
Netherlands vs. England First ODI Odds: Two tips for Friday's opener

After the majestic scenes at Trent Bridge, the white ball boys attempt to maintain cricket's hold on the nation's sporting conscience with a rare three match tour of the Netherlands. We've asked our resident 50 over slogger Adam Roberts to preview the first ODI and he's picked out a couple of bets he likes the look of.
Netherlands vs. England Tips
Well, follow that one lads!
It's a fairly rare occurrence that the limited overs squad is struggling to reach the excitement levels of the more mundane five day format but that's exactly the position they find themselves in ahead of Friday's opening one day international. We saw one of the most thrilling and exciting conclusions to a test match in recent years, finishing with the exact sort of brutal cricket these lads will be expecting to play over the next week in the Netherlands.
What is an even more rare occurrence is an England men's tour of mainland Europe. The fans will be flocking over to Amsterdam in anticipation of seeing their heroes up close and in the flesh in a ground they will probably never play in again after this week.
The last time England sent a side over to these foreign shores was back in 1989, at a time when the England test team were getting a 4-0 spanking in the Ashes. Ted Dexter's young guns were dispatched to Holland to show what the next generation could do. It didn't go well...
"And so yesterday it finally happened: the worst really did come to the worst," wrote Matthew Engel in The Guardian. "The England cricket team lost by three runs to Holland. I repeat, Holland."
Surely this collection of world class cricketers can't make the same mistake against the little old Netherlands can they? Even without the multi-format cricketers of Jonny Bairstow, Ben Stokes, Joe Root et al, they still possess some frightening talent. Starting with the recent edition of the IPL's leading run scorer, Jos Buttler, who is right at the top of the white ball rankings and continues to go from strength to strength. Add in two more IPL stars in Mooen Ali and Liam Livingstone as well as veterans such as David Willey, Dawid Malan and Adil Rashid and you are starting to see just how strong this squad is. Let's not forget Sam Curran and the exciting fresh talent of Lancashire's opener Phil Salt and left armer Luke Wood. Wood is one of five left arm seamers in the squad!
Under the tutelage of new Head Coach Matthew Mott (poached recently from the all-conquering Australian Women's white ball side) and batting coach Mark Alleyne things are certainly looking bright for this collection of talented and exciting cricketers.
One thing for sure is that Netherlands will not go down without a fight. They are as long as 10/1 to win on Friday and are missing some of their main players who have remained in England to play County cricket but this side have shown serious fight in recent years, notably in the 2009 and 2014 World Cups and have put in creditable performances in losing tours around the world. No one expects them to repeat 1989 here tomorrow but they will be a hard nut to crack.
England squad: Eoin Morgan (captain), Moeen Ali, Jos Buttler (wicketkeeper), Brydon Carse, Sam Curran, Liam Livingstone, Dawid Malan, David Payne, Adil Rashid, Jason Roy, Phil Salt, Reece Topley, David Willey, Luke Wood
Netherlands squad: Pieter Seelaar (captain), Scott Edwards (wicketkeeper), Musa Ahmad, Shariz Ahmad, Logan van Beek, Philippe Boissevain, Tom Cooper, Aryan Dutt, Clayton Floyd, Vivian Kingma, Fred Klaassen, Ryan Klein, Bas de Leede, Teja Nidamanuru, Max O’Dowd, Tim Pringle, Vikramjit Singh, Shane Snater
First up we've got the IPL man of the moment and possibly best England white ball batter of all time, Jos Buttler. The Lancashire man stands out like a sore thumb in the England top batter market at 4/1 with BetVictor. He's as short as 2/1 elsewhere.
The 31-year-old is in the form of his life, winning the orange cap for top scorer in the IPL with 863 runs including four centuries for Rajasthan Royals. He is a superb proponent of the game in ODI's too averaging 38.72 with 9 hundreds and 20 50's. It's unclear whether he will open here with Jason Roy but should he do so he is a huge price to top score for England.
My second selection is based around another current Lancashire player, Luke Wood. The 26-year-old moved from Nottinghamshire to Old Trafford back in 2016 and has seen his game flourish. A left armed seam-bowler who has the ability to nip the ball away across the right-hander and yet also swing it back in late is a superb option for the red rose at either the start of the innings or when bowling at the death. He possesses a superb yorker and carries a yard of pace if the need is there to rough a batter up. Wood would be making his debut here for England but he certainly posses the talent and threat to take most wickets if given the chance.
As mentioned Morgan has five left arm seamers to pick from in this swuad so perhaps check the selected first XI before placing the bet. The 11/2 screams value if he is in the match day starting line up.