England bounce the Netherlands in dead rubber as Maxwell breaks Afghan hearts
Netherlands v England, 8th November 2023.
England 339–9
Netherlands 179 all out
England win by 160 runs
In football parlance, or any sporting vernacular come to that, England’s clash with Netherlands today was a “bottom of the table” affair as well as a “must win game” for the defending Champions and current holders of the World Cup. A defeat for England would almost certainly guarantee an already embarrassing early exit from the World Cup together with rock bottom status in the Group Stage of 10 teams as well as an equally embarrassing failure to qualify for next year’s Champions Trophy in Pakistan. They were therefore indebted to a sparkling century from Test Match captain Ben Stokes and a top and tail of their batting innings saved by 87 from opening batsman Dawid Malan and a run-a-ball half century from Chris Woakes in a late innings partnership with Stokes as the rest of their teammates weakly surrendered their wickets mid-innings. From 133–1 the heavy favourites collapsed to 192–6 and appeared on the verge of failing to even post 250 when 350 was the absolute bare minimum against the tournament’s rank outsiders, but step forward Stokes and Woakes, and 339–9 was always going to be far, far too many for the Netherlands to chase for victory.
At 13–2 it appeared as though the Netherlands would crumble to an even earlier defeat than they finally succumbed to, but battling innings’ from Wesley Baresi (37) at the top of the order together with stoic mid-innings stints from Sybrand Engelbrecht (33) and captain Scott Edwards (38) ensured their team passed 100 before a rear guard 41 not out from Teja Nidamanuru tiptoed their innings total to 179 and an expected, if ultimately heavy defeat, by 160 runs. Only Gus Atkinson failed to grab a wicket for England with the ball with spinners Moeen Ali and Adil Rashid, England’s top performer with the ball all tournament, shared 6 of the wickets to fall with England’s victory leapfrogging them above the Netherlands, Bangladesh and a poor Sri Lanka into 7th place in the World Cup table and although Saturday’s final game with Pakistan is still the deadest of dead rubbers (where it should have been a battle for final position in the top 4 and their respective Semi-Final spots), they are now almost certainly assured of a spot in the Champions Trophy next year.
This World Cup still cannot end quickly enough for a poor England team who have under-performed exceedingly badly and with only 2 victories against the tournament minnows Bangladesh and the Netherlands to their name against 6 heavy defeats, their ODI (One Day International) team will limp home to lick their wounds before wholesale changes to an aged squad who ventured one tournament too far.
"Ashes to Ashes" - My 1st published book
"The Spirit of Cricket" - My 2nd published book
The same cannot be said for the gallant and infectious enthusiasm of an Afghanistan team who were, against every possible conceivable stack of gambling odds, 6 wickets away from defeating Australia, taking their points tally to 10, their World Cup wins to an incredible 5 and still an outside chance of a Semi-Final berth and a top 4 shoot-out with hosts India.
Then along came Glenn Maxwell who not only played the greatest ODI innings of all time but arguably one of the greatest innings ever seen in the entire history of this storied game, breaking both my sporting heart and that of Afghanistan in the process.
Setting Australia 292 runs to win was a complete team effort from Afghanistan with every batsman reaching sizeable double figure scores as they accompanied opening batsman Ibrahim Zadran who batted the entire 50 overs for an astounding 129 not out from 143 balls received. He inched his way through the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s with singles before exploding with boundary 6’s after becoming Afghanistan’s first ever World Cup centurion and with some incredible lusty blows late on from Rashid Khan (35 from 18 balls received), Afghanistan had not only set Australia a competitive total to chase but an exceedingly difficult one too.
At 49–4 Australia were toppling and at 91–7 they were a distant 202 runs away from an almost impossible mission with Afghanistan now just 3 wickets away from arguably their greatest and most important victory in their short history of international cricket. With victory and an unbelievable spot in the Semi-Finals of the World Cup and at cricket’s very top table to boot they faltered, fielding errors began to creep into their play and with Glenn Maxwell on 33 not out he was granted his third and last cricketing “life” with the simplest chances at short fine leg a “dolly” that was easier to drop than to pouch. An exhausted Maxwell said immediately after the game that this was the signal that he simply had to go for the victory now, he’d been granted yet another reprieve and two cramp filled, sweat drenched hours later, he broke Afghan hearts with the most incredible innings I’ve ever witnessed.
From 33 not out Maxwell, in league with his captain Pat Cummins who simply stood at the other end and couldn’t hide both his admiration and his smiles as wide as the Sydney Harbour Bridge, raced to a run-a-ball 50, 100 from 76 balls received, 150 from 104 balls received before hobbling on one leg with cramp seizing his leg muscles as to be almost immobile he simply stood and delivered, crashing boundary 4’s and 6’s to all parts of the Wankhede Stadium. Cummins contributed just 12 of their 202 run partnership as Maxwell hobbled, collapsed to the ground through cramp and exhaustion multiple times, giving rise to ex Australian opening batsman Matthew Hayden to exclaim “he doesn’t know which leg to stand on!” before clubbing 6, 6, 4 and a final game winning 6 on his way to an EXTRAORDINARY 201 not out from just 128 balls received. Words simply cannot do justice to what I and the rest of the watching world witnessed and all I can conclude with is that I’ve watched cricket for over 4 decades now and I’ve never seen the grand old game played in this manner and doubt I ever will again.
Since we were last together, as well as Glenn Maxwell breaking Afghan hearts and thus ensuring his Australia team qualified for the Semi-Finals, New Zealand will almost certainly join them in the 4th and final table position even in spite of their unlucky defeat to Pakistan who will need to heavily defeat England in their final Group game and hope against cricketing hope. India retained their perfect 100% record as they smashed South Africa by a whopping 243 runs and pleasingly Bangladesh defeated a poor Sri Lanka by 3 wickets on a day when veteran Angelo Mathews was “timed out” in cricket’s most unusual of all dismissals. Adjusting a faulty batting helmet and not being ready to face a delivery after the specified 2 minutes, he returned to the Pavilion without facing a ball in this most extraordinary of World Cup’s where hearts are being broken, double centuries are being clubbed, eyes being deceived, and a host nation will smash the Netherlands on Sunday for a perfect 9 wins from 9 in the Group stage before the Semi-Finals start next Wednesday.
India are nailed on certainties to win this World Cup, they have been from the very start and with a perfect 100% record entering the Semi-Finals are surely expectant ahead of their coronation in 10 days time.
But this is fast becoming a quite extraordinary World Cup and I make no apology for using that word again and whilst Australia have Glenn Maxwell, New Zealand have Rachin Ravindra and South Africa have Quinton de Kock, any and everything is still possible in this fascinating sporting spectacle on the other side of the cricketing world.
Thanks for reading. Please consider taking a peek at the wonderful self-published books linked in the centre of this article (they’d make wonderful Christmas gifts!) and/or alternatively feel free to subscribe, support an independent writer and take a gander (English expression!) at the cave of wonders afforded to you via the 900+ articles archived here.
Quinton de Koch? If he's South African, he must be an Afrikaaner.