Let's Not Peak Too Early...

Before Tuesday it had been a gentle start to the World Cup, test playing nations swatting aside the minnows with alacrity, but on Tuesday the tournament finally came to life with the threat of the first shock.

Nagpur is, appropriately, the orange city, and for much of the game the men in orange threatened to repeat their shock performance in the opening game of the 2009 World Twenty20. In the end Ravi Bopara and Paul Collingwood saw England home but all of the plaudits deservedly went to the Dutch and, in particular, the remarkable Ryan ten Doeschate.

Ten Doeschate, of course, is in a different class from most Associate players. He boasts a first class batting average of 48.05 and a one day international average of around seventy, but even so England will be deeply disappointed to have allowed him to make a career defining century that so nearly set up a remarkable win for his side. The bowling and fielding, for so long such a strength of England, was a shadow of its normal self, verging on the shambolic at times, and had Dirk Nannes still been playing for the Netherlands it might have cost England dearly. As it was they escaped thanks to a flurry of scoring from Ravi Bopara and, eventually, a crucial lack of quality and depth in the Dutch bowling.

England have been out of sorts since the one day series started in Australia. The ‘after the Lord Mayor’s Show’ feeling that permeated their limited over cricket then has been carried over into the World Cup and it is something that the management team need to address as a matter of urgency. The positive is that this group of players have generally bounced back well from adversity and that this may be the wake-up call that they need, but they are going to improve and do it fast if they are to make any kind of positive impression on this tournament.

We shouldn’t read too much into one game, though. Back in 1983, in the days of rather shorter World Cups, India found themselves 17-5 and all but out of the tournament at the hands of Zimbabwe. One week later they were World Champions.