It was an England team featuring, in Jos Buttler, the most in-form batter in white-ball cricket. It was a Dutch team short of four of its best bowlers due to counties not releasing players. There was only ever going to be one winner, though the savage manner in which England went about their innings was still surprising.

Dutch captain Pieter Seelaar won the toss and surprisingly chose to bowl first, but it looked to be an inspired decision when Shane Snater bowled cousin Jason Roy in the second over with just one run on the board. That early hope was dashed though as Phil Salt and Dawid Malan set about demolishing the Dutch bowling attack.

Salt was eventually dismissed by Logan van Beek, but not before scoring 122 from 93 balls and putting on 222 with Malan. This brought Jos Buttler to the crease and from then on things went from the sublime to the ridiculous and all the way back again.

When Buttler came in, Malan was on 86. When Malan was out for 125, scored from 109 balls, Buttler was on 139 from 60 balls. As one tweet I saw put it, there hadn’t been this much murder in Amsterdam since Van der Valk was on the air. After Malan was dismissed, Pieter Seelaar had Eoin Morgan out lbw from his first ball but Livingstone hit the hat-trick ball for a single which was followed by yet another six by Buttler.

Livingstone then plundered 32 from the next over and it felt that the innings at this point should be accompanied by on-screen graphics saying “Boom”, “Ka-pow” and “Blast” like in the old Batman series. One had to feel sorry for young leg-spinner Philippe Boissevain who bowled that over and went for 108 runs in all.

After the 47th over went for 11, England needed 25 to beat their previous high score record, and 43 to reach the first ever 500 total in ODIs (there have already been three in international one-day matches without ODI status) though at this stage the more immediate record was the fastest ODI fifty that Liam Livngstone was closing in on.

At 42 from 12 balls, he needed eight from three balls to break the record set by AB de Villiers. A four followed by a two brought him within two, but there were then surprisingly two dot balls by Shane Snater to deny him of even equalling the record. A six then brought up his fifty in 17 balls, the fastest for England.

It was 470-4 with two overs to go, and England had 500 in their sights. Just seven came from the 49th over - during which Buttler brought up his 150 from just 64 balls - the second fastest in ODIs. With 23 needed for 500 - and just five needed to reach the new highest total - Snater went for four runs from his first two balls before Buttler smashed a six over cow corner to break the record in style.

Thirteen needed from three balls to reach 500 then, but Buttler could only manage a single from the next delivery. Still a chance at 500 if Livingstone could hit two sixes, but the penultimate ball was hit for four to audible groans from the strong contingent of England fans at the VRA ground. A six ended the carnage with England having scored 498-4.

Buttler finished unbeaten on 162 from just 70 balls, his highest score in ODIs. Livingstone had scored 66 from only 22 balls. Both were savage.

It won’t come as much surprise that the Dutch didn’t get close to their target. They were bowled out for 266 and lost by 232 runs. It won’t come as much compensation for the home side that it was way short of the record which remains the 290 run demolition of Ireland by New Zealand back in 2008.

Max O’Dowd scored an entertaining 55 at exactly a run a ball, whilst Scott Edwards top scored with an unbeaten 72 from 56 balls. Moeen Ali was the pick of England’s bowlers with 3-57. On most days 266 would be a perfectly reasonable total in an ODI. But this wasn’t most days.

The teams meet again in the second ODI on Sunday.