England v Netherlands World Cup Tips: Dutch to deliver final blow

• Dutch have route to victory

• Pune pitch is flat

• Edwards a bet again

England v Netherlands
Wednesday 8 November, 08:30
TV: Live on Sky Sports

England v Netherlands World Cup team news

England have been picking the same team, bowling first and getting beat. Might be worth mixing it up, eh lads? Ludicrously, Harry Brook remains out of the side for the patently unfit Ben Stokes. Gus Atkinson might be worth a go, too. Likewise Brydon Carse. But we've been saying all this for a while.

Possible XI: Bairstow, Malan, Root, Stokes, Buttler, Moeen, Livingstone, Woakes, Willey, Rashid, Wood

The Dutch have added bowling all-rounder Saqib Zulfiqar to their XI recently. Sybrand Engelbrecht has moved from the lower-order to the prime batting slot.

Possible XI: O'Dowd, Baresi, Ackermann, Engelbrecht, de Leede, Edwards, Zulfiqar, van Beek, van der Merwe, van Meekeren, Dutt

England v Netherlands World Cup pitch report

Pune is a flat one, as witnessed by South Africa's 357 against New Zealand. Sri Lanka and Bangladesh's batters struggled in the first dig against Afghanistan and India respectively but the chasers found it easy. A high par line for England should be taken on.

England v Netherlands World Cup match odds

There is a clear route to victory for the Dutch. Bat first and battle hard to post more than 260 and then let England's abysmal chasing record over the last two years do the rest (nine defeats in their last 12).

The Netherlands are 8.07/1 to win this on the Betfair Exchange and if the toss goes their way they should be at the very least capable of trading shorter. It's not greedy to anticipate those odds being chopped in half given the lack of confidence in the England camp.

These side mets three times in June with England destroying Netherlands on each ocaasion. That form guide seems to have little relevance now with the loser likely to finish bottom.

England v Netherlands World Cup player bets

Scott Edwards top scored in all three of those games and he's drifted slightly to 9/25.50 for top Dutch runscorer. That's a win-rate wager. Jos Buttler is out to 6/17.00. He won player of the series on the head-to-head thanks to 162 off 70. It is still value on win rate but there are significant doubts as to whether Buttler is not completely spent.

Read Ed's tips every day of the World Cup