers to the boundaries. Owais Shah fell early to Schiferli, and 'innovative' Irishman Eoin Morgan holed out to the very medium pace of Peter Borren. Skipper Paul Collingwood tamely chipped the left arm spinner Pieter Seelaar to long-on, and after both Key and Foster failed to capitalise on the all important death overs, one got the feeling that it just wasn't going to be England's day.
The Netherlands never really fell behind the required run-rate of 8.10 an over. Tom de Grooth played the innings of his life with 49 off 30 balls, after Darron Reekers smashed two sixes off experienced bowlers Ryan Sidebottom and Stuart Broad earlier in the piece. Every time the men in orange lost a wicket, the new batsman was able hang in and build a new partnership. In the end it came down to the last ball of the final over; the Dutch needed 2 runs to win, as the injured Shiferli nudged the Broad ball onto the onside and set off for the run. Broad then collected and went for glory - a single would have taken the game to a super over - and missed, resulting in the second run, an overthrow, which handed The Netherlands a deserved victory.
The vastly different fortunes of the sides were summed up as the respective captains faced the press. Paul Collingwood stuttered and stumbled his way through, and his lack of clear thinking reflected obvious devastation. "It's pretty hard to take, you call them sides the minnow sides, but today they deserved their victory" said Collingwood. "The Boys are devastated in the dressing-room, but we've got to bounce back, and play a hell of a lot better on Sunday."
This was a stark contrast to the feelings in the Netherlands camp. As Collingwood continuously glossed over the loss, giving off the vibe that his side was just using the tournament as a bit of a practice-run before the Ashes. Jeremy Smits captured perfectly the perspective of Netherlands cricket as a whole: "We will have to get some more time away from work - it will cost us a lot of money - but I would love to take some days off."
The win may cost some of the Netherlands players a few weeks wage, but the cost for the English, in terms of pride and confidence, would surely be far greater.
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