Minnows are minnows and against big brothers they haven’t been able to show any firepower that can beat the big brothers. Be it Kenya, Canada, Zimbabwe or for that matter Bangladesh, all of them have been beaten ruthlessly by their imposing opponents.
Many wins have been too big to give any credit to opposition. May be a club side in India or England could have done better than they.
The losses heaped upon Kenya and then against Canada by New Zealand and Sri lanka respectively were simply too big to be digested. It was humiliating and one of our columnist asked that why ICC shouldn’t answer and pay back to audience who had paid hundreds of rupees only to be disappointed by an absolute no show.
Even Zimbabwe was beaten by a huge margin by Australia and Bangladesh were also beaten by their enormous neighbor.
So when England meets another minnow from their own continent, the thought that would be on their minds is not how to beat the minnows but with how huge a margin they should beat them.
England have been in terrific form and except a series defeat in Australia they haven’t been beaten by any team in recent months.
So they will be under not much pressure and may be able to come up with their natural game.
Though it is not to undermine the pluses in the Netherland team. They have beaten England in the past and an upset at this stage is always welcome as it will ignite interest in matches involving minnows, otherwise if all results go as predicted, there wouldn’t be many takers for games involving minnows.
England team: 1 Kevin Pietersen, 2 Andrew Strauss (capt), 3 Jonathan Trott, 4 Ian Bell, 5 Paul Collingwood, 6 Matt Prior (wk), 7 Ravi Bopara, 8 Tim Bresnan, 9 Graeme Swann, 10 Stuart Broad, 11 James Anderson.
Netherlands team: 1 Alexei Kervezee, 2 Wesley Barresi (wk), 3 Eric Szwarczynski, 4 Tom Cooper, 5 Ryan ten Doeschate, 6 Peter Borren (capt), 7 Bas Zuiderent, 8 Tom de Grooth, 9 Mudassar Bukhari, 10 Adeel Raja, 11 Bradley Kruger.
Many wins have been too big to give any credit to opposition. May be a club side in India or England could have done better than they.
Even Zimbabwe was beaten by a huge margin by Australia and Bangladesh were also beaten by their enormous neighbor.
So when England meets another minnow from their own continent, the thought that would be on their minds is not how to beat the minnows but with how huge a margin they should beat them.
England have been in terrific form and except a series defeat in Australia they haven’t been beaten by any team in recent months.
So they will be under not much pressure and may be able to come up with their natural game.
Though it is not to undermine the pluses in the Netherland team. They have beaten England in the past and an upset at this stage is always welcome as it will ignite interest in matches involving minnows, otherwise if all results go as predicted, there wouldn’t be many takers for games involving minnows.
England team: 1 Kevin Pietersen, 2 Andrew Strauss (capt), 3 Jonathan Trott, 4 Ian Bell, 5 Paul Collingwood, 6 Matt Prior (wk), 7 Ravi Bopara, 8 Tim Bresnan, 9 Graeme Swann, 10 Stuart Broad, 11 James Anderson.
Netherlands team: 1 Alexei Kervezee, 2 Wesley Barresi (wk), 3 Eric Szwarczynski, 4 Tom Cooper, 5 Ryan ten Doeschate, 6 Peter Borren (capt), 7 Bas Zuiderent, 8 Tom de Grooth, 9 Mudassar Bukhari, 10 Adeel Raja, 11 Bradley Kruger.
