Dauntless Tigers claim historic clean sweep

Dawid Malan had gone past fifty. Jos Buttler was well set. England needed 59 off their last seven overs to down the deficit to 2-1 in the three-match series and looked like the favourites to do so.

But if this series had taught anything to the neutral, it was that this was a different Bangladesh side. They were fearless and they were never going to go down without a fight.

And they did not. In the first ball of the 14th over, Mustafizur Rahman got rid of Malan (53) to make it to triple figures in T20I wickets, and in the next, Mehidy Hasan Miraz produced a moment of pure genius.

The newly-arrived Ben Duckett had just dabbed the ball towards him and tried to steal a single. Miraz, running in at full speed, picked up the ball in one smooth motion and hit the stump directly to send Buttler (40) packing.

The celebrations were exuberant, expectedly so. Miraz was flying, skipper Shakib Al Hasan trying to chase him down, and Najmul Hossain Shanto running in to celebrate with him. The crowd went wild, and the tide turned in the Tigers’ favour.

From there, the rest was easy. The next 34 balls only produced 32 runs, with three more wickets going down, meaning when Hasan Mahmud took the ball in hand, he had 27 to defend.

And despite Chris Woakes getting two fours in the first two balls, the young pacer kept his cool, and neither Woakes nor Chris Jordan could touch the ball in the next four balls, handing

Bangladesh a 16-run defeat and a historic clean sweep, their first-ever against England, and only second overall in the format.

“That over (14th) was really important. Both set batters getting out in consecutive deliveries was the turning point of the match,” skipper Shakib said after the match.

“The turning point was the run-out tonight, it was an amazing piece of fielding. You’d back yourself with Jos set at the back end there, got his eye in and was ready to go and it really turned the game,” England head coach Matthew Mott concurred. While Bangladesh claimed a clean sweep, Shakib insisted that they never thought of such before the series despite confidence existing.

“We did not think about winning before the series started. We wanted to play good cricket. We tried to do that in all three matches. We fielded brilliantly throughout the series,” the Bangladesh skipper said.

While the bowlers brought the win, it was Liton Das’ 73 off 57 balls, his first innings of significance in the series, which helped Bangladesh post 158-2 on board. He was aided by Najmul Hossain Shanto, who once again haunted England with an unbeaten 47, which took his tally for the series to 144 runs, which, alongside his outstanding effort in the field throughout the series, brought him the accolade of Player of the Series.

Bangladesh, batting first for the first time in this series, had a great start as Rony Talukdar and Liton added 55 runs for the opening stand before the former perished to Adil Rashid. Then Liton and Najmul added 84 for the second wicket until Liton was gone holing out to deep mid-wicket after hitting 10 fours and a six.

Bangladesh had the platform to go big as they were on 131-1 after 15 overs but some good bowling in the death from the visitors saw the Tigers manage only 27 from the final five overs and end on 158-2.

In reply, England lost Phil Salt (0) in the first over as he was undone by a spinning delivery from the debutant Tanvir Islam, which Liton grabbed and took the bails off in a flash to get rid of the English opener. From there, Malan and Buttler added 95 runs, which was met by some excellence in the field by Bangladesh, and later some excellent death bowling which took a heavy toll on the bantamweight English batting order and saw them get clean swept in a three-match T20I series for the second time in history. It was a team performance from Bangladesh, and Shakib reiterated that after the match.

“I don’t want to speak about any individual. Everyone played extraordinarily. Whoever needed to contribute, they did,” he said in the post-match press conference.