Tattered Tigers lose streak

It was after an England series that it started, and it is with an England series that it ends.

Since their 2-1 One-Day International series defeat to the English in 2016, Bangladesh had won seven ODI series at home on the trot but that finally came to an end on Friday as a shambolic performance saw the Tigers succumb to a 132-run defeat and concede the series 2-0 despite a match in hand.

Bangladesh had a subpar performance from the beginning, starting from their decision to put England into batting first. They lacked precision with the ball, agility in the field, and then intent while batting - a combination that turned out to be calamitous.

Jason Roy took full toll of the opportunity as he struck his 12th ODI hundred, with skipper Jos Buttler scoring 76 alongside Moeen Ali and Sam Curran chipping in with 42 and unbeaten 33 respectively, which took them to a massive 326-7.

In reply, Bangladesh lost Liton Das, Najmul Hossain Shanto, and Mushfiqur Rahim within the third over, all to Curran with the first two scoring golden ducks.

Then, a lack of intent from the batters, which saw them produce a plethora of run-bare patches throughout the innings, saw the Tigers never even getting close to the chase, and they ended up getting bowled out for 194, with only Shakib Al Hasan going past fifty, with Tamim Iqbal scoring 33 off 65 balls and Mahmudullah Riyad scoring 32 off 49 balls.

“We thought the pitch was a bit tricky. But if you can’t bowl in the right areas, it does not matter how tricky the pitch was as there will be runs. Also, we have to give credit to them for their batting,” Tamim was left lamenting after the match.

“I am not concerned about batters getting out early, it’s part of the game. But when you reach 30-40, you should make it big. Look at England, someone (Roy) scored 130 today, and someone (Dawid Malan) scored 120-ish in the first match. We have a lacking there. Any batter can get out early but if you get a start, you need to make it big which we could not do,” he added.

England continued to be the only side since the 2015 World Cup to beat Bangladesh in ODIs at home, and it almost never looked in doubt on Friday.

Bangladesh were definitely pegged back by the aggressive approach of Roy from the start but they did not help themselves in the field, misfielding on a regular basis to give away boundaries, alongside their failure to be proactive, something that Tamim mentioned after the match.

“Today, we were not up to the mark in the field. We did not drop catches, but we let go of a few runs. We had a great opportunity to run Buttler out, which we could not capitalise on,” he said.

For Roy though, it was full of joy and following their series win, the English opener said that the pitch on Friday was better, which allowed him to play his natural game.

“ It was clearly a lot easier today. But there was a bit more spin, but it was consistent. The other day it was slightly inconsistent bounce as well as turn. I can score a lot of runs if I batted that amount of time. As simple as that. I reduced the risk in boundary options,” he said in the post-match press conference.

After England’s mammoth total, considering the pitch, Bangladesh were the underdogs going into the chase as they needed to register their record chase to get level and the three early wickets saw them slide down even further.

From there, Shakib and Tamim started a rebuilding process, which saw them put together 79 runs for the fourth wicket before Tamim decided to step out and hoick Adil Rashid out of the boundary but only managed to find James Vince at the boundary for 33 off 65 balls, an innings where he played 42 dot balls.

Shakib claimed his 51st ODI fifty off 59 balls and showed some intent to keep the run-mill active but with the required rate soaring higher, he had to take chances and that brought his dismissal when he tried to step out and clear the in-field off Rashid. However, the only thing he could manage was to find Curran at mid-off and perish for 58 off 69 balls, an inning featuring five fours.

Mahmudullah and Afif Hossain both struggled too, and the only entertainment in the Bangladesh innings came probably through Taskin Ahmed, who was unfortunately run out after scoring a run-a-ball 21, hitting four fours.