Buttler fires England to record-breaking heights
Scoring 500 now a target as big-hitters push boundaries Salt and Malan strike tons against understrength Dutch
“Boring, boring England” the Barmy Army sang. It was a few minutes after 3pm here, and Liam Livingstone had just hit the penultimate ball for four, thereby depriving England of a chance of cricketing immortality by striking the first total of 500 in a 50-over game.
Livingstone, as if to apologise, promptly smote the final delivery over the midwicket ropes.
And so, a total of 500 in one-day international cricket remains what the four-minute mile was to athletics before Roger Bannister’s run in Oxford in 1954. But, you sense, this England side will soon reassemble for a renewed assault – even, perhaps, as soon as tomorrow’s second ODI against the Netherlands.
For now, England would have to content themselves with 498 for four – the highest total in either ODI or List A cricket. It is entirely in keeping with the journey of England’s limited-overs side since 2015 that they broke their own record for the highest ODI total, set against Australia four years ago.
Jos Buttler, who came just one ball shy of setting a record for the fastest 150 in ODIS when he got there in 65 balls, also set what you suspect is another record: most balls lost in an ODI innings. Buttler hit nine – each costing the Dutch cricket board about £100 – off his blade into the neighbouring forest. “We keep trying to push the boundaries,” Buttler said, saying that the team hope to one day top 500. “We’ll keep trying – it’s a tough thing to achieve. The biggest thing is the mentality we’re showing as a team.”
It was, even by Buttler’s standards, a remarkable display of controlled violence, brilliant in its brutality, taking advantage of pristine batting conditions at the VRA ground, a sumptuous day and a depleted Netherlands attack. For all these advantages, it was a snapshot of what he can unleash when deployed at No4, rather than his customary No6. Buttler is now the owner of England’s three fastest ODI centuries, this 47-ball ton resting snugly between his centuries against Pakistan in Dubai and Southampton.
And yet Buttler was merely the most spectacular of England’s three centurions. Phil Salt’s 122
– his maiden ODI century, underpinned by wonderful straight drives – added to his case to be England’s long-term heir to Jason
Roy and Jonny Bairstow. Dawid Malan overturned an lbw decision on 25 and then cruised to a 90-ball century to join Buttler and Heather Knight as the only England players to score international centuries in all three formats of the game. Dismissing
Malan – immediately followed by Dutch captain Pieter Seelaar trapping his opposite number Eoin Morgan lbw first ball – was the prelude to even more carnage. Livingstone is not a cricketer who needs a platform of 407 for four in the 45th over to invite pyrotechnics; after his 122metre straight six off Haris Rauf at Headingley last year, he must have eyed VRA’S altogether more inviting boundaries with glee. Once he had taken a solitary ball to play himself in, Livingstone bludgeoned 32 off an over from leg-spinner Philippe Boissevain, the most England have scored in an ODI over. Livingstone just missed out on scoring the fastest ODI halfcentury – another record that AB de Villiers could cling to after Buttler’s assault on his 150 record – but hit six sixes in his 22-ball 66 – England’s fastest ODI 50.
As his punchdrunk side trouped off, Seelaar’s decision to bowl first after winning the toss, was safely established as Dutch one-day cricket’s
equivalent of Nasser Hussain at Brisbane in 2002. It had fleetingly seemed vindicated when Shane Snater bowled his cousin Jason Roy – their mothers, who grew up in Zimbabwe, are sisters, and the two are very close – off an inside edge in the second over. Seelaar’s cause was not helped by the absence of seven leading Dutch players, including six bowlers, largely because counties were reluctant to release their players, severely hampering the Netherlands ahead of their highest-profile home series in history.
The impotence of the mandatory release clause – which, in theory, says that players must always be released for international fixtures – was a microcosm of the inequities that hamper the Netherlands and other emerging nations. So was the sight of Peter Borren, the Dutch assistant coach, the day before the game receiving a phone call asking him to fill in as coach for a VRA Under-13s training session: their normal coach, Vikramjit Singh, was busy preparing to open the batting against the world champions.
Singh’s partner, Max O’dowd, managed one thing that even Buttler or Livingstone could not: breaking the window in the press box, when he heaved Adil Rashid over long-on during a well-compiled 55. An enterprising innings from Scott Edwards ensured that the Netherlands avoided succumbing to the indignity of the highest ODI defeat.
All England’s three left-arm quicks impressed. Perhaps the most significant performance was by Sam Curran, who marked his first international for a year, after suffering a stress fracture, with two wickets.
For the 6,000 fans – the majority of whom supported England – about all there was to complain about were the queues for drinks, with spectators waiting up to three-quarters of an hour for a pint. They were not the only ones to feel the heat.