De Leede hits out during his fine knock.

By Richard Gibson, PA Sport, East London

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England cruised to a comfortable victory in their belated start to the World Cup campaign following the Zimbabwe crisis and Nasser Hussain's decision to consider his future as captain.

The players were keen to put the unhappy memories of the past few weeks behind them and attempt to make their mark ON the pitch.

They achieved that with a six-wicket victory over Holland in only 23.2 overs of their reply.

From the start of the match, played in intense heat at Buffalo Park, England demonstrated their great desire to return to their jobs as international cricketers with youngster James Anderson leading an impressive early bowling and fielding display.

Lancashire fast bowler Anderson claimed four for 25 from his 10 overs, the best World Cup figures by an England player since Vic Marks captured five for 39 in the 1983 tournament, and reduced Holland to 31 for five.

The desire and commitment demonstrated during those early overs provided encouragement that England could overcome their problematic build-up to the biggest tournament in world cricket to make an impression.

Anderson bowled with accuracy and menace, swinging the new ball effectively enough to strike in his third over and induce opener Daan van Bunge into an aggressive drive straight to Craig White, who passed a fitness test on his side strain, in the gully.

That was the start of a remarkable spell of bowling from a 20-year-old who was not even called into England's one-day squad until just before Christmas and even then was brought in from the Academy as cover for an Andrew Caddick injury.

Since that nervous international debut at the imposing arena of the MCG, Anderson has flourished into a highly-promising bowler at this level and did not disappoint in his first major tournament.

He struck again four overs later to trap fellow opener Luuk van Troost before striking twice in the same over to remove Sussex batsman Baz Zuiderent, who drove straight to captain Hussain at mid-off before Klaus van Noortw edged behind to wicketkeeper Alec Stewart.

Anderson's efforts left Holland seemingly on course to eclipse the lowest total in World Cup history of 45 recorded by Canada against England at Old Trafford in 1979, but instead they discovered some spirited resistance in middle order batsman Tim de Leede, who made his mark in Holland's opening game with a man-of-the-match-winning display of four for 35 against India.

As Holland's most experienced one-day player with 185 appearances, he demonstrated his skills to hit an unbeaten 58 off 97 balls and enabled the lower order to add 91 for the last four wickets.

His display should have been warning enough for England, who set out to re-establish their superiority with openers Marcus Trescothick and Nick Knight starting positively just in case the storms which engulfed East London the previous evening planned a return.

That tactic was effective for four overs until Trescothick, who entered this match having passed 50 only twice in his last nine one-day internationals, underlined his recent loss of form and was bowled by seamer Edgar Schiferli charging down the pitch for 12.

His early loss was quickly overcome by a promising 89-run partnership spanning 14 overs between Nick Knight and Michael Vaughan, who both demonstrated the full range of their strokeplay to guide England to within 36 runs of victory.

The pair scored at a run a ball throughout the stand, hitting 14 boundaries during their 56-minute stay together, and showed enough quality to suggest England may provide problems to stiffer competition later in the tournament.

Not for the first time this winter, however, they suffered another mini-collapse with Vaughan, Knight and Andrew Flintoff all falling in the space of two overs to enable Ian Blackwell and Paul Collingwood to steer England home with 26.4 overs to spare.

Vaughan was the first to fall, edging to de Leede at slip during van Bunge's first over of leg-spin for a superb 51 off only 47 deliveries including eight boundaries and the stage was set for a typical Flintoff innings to finish the game off in quick and ruthless fashion.

Instead Flintoff pulled a long hop straight to mid-wicket two balls later while Knight fell in almost identical fashion in van Bunge's next over, also for 51, to give two of the newer members of England's one-day line-up the chance to complete a morale-lifting opening triumph.