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The rest of their attack is really rather ordinary, but it has the advantage of not being very quick. The boundaries in use at Lord’s (and at The Oval, from today’s TV coverage) are the same as in Test cricket, so batsmen have to supply all the power if they are to clear the ropes off the Dutch bowling – and though Luke Wright tried, his timing and technique were not really up to it.

The combination of tigerish fielding and bowling that made fast scoring slightly tricky was enough to restrict the target to eight an over – stiff but by no means impossible.

The first couple of overs did not go well, but thereafter they took their lives in their hands and just went for it. They tried to hit everything, and England placed so much reliance on their fast bowlers that miscues went for four; even more importantly, they ran for everything, especially overthrows and ricochets. Such impertinence sent the England fielders into a tailspin of panic, and the errors, dropped catches and wild throws multiplied.

The shot of the day was Tom de Grooth’s six off Broad. Stepping forward to turn the ball into a half-volley, he played the perfect three-iron over long-off. His innings was a gem, as adventurous and stylish as anything we will see from well-known internationals in the major teams. At the age of 30 he probably has higher priorities in life, but a number of counties will have seen enough to consider offering him a contract at least for next season’s Twenty20 competitions.

The English were frightened of making mistakes, made too many, and worried about them. The Dutch expected that they would make mistakes and therefore ignored them. Twenty20 is about being fearless, and it was the bravest team which won. Pakistan, no strangers themselves to losing World Cup matches to minnows, be warned.

The Dutch victory was not the only example of the cricketing gods’ excellent taste, though. Instead of the opening ceremony which the organisers had planned, we were treated to something far more characteristic of English cricket: the ground staff taking the covers off just in time for the rain to restart, not once but three times over. As entertainment, this was almost certainly superior to the scheduled display of the twelve men’s captains standing on six little daises waving inanely to the crowd while Alesha Dixon sang.

A little World Cup involving twelve teams does not need an opening ceremony to kick it off – a thrilling cricket match was all that was needed, and that is what we had.

Gelukwensen aan de Nederlanders!

After watching yesterdays game at Lords, and as a Dutchman, I am still in euphoria. Many of the England fans were not delighted with my presence in the C section of the Grand Stand but man... along with some Indian cricket lovers and my girlfriend accompanying me, we were treated with something out of this world.
It's something we feel proud about and for that I thank the Dutch cricket team including the staff. They were just brilliant.
And for the 'Orange Men', as Jonathan Agnew phrased the winners, just go for it!

See you at Lords on Tuesday.

Dear Gentlemen that run English cricket, please let us back into the FP Trophy. You removed us unjustly and allowed the Irish and Scotish teams to stay in it despite our ODI record being comparable. How will our cricket ever develop if it is not nutured by playing against professional standard teams? I think we've proven we deserve the same opportunities as the Irish and the Scots, unless I misunderstood the rules and this is some kind of British Isles bias....

[Mike: I've a lot of sympathy with this. However, would the Netherlands be able to play eight 50-over games in a month against counties, providing four turf pitches of suitable quality for the home games?]

Kingofspain that is such a petty comment it is laughable. You can bet thats not the australians attitude (even tho they too were beaten today) and that is why you will probably lose your beloved ashes series as well.

[MIke: I can't help but agree. I despair of people like Kingofspain. England supporters ought to be embarrassed by their team's performance, just as Indian and Pakistani fans were disappointed when their teams failed to make it past the group stages of the last 50-over World Cup by losing to minnow teams.]

if england fans are only worrying about ashes which they lost spectactularly 5_0 previously.....they should not play this world cup at all.....due respect of this format is not there and so the result....english are da laughing stock in sport.....they are real waste.....they can never win da world cup because of their total bad attitude.......they are bunch of loser who will cry ashes ashes and will get beaten all da time and then in ashes , they will get beaten 5_nil..........so pathethic .......give this associate nation due respect but english team is a total waste.......

Nobody feels sorry for England team and they only deserve to lose. England are too worried about ASHES and cares less about any other cricket that's happening around them. They would be better off playing just the Ashes where they would suck anyways. It's laughable that they were still talking about ashes even in the middle of the world cup tournament. And now the english are being sore losers and starting to play down this defeat by saying it's a mini format which doesn't really count. Even if they take this format seriously i'm sure they would still be worthless as they are in other formats. I'd be celebrating to see England and Australia and crash out of this tournament in the first round and start worrying about Ashes while the rest of the teams enjoy the excitement and vibe of the T20 cricket.

I have a solution for all the woes of Kingofspain and the other true cricket fans. Lets just ban England from T20 internationals, the English don't want to play T20 so why include them in the tournament. Plus the absence of England would provide the opportunity to a real side that actually wants to play to showcase their skills.
No wonder why the youngsters in England wants to play Football not Cricket. Not everybody has five days free to watch a test match. Tell me Kingofspain do you take three days off the work to watch every England test match.

"I've a lot of sympathy with this. However, would the Netherlands be able to play eight 50-over games in a month against counties, providing four turf pitches of suitable quality for the home games" -> yes they would. The Dutch have decent turf wickets, they actually have some ODI quality grounds and have for a while (they did some hosting duties back at the 1999 World Cup). People seem to associate playing in the Netherlands with matting wickets, but things have moved on since the 1980s. Ireland, Scotland and the Dutch were all fine - the European associate that had trouble with hosting was Denmark; they did try moving to a turf wicket but the quality was poor. Denmark are a poorer side though and are unlikely to compete at county level - especially when stripped of the best products of their youth system (Amjad Khan and Freddie Klokker spring to mind)

Kingofspain, England are gonna get whooped in the Ashes because of their arrogant attitude. If they don't it will be because Australia have themselves dropped below their previous standards.

Momentum counts for everything. Remember the T20 win in '05 and the consecutive Test series victories? Oh boy, this may be the first time where the rest of the world will actually cheer for the Australians in the Ashes after a very long time.

You can't win one particular Test series every two years when you lose and disrespect everything else. West Indies and Australia were dominant in all forms of the game during their peaks. Recently, India and South Africa have similarly built their success in Tests, ODI's and T20. Both of them love their T20 but beat England in England (Tests) the last time they toured.

Sigh... when will the English learn... AUSSIE AUSSIE AUSSIE OI OI OI!

England's disdain for any version of the game, against any opponent which is not Australia comes through every time they go into a game like this, and more often than not LOSE. Does anyone remember Kevin Pietersen's grunt when he was losing every match in the ODI series against India in India. Each time it was like - we are losing, but by a lesser margin. Oh my God, it was atrocious. As someone here has put rightly, if England is only interested in the Ashes [as clearly evinced by Collingwood in his comment on KP's supposed injury] then why don't you wrap all your players in cotton-wool and let the Associate nations take a crack at the big-boys. You can't seem to want to win anyway. All this as a setup to a possible 5-0 thrashing from Australia. Arrogance of such nature defies description! C'mon, you invented the game, the short format, and the shortest format! Show some spine! Rule Britannia!

Thanks for your generous column, Mike.

I would like to add one point and that is that the Netherlands made a very clever move by holding back Ryan ten Doeschate in the 2nd innings.

You would have expected him to bat at 4 or 5, but when the second and third wicket fell, the Neth were probably sensing that they could pull of an upset.

So ten Doeschate came in at 6, thereby maximising the chance of him still being there at the end, when things would get really tense. It worked like a dream.

If England does not care about this "mickey mouse" competition, why did they take the trouble (and the money) to host it?

And oh, there was one comment: England care only about the Ashes. The Second Test of last Ashes (where England heroically snatched a defeat from the jaws of draw on the last day) is enough to tell how much England care about it.

I would have never thought I would ever be supporting Australia in an Ashes series, but the England team's heroics has forced me to change my mind. Its 5-0 for Australia unless it rains.

I would say, the only thing England care about is being "clinical" against a West Indies team who did not care about the tour anyway.

I think the amusing thing is that even if England lose their next match, they will still auto qualify for next years World T20, whereas Netherlands still have to qualify.

I believe that the ICC should:
* Expand next years World T20 to 14 Teams (2x7, Semis & Final).
* Teams that Qualify for this World T20 Super 8's should qualify for next years World T20.
* Expand next years World T20 Qualifiers to 12 Teams (2x6), being Teams finishing 9-12 in this T20, Zimbarbwe and Top 7 Associate ODI teams that are not already listed. Top 3 teams from each group would qualify.

My guess is the 8 Auto Qualifiers would be: Aust, SA, Ind, Pak, NZ, SRL, BANG & NETH.

My guess is the 12 World T20 Q's would be:
Teams 9-12: Eng, WI, IRL & Scot.
(Zimb)
7 Assoc's: Canada, Kenya, Afghan, UAE, Namibia, USA & Bermuda.

This would give an incentive for ALL teams to perform in the World T20's, as well as giving more matches for each team in the World T20 (why have 4 warm up matches?).

Robbert ter Hart, thats what I thought when the match was taking place. It proved to be masterstroke because he showed his class and was calm at the end which the others might not have been given they are mostly ameteurs. But Ten Doeschete plays county cricket with Essex and now has good deal of experience. In my mind, if he is qualified, he ought to be playing for England because he has now played in England for 3-4 years. Maybe he qualifies next year, at which time I won't be surprised if he is selected by England, at least for ODIs and 20-20 internnationals, maybe even tests.

Good to see some associate teams doing fairly well. I also think Holland, like Scotland and Ireland, should be playing in FP Trophy, and all three should also be playing in England's domestic 20-20 tournment because of tehir close proximity to the country. The more they play against good opposition, the better they will get.

England is probably the worst cricket team in the world. They say its their national game, but they suck at it. Never won a World Cup title, and now they show this T20 world cup is not impotant enough.@KingofSpain - you are right..no one cares..because Engalnd are not worthy of winning anyways. They do not provide any competition in this tournament, so no one really cares if they make a first round exit. And lets wait and see what Engalnd does in your Big Ashes. You learnt a lesson when you lost 5-0 in the last one. You will lose again, because lets face it, you dont have the players. They lost the match to Netherlands due to their arrogance. And if Kevin Pietersen plays the game against Pakistan, where is Collingwood's talk about resting the key players. I dont understand why England play the IPL and T20 World Cup at all. Just play test cricket!

I would blame it to General English fans and english Cricket Journalist/Critics. Everybody in England is busy criticizing this shorter version. This has created a negative impact on cricketers mind, they are not able think beyond test or ashes. How can players be feel motivated when entire nation is against it and thats what casuing english ckt to loose their focus on other versions of game. I would urge all english fans to get over this mind set and think beyond test matches. Time has changed, new generation needs fast and quicker action. Having said this I doesn't mean that test should die.

[Mike: I suspect that even the Kingofspains of this world may change their tune if England carry on in this tournament the way they played today.]

It makes perfect sense. Cricket is meant to be a colonial sport and it was actually Dirk Hartog in 1616 that discovered Terra Australis.

A wonderful result for a cricket community whose passion for the game is rarely exceeded in the game.

Long may they continue to produce such results because THAT night at Lords was unforgettable.

Just goes to show that these smaller nations can provide some of the best moments in cricket.

Keep it going Dutchies!