Bangladesh turned the tables in their favour with an outstanding performance against England in a virtual decider as far as the qualifications were concerned. The win by 15 runs for Bangladesh sealed their position in the quarterfinals ahead of the mighty Englishmen from group A.
Bangladesh batted first in this crunch encounter and set up a competitive total of 275/7 in 50 overs. Mahmudullah Ryad (103) became the first Bangladeshi to score a hundred in the world cups and set up a good total which gave his captain a chance to go at the opponents. Mushfiqur Rahim once again played a great hand with a brilliant 89. It was Mahmudullah’s partnership with Mushfiqur that helped Bangladesh to reach such a total. Otherwise it would have been very different. The top order failed once again and Shakib al Hasan also failed to deliver with the bat in the middle. The top order batsmen found Jimmy Anderson’s swing bowling too hot to handle and gave away their wickets cheaply. However the death bowling by England was not up to the mark and Bangladesh took advantage of that as they got past the 250-run mark easily. Few quick wickets towards the end prevented them from getting closer to 300. But none-the-less it was more than just a defendable total, especially keeping in mind England’s situation where they had to win to stay in the tournament.
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England made a reasonably good start as Ian Bell scored a half century. Moeen Ali was also playing well but got run out after a mix-up with his fellow opening partner. It was Bell’s wicket that started the turnaround for Bangladesh. They picked up couple of quick wickets after that and the pressure was mounting on the English batting to deliver. Jos Buttler played well for his 65 off 52 but it was not enough as Bangladeshi fast bowlers pulled the game in their favour with some disciplined bowling. Rubel Hossain in the end cleaned up England’s last two wickets to script one of the most famous victories in the history of Bangladesh cricket. Hossain picked up 4 wickets while Mashrafe Mortaza got 2. Taskin Ahmed also picked up 2 wickets. Shakib al Hasan did not get a wicket but his economical bowling in the middle overs helped the pressure to build up which brought about the eventual defeat of the founders of the game.
In the end it was a great team effort that saw the Bangladesh winning over a hapless England team which was way beyond their very best. Their campaign really took off since their defeat against Australia in their opening match of this world cup. Bangladesh still has one match left to be played in the group stages and that is against the mighty Kiwis. England will also get another chance to take something from this tournament in their last match in which they will be up against Afghanistan.
Tags: Bangladesh ICC Cricket World Cup 2015 ICC World Cup 2015
