The Humbling of Lord’s

WT20 2009 began by proving one of T20 cricket’s most essential axioms- a good team is more important than eleven brilliant individuals.

Source- skysports.com; A shocked Broad stares into the abyss in disbelief as celebrations erupt

Cricket can be a topsy-turvy game. There’s no telling when the tables will turn. T20 cricket amped up this unpredictability to unprecedented levels. The first T20 World Cup ended with a high-voltage clash between India and Pakistan that went right down to the wire. The next WT20, scheduled to begin in 2009, took from where the tournament had left off.

The difference this time, however, was that the gulf between the two teams was quite vast. England had one of the wealthiest cricketing boards in the world, whereas the Netherlands were still finding their feet. At the mecca of cricket and England’s home, nobody gave the visitors a chance.

When the fateful day of 5th June 2009 came, something clicked for the Oranje. On the teamsheet as eleven individuals, they didn’t stand a chance in front of the English, who boasted the likes of Morgan, Collingwood, Broad and Anderson. Through a sheer collective will, however, they overpowered England.

At one point, England was cruising in their innings. At 102 for no loss, Bopara fell; after that, they just never recovered. Paul and Rob barely reached double figures, and the rest did not even afford themselves that grace, as they crashed and burned to a miserly total of 163 runs.

A bowling attack of Broad, Anderson and Rashid was expected to give the other team at least some semblance of a struggle in getting to the total. But anything that was expected to happen wasn’t allowed, courtesy of the cricketing gods.

At no point during their chase did it feel like the game was slipping out of their hands. They paced the innings to absolute perfection and Tom de Grooth’s 49 runs from 30 balls ensured that no last minute hiccups would spoil their party.

The equation came down to a paltry 7 runs from the last over. They had bowled out of their skins, batted out of their skins and fielded out of their skins- now it was time for them to run out of their skins- and they did exactly that.

Broad, for the first time in the Dutch innings, seemed to have been slowly putting the game up for grabs. An unbelievable display of death bowling meant that on the last ball of the game, it still hung in the balance.

The last ball, too, was clubbed by Schiferli, and Broad ran over to collect it, but that’s when it went wrong- with three stumps to aim at, he still missed. As Doeschate and Schiferli ran through for the second run, Broad fell to his knees, and celebrations began at the other end. The game was a sign of the fortunes that England would have in the tournament, and as for the Dutch, it was a nice morale booster.