Dutch courage humbles the English in their own backyard

© Shailesh Nigam, Varun Khanna (for respective articles)

Dutch courage – what is it exactly? The term has its origins in naval warfare. In the old days, the Dutch navy was feared by all other navies because of the courage it demonstrated in fighting a sea battle. This was especially true during the Anglo-Dutch wars of the 17th & 18th centuries, when Netherlands & Britain were bitter rivals, and the Dutch were particularly dreaded by the British navy, and the Dutch East India Company was forever taking on the British East India Company in atrociously daring attacks. It was rationalized that such an attack could only be undertaken by a drunk man, who was not scared of anything at all. And thus, the phrase Dutch courage came into existence as a slang for courage gained from alcoholic intoxication.

Well yesterday, the Dutch proved once again that they have absolutely no fear of how strong the opposition may be, and especially Britain needs to be extremely wary when facing them. Were the Dutch cricketers drunk before the match or not, I do not know. What I can safely say is that they would definitely by drunk on the success of beating England, and Pakistan, who are next in their line, must be a worried lot.

Like Varun had written yesterday, predicting a winner in Twenty20 match is not an easy task. It is akin to predicting the future. There is only one problem though… the difficult aspect about predicting the future is that… uhm, it’s pretty difficult to predict. And as was demonstrated yesterday, this holds equally true for cricket. Or, at least, Twenty20 cricket.

Well, the tournament has begun with a huge upset, and that is the beauty of this game. One can never say who will win on a given day. Though, I also notice a trend thus far – most winners in practice matches and in the opener too are teams batting second. So, maybe, just after the toss, we can predict a winner most of the times. Hope Dhoni notices this too, and wins all tosses for India… starting with the one today, or we might witness yet another upset.