Amsterdam is the diamond capital, today, in the suburbs of the city, Jos Buttler was the jewel in England’s crown. Jos played a gem of an innings, hitting 162* magnificent runs in the opening ODI against the Netherlands.
While Phil Salt (122) and Dawid Malan (125) both scored centuries, it was Jos who shone.
His half-century came off 27 balls with his century completed in 47. This was the second fastest ODI ton scored by an English batter. Only Jos himself has bettered his rapid knock when hitting a 46 ball ODI century in 2015.
A further 21 balls and Jos was breezing pass150 runs and onwards to his highest ODI score and beyond 4000 ODI runs.
Jos’ glittering exhibition of hard-hitting required just 70 balls to reach 162* (14 sixes, 7 fours).
Liam Chases a Record
For the latter phase of England’s innings, Jos shared a 97 run off 32 balls partnership with Liam Livingstone (66*).
Liam was also chasing records.
He took just 17 balls to record the fastest ODI half-century scored by an England batter. Unfortunately for Liam, his 50 took one ball more than A B de Villiers’ World Record of 50 ODI runs off 16 balls.
As Jos and Liam took the Netherland’s bowling apart, there was a growing possibility of England breaking the 500 run barrier. Falling two runs short, it was not to be,
Yet, England still finished with a World Record total of 498-4. This bettered their own ODI record of 481-6.
England ran out the winners by 232 runs.
(Phoenix Media Image Created from a Photo by Matthew Lewis-ICC/ICC via Getty Images)