Why England won and what Bangladesh could have done differently
England easily won the first ODI against http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Bangladesh-c747 at Lord’s and will go into the second match with a 1-0 lead. Another win in the second match and they would have won the series. England has never lost an ODI to Bangladesh and it worth asking why the Bangladeshi side failed again.
Start, stop, out!:
The perennial Bangladeshi problem came to haunt them in the first ODI at Lord’s. The disease seems to be wide-spread within the Bangladeshi side. They come in to bat, they play some attractive strokes and then, they get out. There are no explanations why, no rationale, but 20s and 30s are so common in the Bangladeshi innings that life would have become difficult for their coach, Jamie Siddons.
In the first ODI as well, there were four batsmen who got starts, and none of them could go beyond 28. Two others scored half centuries, but again, one was dismissed for 51, whereas the other made 76, which meant that at least one of them should have gone on to score a century.
One gets the sense that the pitch at Lord’s was flat enough and Bangladesh’s 250 was an easy target to achieve. Even 280 wouldn’t have made a lot of difference, but those extra 30 runs could have given the bowlers an outside chance.
Bad decision:
For some time now, http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Tamim-Iqbal-c2640 has been their best batsman and by a distance. On a regular basis, Iqbal provides the Bangladeshi side with starts that are so truly spectacular that one can be forgiven if one thought that it is not a Bangladeshi, but an Australian batting. Even in the first ODI, the side were given a good start by Iqbal, but then, when on 28 - that come off 22 balls only – the ball hit his pad and the umpire thought it was out and delivered the guilty verdict.
Replays showed that the ball would have easily missed the off-stump and from a Bangladeshi perspective, it was a killer blow that pegged the side back badly.
What a return, what a player!:
Ian Bell has not played international one day games for many months now. Such had been his form earlier, that it is a surprise that he had even been selected in the squad for the matches against http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Australia-c746 in the previous series. In that series, he had not played a single game, but Pietersen’s injury in this series allowed him to pad up at the number three position.
As it turned out, all those months of waiting seemed to have paid off. Bell started off slowly, but went on to score a 101-ball 84, and saw the side off till the very end. No doubt then, he was declared the man of the match!
Lack of bowling resources:
England may have scored those runs in 45 overs, but the simple fact is that they were allowed to do so. Bangladesh relies heavily on their spinners to eke out the wickets or slow the scoring down. Then again, the spinners need tracks which are slow and can afford some bounce to them. In conditions away from home, it is difficult to expect these spinners to do the job that they can in the sub-continent.
So, the load comes squarely on the shoulders of the fast bowlers. For Bangladesh, http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Mashrafe-Mortaza-c1917 was making a comeback into the side, and he had to look after the captaincy as well. Shafiul Islam is a greenhorn, while, for some reason, Shahdahat Hossain was not a part of the playing eleven.
The result was that the English side was able to pick off the Bangladeshi bowlers and win with a comfortable ease.
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