4th over: England 25-1 (Salt 22, Malan 1) Snater comes down to earth as Salt hits two more fours, a handsome straight drive and a simple flick past fine leg, who is up in the circle.
3rd over: England 17-1 (Salt 14, Malan 1) With Roy gone, it’s up to Salt to be the master blaster. He rises to the challenge now, driving van Beek for four and pulling him for six! England have woken up.
2nd over: England 5-1 (Salt 3, Malan 1) Dawid Malan comes in at No 3, in the role defined by Kane Williamson when he was playing under Brendon McCullum and said he was the library in the theme park. Malan tucks a single, whereupon Phil Salt chips over cover, rather unconvincingly, for three. Rumours that the pitch is a belter may have been exaggerated: the ball seems to be sticking a bit.
Wicket! Roy b Snater 1 (England 1-1)
Jason Roy has gone! To his own cousin!! Small world. Well bowled Shane Snater, who went full, got some swing back in, and persuaded his cousin Jason to play on. Five minutes in, and this game is already beginning to resemble a banana skin.
1st over: England 1-0 (Roy 1, Salt 0) The new ball is in the hands of Logan van Beek, who starts superbly, swinging the ball, keeping Jason Roy quiet, and beating Phil Salt with a full-length outswinger. Netherlands on top!
The players are out there, with the Dutch team resplendent in orange. If you love football as well as cricket, it’s hard not to root for any team dressed like that. Hoping they will play total cricket.
Teams: England pick three lefties
You know how England tend to field too many right-arm seamers? Well, today they haven’t picked one. It’s three left-armers (Willey, Topley, Curran) and three spinners (Rashid, Moeen, Livingstone).
England 1 Jason Roy, 2 Phil Salt, 3 Dawid Malan, 4 Jos Buttler (wkt), 5 Liam Livingstone, 6 Eoin Morgan (capt), 7 Moeen Ali, 8 Sam Curran, 9 David Willey, 10 Adil Rashid, 11 Reece Topley.
The Netherlands 1 Vikramjit Singh, 2 Max O’Dowd, 3 Musa Nadeem, 4 Bas de Leede, 5 Scott Edwards (wkt), 6 Teja Nidamanuru, 7 Pieter Seelaar (capt), 8 Logan van Beek, 9 Shane Snater, 10 Aryan Dutt, 11 Philippe Boissevain.
Toss: England bat first
Morning everyone and welcome to … yet another England cricket match! With a difference this time – it’s in Amsterdam. And it doesn’t involve any of the heroes of Trent Bridge 2022. Now that Test cricket has turned into Twenty20, maybe we have to look to the 50-over game for a bit of peace and quiet.
The news from Amstelveen is that Eoin Morgan – remember him? – has lost the toss, and Pieter Seelaar has asked England to bat first. The pitch looks like a belter, so England will be eyeing 400 as they play theirs game under their new coach, Matthew Mott. Play starts at 10am UK time.
Morning everyone and welcome to … yet another England cricket match! With a difference this time – it’s in Amsterdam. And it doesn’t involve any of the heroes of Trent Bridge 2022. Now that Test cricket has turned into Twenty20, maybe we have to look to the 50-over game for a bit of peace and quiet.
