England’s easy sail against the Tigers

The modern game of cricket has seen such a great transformation in recent years that a score of 300plus in ODIs is now regarded a norm and chasing such a total and claiming a victory doesn't raise any eyebrows. On a sun-drenched afternoon at the Kennington Oval in south London, the English batsmen made it look extremely easy in notching up an 8-wicket victory against Bangladesh with 16 balls to spare after being set a chasing a target of 306 runs.

After an initial setback when out-of-form Jason Roy was sent to the dressing room in the 3rd over in the innings with a magnificent leaping catch by Mustafizur Rahman at short leg when England's score was only 6, Alex Hales and Joe Root batted with relative ease to steady the England innings to set up a 159 second wicket partnership. Hales was caught by sub Sunzamul Islam at deep mid-wicket off the bowling of Sabbir Rahman for 95, which included 11 fours and 2 sixes. The score then was 165 for 2. The hosts thereafter sailed through with England Test captain Root scoring a magnificent unbeaten century, his innings of 133 being laced with 11 fours and a towering six. Skipper Eoin Morgan also saw the innings through scoring 75 runs (8 fours and 2 sixes). Such convincing was the English victory against Bangladesh who has a record of upstaging England in international competitions.

Earlier, after being put into bat, Bangladesh made a very cautious and nervous start, scoring only 36 runs in the first 10 overs. Soumya Sarkar departed when the team score was 56 and Imrul Kayes followed not very long after, Bangladesh posting 97 for 2 at the end of the 20th over. Then came the wonderful partnership between Tamim Iqbal and Mushfiqur Rahman, bringing 250 runs in the 44th over. Tamim's 9th ODI century and his second in England came in the 39th over in 124 balls. Tamim in the process became the second Bangladeshi batsman to score a century in ICC Champions Trophy, Shahriar Nafees being the first to notch up a ton in 2006. The partnership finally was broken on 261 when Tamim skied a ball from Plunkett and was caught wicketkeeper Jos Butler. Tamim scored 128. Mushfiqur made a great error of judgement trying to hit the very next ball over the fence and was caught by Hales at deep mid-off. Bangladesh were 261-4 then, Mushfiqur's 79 coming in 72 balls with 8 hits to the fence. Two more wickets fell, those of Sakib Al Hasan and Sabbir Rahman, in the remaining overs and Bangladesh ultimately posted 305 in 50 overs, their last 10 overs yielding 82 runs.

One very important talking point of the game was Tamim Iqbal's diving catch at long on from a drive by Morgan, which was given not out as a soft signal by the on-field umpires and later confirmed by the third umpire. Tamim looked very unhappy as he seemed to be sure in his mind that he did hold on to the catch cleanly.

A couple of other points need to be mentioned here. Bangladesh opted to go into this game with eight batsmen, which meant that they were one specialist bowler short. And this deficit was evident on the field as the part-time bowlers Sabbir, Soumya and Mosaddek gave away 73 runs in their combined 10.3 overs. Moreover, Mustafiz and Shakib could not complete their full quota of 10 overs. This error in team selection also contributed to the defeat. Many spectators were also perplexed not to see Mustafiz being handed the new ball. Mashrafe instead opted for spinner Shakib, not realising that what appears to be quite legitimate in sub-continental conditions does not hold good in English conditions.

Bangladesh next play the mighty Australians on Monday the 5th June at the Oval (day/night match) and their last game in the group is against the Kiwis on Friday 9th June. There is now virtually no possibility of their making the top two in the group and one would hope that they will put up a much better show in the remaining two games, not only for their pride but also for their thousands of fans who are always in attendance, lending their support.