England come close to 500 in Amstelveen as Jos Buttler (162no off 70), Dawid Malan (125 off 109) and Phil Salt (122 off 93) score centuries and Liam Livingstone (66no off 22) crunches 17-ball fifty; England's score beats 481-6 they hit against Australia at Trent Bridge in 2018
Saturday 18 June 2022 07:08, UK
England broke their own world record for the highest score in ODI cricket after crunching 498-4 to beat Netherlands by 232 runs in a run-fest in Amstelveen.
Jos Buttler (162 not out of 70 balls), Dawid Malan (125 off 109) and Phil Salt (122 off 93) each scored centuries as England topped the 481-6 they had piled on against Australia at Trent Bridge in 2018.
Eoin Morgan's side had a chance to become the first team in history to score 500 in an ODI as they reached 488 with two balls remaining but Liam Livingstone (66no off 22) could only hit the next delivery for four.
Livingstone crunched the last ball for six, though, as England achieved the highest score in any List A game - international or domestic - by overhauling the 496-4 Surrey put on against Gloucestershire at The Kia Oval in 2007.
An innings of carnage included Buttler creaming England's second-fastest ODI hundred, from 47 balls, with that behind only the 46-ball century he had struck against Pakistan in Dubai in 2015.
Buttler's 150 was reached from 65 deliveries, the second-fastest in history, only trumped by AB de Villiers' 64-ball effort for South Africa against West Indies seven years ago.
Malan and Salt each achieved their maiden ODI centuries, with Malan's seeing him become the third England player, after Buttler and women's captain Heather Knight, to notch centuries in all three forms of international cricket.
Meanwhile, Livingstone blitzed a 17-ball half-century, matching his own England all-format record for reaching 50, set in a T20I against Pakistan at Trent Bridge last summer. He was one ball shy of the ODI record of 16 balls, also held by De Villiers, recorded in that same 2015 series against the Windies.
This all came after England had lost Jason Roy (1) in the second over of the match, bowled by his cousin, Shane Snater via an inside edge.
The runs soon started to flow, though, and England were scoring at seven-an-over throughout the powerplay with Salt hitting the first of a record 26 sixes in the innings midway through the third over.
Salt was the aggressor early in the stand, although Malan showed signs of what was to come by pumping Netherlands skipper Pieter Seelaar over long off and into the trees for six.
The Netherlands missed the chance to remove Salt, on 40, before too much damage was done - Snater shelling the chance on the boundary after the opener's powerful cut shot off Bas de Leede - and he was soon powering towards a maiden international century, which came up from 82 balls.
At the other end, Malan had started to move through the gears and had reached 86 when the 222-run stand for the second wicket for broken, Salt miscuing a slower-ball bouncer from Logan van Beek to backward point.
That brought Buttler to the crease and, remarkably, had overtaken Malan - who had got to his ton from 90 balls - within 12 overs in a stunning display of hitting.
Seelaar was taken for three sixes as the onslaught began in the 35th over, although the first of them should have seen the end of Buttler with Vikramjit Singh misjudging the flight of the ball at long on, coming in far too far and seeing the ball sail over his head but only just creep over the rope.
Buttler was then dropped four balls later at long off by Nadeem Musa. He was on 37 at the time. 26 balls later he was celebrating his 10th century after launching Aryan Dutt for a trio of maximums in the 42nd over.
Malan departed in the 45th, holing out off Seelaar (2-83), with Eoin Morgan trapped lbw next ball. Good news for the Netherlands on the face of it but when Livingstone exploded for 32 runs - the most productive over for England in ODI cricket - off Philippe Boissevain in the next over, it was hard to see how the two wickets had helped them.
The Lancashire right-hander was dropped on 46 and then narrowly missed out on the fastest ODI half-century ever but 500 was still on for England.
First they had to get past their own world record total. Buttler did the honours halfway through the last over, with his 14th six of a staggering innings, before a single left Livingstone needing to hit back-to-back maximums to get them to the magical 500.
He came up short by about a metre, hitting a one-bounce four to cow corner before sending the last into the stands.
In reply, Netherlands showed some positive intent with opener Max O'Dowd (55 from 55) hitting his sixth ODI fifty but when he was bowled by Reece Topley (2-46) at the end of the 18th over to leave his side 100-3, the innings began to drift.
Occasionally, there was an attempt for a Netherlands batter to up the ante but invariably it led to their demise, with Moeen Ali (3-57) the chief beneficiary and left-armers Topley, David Willey (2-41) and Sam Curran (2-46) each claiming two wickets.
Scott Edwards gave the home crowd something to cheer with an unbeaten 72 from 56 balls late on before Malan (1-5) took the final wicket in the last over, Netherlands bowled out for 266.
