England struggle to beat Netherlands

England laboured to a thrilling six-wicket victory over the Netherlands in a Group B match to avert what could have been the first upset of the World Cup on Tuesday.

The Netherlands batsmen, especially the South Africa-born Ryan ten Doeschate (119), thrived on England’s shoddy bowling and sloppy fielding to power the team to 292-6, a target that seemed quite a test for their opponents’ tweaked batting order.

England’s chase got off to a resounding start with Andrew Strauss (88) and Kevin Pietersen (39) providing a rollicking 105-run stand before they lost four wickets to find themselves in a spot of bother.

Paul Collingwood’s (30) experience and Ravi Bopara’s (30) improvisation came in handy as England survived some torrid times before completing the tricky chase with eight balls to spare.

Having stunned England in the 2009 Twenty20 World Cup, the Dutch upstarts seemed up to more mischief at the Vidarbha Cricket Association where they batted as if to salvage the reputation of the associate teams. Reuters