That England batting line-up still looks alright doesn’t it? And that’s before you’ve brought in Bairstow, Root and Stokes. I said this on Sunday, but Rashid aside I’ve still little clue which bowlers constitute the first-choice attack – I guess Archer is a lock when fit, but otherwise.
Our teams!
Netherlands: 1 Vikramjit Singh, 2 Max O’Dowd, 3 Tom Cooper, 4 Bas de Leede, 5 Scott Edwards (capt/wk), 6 Teja Nidamanuru, 7 Logan van Beek, 8 Tim Pringle, 9 Aryan Dutt, 10 Paul van Meekeren, 11 Fred Klaassen.
England: 1 Jason Roy, 2 Phil Salt, 3 Dawid Malan, 4 Jos Buttler (capt/wk), 5 Liam Livingstone, 6 Moeen Ali, 7 Sam Curran, 8 David Willey, 9 Brydon Carse, 10 Adil Rashid, 11 David Payne.
Netherlands also make two changes: Fred Klaassen and Paul van Meekeren replace Shane Snater and Vivian Kingma.
I apologise for the slight delay in bringing you that news: I appear to have somehow gouged my earlobe while sleeping and have been wandering about this morning with the offending body-part caked in blood. I wonder what my fellow parents thought at drop-off; par for the course, most likely.
As well as Payne for Morgan, England bring in Sam Curran for Reece Topley.
England win the toss and will field
After the events of the first match, I daresay that call will be a relief for the home side.
Lovely news: David Payne has received his cap, report Cricinfo – with no batter waiting in the wings, the Gloucestershire left-armer will make his debut in place of Morgan. He’s 31, so must’ve feared his chance had gone, but his captain’s misfortune is his gain. Go well, old mate.
The question with Morgan, though, isn’t so much about today but about tomorrow. This isn’t his groin’s first remonstration and given the punishing schedule over the next few month, you wonder if it’ll need managing – which might lead to managing out. We shall see.
Er, or not. Morgan has a “tight groin”, so Jos Buttler captains
Preamble
It’d be easy to look at this series, conclude that England are just too good, and move on to the next thing – which happens to be a Test match against New Zealand, starting tomorrow. But there’s more to things than that.
First of all, though the winning margins have been conclusive, despite intense provocations to the contrary, Netherlands have not been shown up so far. In both matches, they’ve batted reasonably well, and had they risked a little bit more a little bit sooner on Sunday, they might just’ve put England under a little bit of pressure.
But they plumped for the conservative so, despite a bowling flurry towards the end, the outcome was never in serious doubt, and that is the challenge for them today: they’ve proved they can play; now, can they compete?
As for England, there oughtn’t be anything to say, but sport being sport and people being people, there’s always something to say and this time it’s about Eoin Morgan. It’s true that his form is poor, and competition for places is such that he can’t simply rely on his authority to keep him in his team – and it really is his team. But it’s also true that few leaders in the history of British Isles sport have earned the leeway he has, and you can bet that his players are best-placed to perform with him guiding then. He could, though, use a score today – another failure, and the fussing rolls on.
Play: 11am local, 10am BST
