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Saturday, June 06, 2009

T20 World Cup starts with a big upset

When the inaugural match of the 2nd ICC T20 World Cup began today, bookies were giving odds of 1 to 20 on the Netherlands - meaning if you put 100$ on the dutch and they win, you stand to win 2000$!!! The odds further improved as the England openers piled up the runs and crossed the 80 mark without losing a single wicket at the end of 10 overs. Who would have ever thought of then that the match was about to see a historic upset? But such is the nature of Twenty20 cricket.
England scored a very healthy 162 runs off their allotted 20 overs and when the Netherlands began their chase they lost a couple of early wickets, and it looked like the match was headed in only one direction. But slowly and steadily the runs came, and it was not long before England began to get a little jittery. Rain and Duckworth-Lewis only added to the drama on the first day of the T20 World Cup at Lord's. In spite of the dutch heroics, if the Englishmen had held onto their nerves and avoided even 20% of the many silly errors they committed, they could have saved themselves the blushes. But that was not to be, and England now find themselves in an unexpected do-or-die situation in their next match against Pakistan.