England cannot be complacent

Netherlands no easy beats:

Elmo RODRIGOPULLE reporting from England

The Second Edition of the International Cricket Council’s Twenty20 World Cup tournament will be launched when the hosts England confront Netherlands at the Mecca of cricket Lord’s today at 5.30 pm local time.

The ground as always looks a picture and the atmosphere here is wonderful with most of the tickets snapped up and a full; house expected to savour the opening ceremony before the game begins.

If the side batting first posts a formidable score, the side batting second would be under tremendous pressure to chase and if they lose early wickets, the game could be as good as lost.

In this style game teams could go in with plans and strategies. That’s well and good. But the bottom line is - that the team performing on the day will emerge victorious. On paper England will be the favourites to beat the Netherlands. England will have the advantage playing on their own backyard, knowing the conditions and also how the wicket would play. England were a bit shaken before the game because their main batting star Kevin Pietersen seemed to have suffered an injury.

Pietersen took part at a training session. But did not do any extra running, especially shuttle sprints. According to captain Paul Collingwood, KP is expected to be fit and take his place in this vital opening game. England would want to have him in the line up now that they are without the allround abilities of Andrew Flintoff still recovering from surgery.

England who have never had their names engraved in the 50 over World Cup will be frightfully keen to at least win this one and make their fans happy.In the previous Twenty20 World Cup played in South Africa in 2007, Collingwood was in charge,and England sadly went out.

England will be hoping that one downer Ravi Bopara would carry his phenomenal batting form which he showed against West Indies into the Twenty20.He has improved his batting tremendously and it would be interesting to watch how he goes. The skipper, Pietersen and allrounders Stuart Broad and Dimitri Mascarenhas must also make runs. James Anderson,Stuart Broad, Collingwood and Graham Swan will have to do the containing job as bowlers Netherlands on the other hand would be no easy beats.

They have some capable performers in captain Jeroen Smits a dashing right hand bat, Peter Borren, Mudassar Buhkari, Tom De Grooth and Maurits Jonkman and could be expected to give England the jitters and who knows if luck plays for them could upset England’s apple cart.

So keep your fingers crossed for an exciting opener.