Bangladesh batted first in their favourable home ground, they came into this match with 5 win in last 6 ODI at Mirpur Stadium. Despite having good start, the wickets kept crumbling for Bangladesh and only Najmul Shanto scored worthy 58 off 82 balls. Rest of the batters couldn’t find their rhythm because the pitch was playing tricks of all sorts.
Another good sign for the English team was that all of their bowlers got wickets but the day primarily belonged to the spin masters. Archer, Wood, Moeen and Rashid had two wickets each while Jacks and Woakes bagged one wickets each. But England gave 26 extras which was way more than they would have expected.
On a sluggish pitch, a team needs a leading figure in batting line-up who can bat throughout the innings and can develop those small key partnerships. Dawid Malan has done it before for the English side, at MCG during first ODI against Australia, then against South Africa when England were 15 for 3.
It was a big challenge yesterday, with batters failing to anticipate the conditions thus England needed someone like Malan who is a type of player a team wants to lead in that kind of situation. He is mature and a fast learner who can bind up the whole innings.
Malan had his words after the match and said that the knock against Bangladesh was the best of the lot. 114 off 145 runs for Malan in a game where no other batter went past 26 runs.
Jason Roy (4 off 6 balls) lost his wicket in the first over, with James Vince (6 off 9 balls) and Jos Buttler (9 off 10 balls) losing wickets at key moments. Malan held one his strike at one end and finally got a share a 51 runs partnership with Adil Rashid who contributed 17 runs off 29 balls.
David Malan now averages of 63 in ODI cricket with four centuries and three half centuries to his name in 16 matches. England has recently struggled to win in ODI but by no means, they have been underperformed by other teams. They bowling has not been upto the mark, but now with return of Jofra Archer and Mark Wood, the team is playing like champions.