A Bang or a Whimper

With or without Andrew Symonds, I've been looking forward to the World Twenty20, which starts, possibly with less than a bang, in about three hours' time.

English cricket always does this. By tradition the season here always used to splutter into life with a range of matches between counties and universities which meant nothing to anyone other than the participants (and little enough to many of them). Now, for the first game of a landmark international competition, the home side are playing, wait for it, the Netherlands (or Holland if you prefer).

Okay, they're trusty old ICC Associates with a decent, if low-key cricket tradition, but surely the start of the event would have more impact if England were playing another Test nation in the tournament opener. The reaction of the average 'man in the street' (in so far as he knows anything at all about cricket) will probably run along the lines of 'Holland?' 'Do they play cricket?'.

All of which is not, of course, to say that an England victory is guaranteed.

But it bloody well ought to be.