Okay, so it's not a revolution of the ‘white' variety. But the performance of the Netherlands side in ‘Orange City' sent shivers down the spines of Andrew Strauss' men nevertheless, possibly aided by their shock defeat to the minnows in the T20 World Cup in 2009.

If cricket is being pushed and prodded at Lords, it's possibly having a pleasant massage in the Netherlands.

And Ryan Ten Doeschate, with his brilliant 119 and two wickets in the team's opener against England, has been rewarded with an IPL slot with the Kolkata Knight Riders. Who says performance doesn't pay?

With this century, his overall ODI average moves up to over 71, and WC average to over 82. ‘Utterly butterly delicious', isn't it?

It's time to pay a small little tribute to Amul, its media agency Lodestar UM (which cracked the sponsorship deal), and other sponsors who have placed their monies on the orange-wearing underdogs. Amul is the lead brand on the Dutch players' sleeves.

Speaking to Business Line , Dhruv Jha, Business Head-Brand Experience, Lodestar UM, said, “The whole idea was, without spending megabucks, how do we get onto this platform of the cricket World Cup? There was also a strong logic to it. Amul has had a tradition of association with the Netherlands, from the days of the white revolution. It's also a dairy nation. So we said, let's explore this.”

Jha explains that the association was more than emotional.

Factors like the hard work put in by members of a team of a non-cricket playing nation were considered, as was their line-up of some very good players and credible performances. And the net result was the largest Dutch cricket event sponsorship deal.

After the England game, the Dutch team manager sent this message out to the Lodestar team: ‘Great show today: England vs Amul. We almost got them!'

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