Dutch Shock England in Cricket's World Twenty20 Tournament

LONDON — Convention holds that a successful World Cup needs two things: shocking results and the host nation sticking around for the duration, or very close to it. Cricket’s World Twenty20 tournament certainly got one, but it may be at the expense of the other.
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Tom Hevezi/Associated Press

The Netherlands' Edgar Schiferli, left, and Ryan ten Doeschate celebrate after scoring the winning runs against England in their World Cup cricket match at Lord's cricket ground.

The Netherlands, 500-1 to win the 12-team tournament, defeated England by four wickets from the last ball of Friday’s opening match at London’s Lord’s ground. England must beat Pakistan on Sunday to avoid elimination.

The Dutch have a cricket tradition, though it is played by only about 6,000 enthusiasts. The Netherlands has beaten major cricket nations — Australia in 1964 and England in 1989. Both of those, though, were friendly matches.

The Netherlands’ captain Jeroen Smits hailed the result as “without doubt the biggest day in Dutch cricket history.” Most of his team are part-time cricketers.

“It cost me a lot of money to come here because I had to take days off,” Smits said. “But I don’t really mind at this moment.”

England’s captain, Paul Collingwood, said the Dutch had played with “‘freedom and belief”’ and that they had surprised England with their batting and running between the wickets.

The match was decided in a tumultuous final six-ball over, the last of the 20 the Dutch had to chase down England’s total of 162. At the beginning they needed seven runs. It became a nightmare for the bowler Stuart Broad. He is one of the brightest young players in cricket, but appears ill-fated at this tournament. The last time it was played, in South Africa in 2007, he was struck for six sixes — cricket’s equivalent of a home run, with the ball hit out of the playing area — in a single over by India’s Yuvraj Singh.

Broad had chances to throw out a Dutch batsman running to his end from the first two deliveries, but failed both times. Then he dropped a catch.

From the final ball the Netherlands needed two runs from the bat of Edgar Schiferli, who is picked for his bowling skills.

Schiferli struck the ball back towards Broad, who picked up and threw toward the stumps at his end of the pitch. Had he hit, England would have won by one run. Instead he missed, and his throw went so far past the stumps that the two exultant, disbelieving Dutch batsmen were able to turn for the second run that gave them their victory. Their teammates poured from the dugout and formed an orange-clad pileup in the outfield.

Earlier, England had looked set for the expected victory as its opening batsmen Luke Wright and Ravi Bopara scored 102 runs before they were parted. Teams are expected to score faster in the second half of an innings, but instead England slowed. The batsmen who followed showed too little aggression in both stroke-play and running. England did not hit a single six.

The Dutch showed clear intent when the opening batsman Darren Reekers hit two sixes. He and his partner Alex Kervezee were soon dismissed, but the Dutch batsmen continued to hit hard and run aggressively — frequently turning single runs into twos.

England helped it by conservative field placing, with men too deep to prevent those second runs. It also fielded badly at vital moments.

Cricket does not record fielding errors. If it did, England would have piled up an embarrassing total even before Broad’s last-over horrors.

The Dutch closed in calmly on their target. The middle-order batsman Tom de Grooth struck 49 runs before he was caught trying for his personal half-century.

At the end it was the highly paid full-time international players of England who panicked and made basic mistakes, while the outsiders kept their nerve for a famous victory.