It was as if a popcorn machine had exploded: hot, sweet, buttery grains flying from side to side to the delight of spectators, while desperate owners pressed buttons at random, wanting to s ‘aturi. England’s one-day international total, a world record 498 by four, wiped out a withered Dutch attack when Jos Buttler, Phil Salt, Dawid Malan and Liam Livingstone set the God Damn in Amsterdam.
In an entry so full of superlatives, it was hard to know when it was best to time a quick ankle scratch, let alone shut down to buy a drink, England baptized 26 six, another record, in a blitz of three hours and a few hours. with short boundaries. Blink and you’ll miss Jump on the way to his first hundred with an English T-shirt or Malan building a carefully constructed ton, or Livingstone, who entered the arena like a spiral spring and finished with the fifty of a fastest day in England, barely. 17 balls.
But most surprising of all was Buttler, whose IPL warm-up had brought him 46 sixes, as well as awards for the most valuable player and top scorer. It could be said with certainty that he had his eye on Amstelveen.
“Every time you get to play like that and play like that as a team is a great day,” Buttler said, as softly as ever. “This is the funniest environment I’ve ever played in. It’s been great to be back on a regular tour and not worry about bubbles.”
England’s previous highest score was 481 against Australia at Trent Bridge in 2018, when Alex Hales and Jonny Bairstow won hundreds, with Jason Roy and Eoin Morgan generously intervening. Hales and Bairstow did not compete in this tour, for various reasons, and neither did Jason Roy, who was shot once in the second round of the day by his cousin Shane Snater, nor Morgan, lbw for a golden duck with a score of 407-4. , you will have a lot of personal joy from the entries in your dashboard.
Buttler led England past the record with a chip whipped to the ground for six at the last inning of the innings, before Livingstone finished things off with a four-and-six over the game. It was that kind of day. They hadn’t reached 500, but they had broken their own record, the highest female ODI record of 491, and the national record of 50 over 496 in Surrey. they were fine and really tango. Worse, they had won the draw and decided to bowling.
Salt had been on fire, hitting the ground and throwing happily and reaching 50 with a four over half, his second ODI fifty in just his fourth game. He continued, reaching his century with a simple single, jumping into the air, before taking off his helmet and hugging Dawid Malan tightly. It looked like each ball was headed in exactly the way it should have been, but three overs later, it was off, trying to cut, but only the top end was hit by Logan van Beek.
Dawid Malan’s century makes him the third player to score a hundred for England in the three international formats. Photography: Richard Heathcote / Getty Images
Buttler came out, with 20 overs left, his favorite type of arithmetic. After 16 balls, he had reached a guard of 17, while Malan was on the edge with 99. When Buttler had faced another 44 balls, he had overtaken Malan, 114 to 113, in a passing game that it consisted mainly of campers watching the missiles whistle above their heads toward the undergrowth vegetation that surrounded the ground. The guest is that only Buttler lost nine cricket balls, which amounted to more than € 1,000.
They were superhero things, though he dropped in 37 years after going for his fourth six in front of a Pieter Seelar. The next day, Malan achieved his first hundred hatred for England, joining Heather Knight and Buttler himself in the pantheon of English players with centuries in all three formats.
At that moment, Buttler saw the ball as a huge Edam. Bas de Leede’s first two successive deliveries, six on the grouping of white hospitality stores. Another six in the trees. His hundredth came with 47 balls, becoming the second fastest ODI century of an Englishman. The fastest? Forty-six balls, from Butter himself.
When Livingstone arrived and fastened the first belt he faced for four six and two four, a woman in a fluid orange caftan and rolling a generous stuffed cigarette asked, “They’re as good at bowling as they are at baptizing. ? ” The answer was almost, but not entirely.
With an unenviable task, the Netherlands reached 50 in 58 balls, but that already put them behind the required race rate: 7.98 at the start of the innings, but ready to leave the blocks. Reece Topley fired the brilliant Max O’Dowd, after reviewing; Sam Curran, out for months with a stress fracture, returned with nine left arm slippers and two carries, while Moeen Ali grabbed three for 57.
By now, some of the more than 6,000 people who had crowded the four temporary stands of the ground had retreated into the shadows, others had joined the long queues of beer, while , in some places, small cricket games were exploding. The sun-singers sang with the DJ audience.
It was the first ODI in England for 11 months. What can they do when they have warmed up properly?