Brutal England batter record
Buttler, Salt and Malan all smash centuries as desperate Dutch are put to the sword
ANYTHING the Test team can do, the one-day team can apparently do better. Three days after Jonny Bairstow battered New Zealand in Nottingham, England’s 50-over batsmen destroyed the Dutch, breaking the world record and sensationally coming within touching distance of 500.
This was sadism recast as sport, carnage reconfigured as cricket. Some of the bowling figures, you suspect, would be banned by Amsterdam’s red-light district for being too explicit.
By the end of an innings of 498 for four, there had been 26 sixes — another world record — and 36 fours.
Phil Salt and Dawid Malan hit maiden ODI hundreds, Jos Buttler crashed 162 not out from 70 balls and Liam Livingstone creamed the fastest one-day fifty in England’s history. It was raucous, it was brutal. the Netherlands captain Pieter Seelaar had stuck England in. White-ball reset, anyone?
Briefly, the promised land of 500 was within reach, only for Logan van Beek to concede just seven during an excellent 49th over, while Buttler and Livingstone strained at the leash.
England needed sixes off each of the last two balls of the innings, but Livingstone could manage only four off the first — provoking chants of ‘boring, boring England’ from the mass of travelling fans who were turning pink in the 28-degree Dutch heat.
The Dutch fielders had long gone a sickly green. Much of their best work was done in the undergrowth around Amstelveen’s picturesque VCA ground, as they attempted to retrieve one six after another. Buttler alone hit 14, Livingstone six.
Even so, one estimate reckoned nine balls were lost, at a cost of around £1,000 to the Dutch cricket authorities. Playing England can be an expensive business, not just for the bowlers. At times, it felt like range-hitting practice.
For Matthew Mott, their new white-ball coach, this was an instant show of bench strength from a side missing Joe Root, Bairstow and Ben Stokes. Yesterday, his job must have felt like the easiest in sport.
The Dutch, it’s true, were badly weakened by the participation of half a dozen players, mainly bowlers, in county cricket’s T20 Blast. But it’s hard to imagine that their firststring attack would have had much luck containing England either.
At one point, after Buttler plonked Bas de Leede on to the roof of the indoor school beyond deep midwicket, an official clambered up a ladder to retrieve it. It might have been better deployed on the boundary.
In fact, England’s day had got off to a misleadingly shaky start. Their bus became stuck in the back lanes on the way to the game, forcing the players to walk the last ten minutes.
Then Jason Roy was bowled for a single by Shane Snater, his cousin (their mothers are sisters).
But Salt and Malan responded with a resounding stand of 222 from 28 overs, and England simply never looked back.
Salt, in his fourth ODI, was dropped on 40, but drove strongly down the ground on his way to an 82-ball century. Malan, in his seventh, overturned an lbw decision on 25, and got there in 90.
It meant he joined Buttler as the only Englishman — Heather Knight has achieved the feat, too — to score a century in each of the three international formats.
The fireworks, it turned out, had barely begun. Surviving chances in the deep on 17 and 37 — in the same over, naturally — Buttler reached 50 off 27 balls.
His tenth one-day hundred came off 47 balls — one short of equalling his own record for the fastest by an England player. After starring at the IPL with Rajasthan Royals, he was said to have jumped at the chance to reconnect with his international team-mates.
And as if to underline his status as one of the founding fathers of England’s white-ball revolution, Buttler now has their fastest, second-fastest and third-fastest ODI hundreds. He is writing records on the go.
Ridiculously, he was soon overtaking Malan’s score, despite conceding a 28-over headstart.
Of the pair’s third-wicket stand of 184, Buttler made 139, often pinching the strike with a single off the last delivery of the over.
Eoin Morgan went first ball, but that merely hastened the arrival of Livingstone, who took 32 off an over from Philippe Boissevain.
And when Livingstone narrowly
failed to equal south African AB de Villiers’s ODI-record 16-ball half-century, attention turned to how many England could get. Frankly, it was anyone’s guess.
they had already broken the ground record of 443 for nine, held by sri Lanka since 2006.
then they sailed past their own world record of 481 for six, made against Australia at trent Bridge four summers ago.
Could they reach 500, as the nowexiled Alex Hales suggested they might back in 2018?
With Buttler on strike, they needed 23 off the last over: two, two, six and one left Livingstone requiring 12. He scored ten, leaving England on 498 and two short of 500.
the pitch was flat, the boundaries inviting and the bowlers friendly, but this was still an awesome display of hitting from a team hoping to add this year’s t20 World Cup to the one-day title that they won at home against New Zealand in 2019.
the Dutch chase was the definition of futility. Opener Max O’Dowd and wicketkeeper scott Edwards did both score halfcenturies, but Moeen Ali made up for the disappointment of not getting to bat by collecting three wickets with his off-breaks.
Malan got one and the trio of quicks — David Willey, Reece topley and sam Curran — each took two, as the Netherlands finished with a respectable 266 in response.
Only the arrangements forced on a crowd of around 6,000 by an archaic system that obliged fans to queue twice for refreshments — once for a token, once for the drink — dampened the mood.
But England left with a taste for more. they will begin tomorrow’s second match wondering how high they can go.