Fairy-tale start for Anderson as England win by six wickets

Young pace bowler James Anderson had a dream start to his World Cup career, while England emerged from the nightmare of the last week to get their World Cup campaign off to a very satisfactory winning start. Tim de Leede did his best to hold the Dutch innings together and Daan van Bunge surprised England with three wickets late on, but otherwise it was England's day throughout as they raced to a six-wicket victory.

After waiting a week to get onto the field in this World Cup, England wasted no time in ripping through the Dutch batting order. Anderson was the man who did the damage, taking four for 25 from his ten overs, and that included 11 off his ninth over. At the other end, Andrew Caddick could have had similar figures but bowled beautifully without any luck.

This pair put immense pressure on the Dutch batsmen who must have wondered where they ever going to get a run. They had only managed to get 15 on the board in the sixth over when Daan van Bunge prodded a ball from Anderson to Craig White in the gully. Four overs later, by which time only seven more runs had been added to the total, Anderson struck again to have Lucas van Troost lbw before three wickets fell with the total on 31.

Bas Zuiderent, the only full-time professional in the Dutch side, played a loose drive to what might have been a slower ball from Anderson to give Nasser Hussain catching practice at mid-off. Two balls later, Klaas van Noortwijk glanced a short ball down the leg side where Alec Stewart took an athletic catch. Anderson, the bowler, wears the number 40 on his back but Stewart is carrying all of 40 years and did well to cover the ground.

Andrew Flintoff replaced Caddick at the Buffalo Park Drive end to find a ball that kept a little low to strike Nick Statham on the pad and the next batsman was on his way along the well-trodden path to the pavilion.

De Leede showed a little belated aggression, especially when he was allowed to free his arms outside the off stump if the bowlers dropped short. England acknowledged this as a strength by redirecting the line attack towards his body where he was far less comfortable. De Leede, however, was the one batsman who came to terms with conditions and a rampant England attack. He reached a fifty from 72 balls with five fours and thoroughly deserved the warm applause he received.

For a while he had support from Feiko Kloppenburg before he aimed an unsightly slog at Ian Blackwell to be caught by Nick Knight running in from deep mid-wicket. The left-arm spinner then lured Edgar Schiferli down the pitch with a well-flighted delivery for Stewart to complete a smart stumping.

Craig White overcame any pain he was still feeling from his side injury to bowl Dutch captain Roland Lefebvre off an inside edge and have Adeel Raja lbw before de Leede at last found a competent partner.

Jeroen Smits came in at number 11 to help de Leede put on 30 for the last wicket - a wicket that the England bowlers could not take. Smits contributed a priceless 17 to be second top-scorer behind de Leede's 58 and leave the question as to why he goes in last in this order unanswered.

With the requirement to take the opportunity to establish a decent run rate, should the group come to that, England started off in pursuit of the target with a purpose. For Marcus Trescothick, it was all a little too quick for he played an ugly heave across the line when facing Schiferli to be bowled for 12.

Michael Vaughan joined Nick Knight and this pair played with supreme authority as they raced towards the total of 143 to win, and towards personal scores of 51 apiece. Knight was working the ball into the gaps sensibly while Vaughan showed that he had lost none of his timing since his successful tour of Australia.

They had taken the rate up to nearly six an over when the Netherlands introduced the occasional leg-spin of van Bunge who immediately caused problems. He spun the first ball past the outside edge of Vaughan's bat, hit him on the pad with the second and then had him caught at slip from the third as the batsman gave himself room to drive through the off side.

Andrew Flintoff came in to finish the job, but van Bunge finished him second ball. He dropped a short one and Flintoff obligingly pulled it to mid-wicket. Van Bunge produced another long-hop and somehow persuaded Knight to play a similar stroke in his next over to mean that he had three wickets and England had lost four.

Ian Blackwell, with 22 from 11 balls, and Paul Collingwood saw them home without further alarm to complete a six-wicket victory with nearly 27 overs in hand. England will be pleased with that - and to have finally got onto a field to play.