England vs Holland - Nagpur, 22nd February 2011

Nagpur, the so-called “Orange City” in India, was Tangerine-clad in more ways than one on 22^nd February 2011.

For not only were the British cricket commentators noshing out on various Orange delicacies the region has to offer, such as Orange Laddus and Orange Barfi, the Orange-Men of Holland were feasting on some pretty abject bowling from England’s finest, whilst their fielders making a meal of taking a catch, stopping an overthrow or even putting the requisite number of fielders in the correct area of the pitch at the appropriate juncture.



Great Ton by Ten Doeschate

That's not to take away what a superb job Holland did with the bat. Ryan Ten Doeschate's century was superb and exhibited strokes all around the wicket that the faithful followers of Essex will know only too well he is capable of, and he was backed up by other useful knocks throughout the Dutch batting line up.

Having said that, it was schoolboy stuff from England for the first 50 overs, in a match which genuinely threatened to cause one of the biggest upsets in world cricket since, well, the last time Holland beat England 2 years ago at Lords.

Take the moment James Anderson and Kevin Pietersen both converged on the same skied ball, only for both men to leave the catch to the other, and instead watch it land safely with a thud on the dry Nagpur outfield . Or when Graeme Swann, having been in the country a mere 48 hours, went down on one knee to take another catch at third man, only to lose it’s flight completely and see the ball fall between, well, everything but his hands, KP dropped one on the boundary, Trott dropped a tough diving catch, oh yeah, and to top it all off, Ryan Ten Doeschate reached a ton off an overthrown 5!

“This is a different England mentality to the one I left Jan 7,” mused Jonathan Agnew on his Twitter, and it’s hard to disagree. Since then England have been walloped 6-1 in the overly-superfluous One Day series in Australia, losing a host of players to injury in the process, have returned home for 5 days, and then jetted out to reconvene for the World Cup, without the chance to even unpack and wash their tidy-whites. Throw these boys a bone, how on earth can they re-charge their batteries in that short amount of time?



"To You!" "To Me!"

 Anyway I digress. Regular followers of this blog will know my feelings on England’s schedule leading up to this world cup and it’s sub-optimal nature, so enough of the how’s, the why’s, and the do-you-mind-if-I-don’t’s. Was yesterday’s exciting yet flawed victory by England really as bad as everyone’s harping on about?



Well, yes, in parts it was actually! The fielding was embarassing, with catches going down all over the place, throw-ins from the boundry ropes not being backed up at the stumps, and the unforgivable crime of only having 3 fielders in the ring when 4 were required - a situation that

caused the no-balling of a wicket-taking delivery, was shocking. I actually cringed when Pietersen and Anderson did their best impersonation of the Chuckle Brothers and let the ball drop to the ground between them both.



 The bowling too looked ill-disciplined, notably from Jimmy Anderson, with a lot of long-hops and full-tosses chucked down which were easy pickings for the Dutch, who notwithstanding Ten Doeschate had other useful contributions from Cooper and Borren, the latter even executed a Dilscoop! And the lack of a second spinner (Swann bowled beautifully) just seemed to restrict Strauss’s options. Pietersen bowled 2 overs for 19 and half of those were full-tosses. Yardy, surely, has to warrant a place in the side, given the dry nature of the wickets that this World Cup will be played on in the Sub-Continent.

 

KP was shackled with the Dutch
Wicketkeeper standing up to the stumps

Englands batting conversely was quite good. Pietersen started aggressively but was halted by the wicketkeeper standing up to the stumps, stopping him charging down the wicket. A good tussle that, but one he ultimately lost when he chipped a slow left-armer to mid-wicket. Again!

Everyone contributed though, Bopara came in and “Finished” the match off with some big hitting, never a bad thing, and Collingwood showed a lot of experience to get the run-rate ticking over again when it seemed to stall around the 40 over mark.

So a win’s a win, but lets not get too carried away.

India in Bangalore next up on Sunday and atmosphere-wise it’ll be like the first day of the Boxing Day test in Melbourne. Lets hope the mentality that we all remember from that test returns and England’s intensity, focus and aggression in the field comes flooding back to them, because Sachin, Sehwag and Co will make mincemeat of bowling and fielding shown at Nagpur.