England lose to Holland to compound woes

England's long winter went from abysmal to downright embarrassing as they lost their final World T20 match to minnows the Netherlands by a whopping 45 runs in Chittagong.
England's long winter went from abysmal to downright embarrassing as they lost their final World T20 match to minnows the Netherlands by a whopping 45 runs in Chittagong.
England were not just outperformed by a better team on the day but were humiliated as they capitulated for 88 all out in pursuit of a mediocre 134-run target.
England won the toss and chose to bowl in what was a dead rubber of a match as neither side can progress to the semi-finals. Once again Stephan Myburgh (39 off 31 balls) got the flying Dutchmen off to a quick start and he found able company in fellow-South African Wesley Baressi (48 off 45 balls).
Spinners Stephen Parry (2 ovs, 0-23) and Moeen Ali (1 ov, 0-13) were expensive but the likes of Bopara (4 ovs, 1-15), Broad (4 ovs, 3-24), Tredwell (4 ovs, 0-23) and Bresnan (2 ovs, 0-11) pulled things back to keep Holland's innings to a moderate level.
In England's two previous matches they successfully chased 190 against Sri Lanka and fell only three runs short of South Africa's 196. Surely 130-odd against the Dutch would be a formality?
But when a side is so damaged that it is actually broken, anything is possible. Holland beat England on their home soil in the 2009 version of this tournament and when Lumb stupidly hit man-of-the-match Pakistan-born Mudassar Bukhari (4 ovs, 3-27) straight to cover then fee-fi-fo-fum did the Dutch smell the blood of the Englishmen.
Seven of England's batsmen failed to make it to double figures and even Ravi Bopara's top score of 18 off 20 balls came during a phase of the chase when England went 10.3 overs without hitting a boundary. To describe the effort as insipid would be damning the side with faint praise.
The Netherlands fielded well and bowled consistently. They delivered nothing fancy but they stuck to their lines with discipline and did the basics well – it seems that's all you need to do to beat a side that has won six of their 36 matches this winter.
New Zealand-born Logan van Beek (2 ovs, 3-9) was the other standout performer with the ball as he cleaned up England's spineless middle order.
Stuart Broad said at a press conference after defeat to South Africa that there were so many positives to take from the tournament but it is more likely that the side would wish to have the entire experience erased from memory.
<b>Nick Sadleir</b>
England: Michael Lumb, Alex Hales, Moeen Ali, Eoin Morgan, Jos Buttler, Ravi Bopara, Tim Bresnan, Chris Jordan, Stuart Broad, James Tredwell, Stephen Parry
Netherlands: Stephan Myburgh, Michael Swart, Wesley Barresi, Tom Cooper, Peter Borren, Ben Cooper, Logan van Beek, Mudassar Bukhari, Timm van der Gugten, Pieter Seelaar, Ahsan Malik