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Bangladesh is not afraid to face High-Flying England

England and Bangladesh have never faced each other in T20Is before. Clashing for the first time in the format on Wednesday, they come out of different ends of the confidence spectrum from their last match: while Sri Lanka’s new generation batters stunned Bangladesh with a superb chase, England trounced West Indies in a dominant show with the ball.

Buoyed by the emphatic win over defending champions West Indies, England would look to continue their winning momentum when they face Bangladesh in a tricky Super 12 clash of the T20 World Cup at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday. Their bowling unit was right on the job as the Eoin Morgan-led England bundled out an otherwise lacklustre West Indies for a paltry 55 in 14.2 overs before cantering home in 8.2 overs. Against an opposition who are familiar with the sluggish sub-continent conditions and capable of producing upsets, Morgan will ill-afford to rest on the laurels.

With the match starting in the afternoon, the reigning ODI world champions will be tested in the oppressive heat of Abu Dhabi where temperature soars above 32C.

To their advantage, the Abu Dhabi strip is known to be aiding the pacers and Morgan may think of bringing in Mark Wood into the mix at the expense of a batter.

Teams have been successful in chasing so far in the World Cup at this venue, with three out of four games being won by the team batting second.

England’s build-up to the tournament has centred around the unavailability of Ben Stokes, Jofra Archer and Sam Curran, but they hardly missed their star trio with Moeen Ali providing the winning edge.

Opening the bowling, Moeen struck twice inside the power play and went on to bowl his full quota to return with 4-1-17-2, reducing West Indies to 33 for 4. Adil Rashid then gave the finishing touches grabbing an eye-catching figures of 4 for 2 in 2.2 overs.

Bangladesh will be reliant on their middle-order engine room of Shakib Al Hasan, Mushfiqur Rahim and captain Mahmudullah. Although Shakib missed out on a good score against Sri Lanka at No. 3, it is unlikely he will not be in the runs for too long, as Mushfiqur finally struck a T20I fifty in the last game – his first in two years.

Mahmudullah has his work cut out too. He is among the runs but his captaincy was being questioned after he used himself and Afif Hossain for three overs against Sri Lanka’s left-hand batters, which eventually turned out to be big ones for the opponents. Bangladesh can’t afford too many such mistakes against England or in any of their remaining matches.

They had said that they targeted reaching the semi-final this time, but for now they need to get going with a win first.

England have a formidable batting line-up but their top-order looked a bit shaky the other day even though they were chasing a paltry 56 and Bangladesh pace battery spearheaded by Mustafizur Rahman would look to give the early advantage. Bangladesh also have the likes of Taskin Ahmed, Rubel Hossain and left-arm quick Shoriful Islam who is the wings.

Teams:

Bangladesh (probable): 1 Mohammad Naim, 2 Liton Das, 3 Shakib Al Hasan, 4 Mushfiqur Rahim, 5 Mahmudullah (capt), 6 Afif Hossain, 7 Nurul Hasan (wk), 8 Mahedi Hasan, 9 Nasum Ahmed, 10 Taskin Ahmed, 11 Mustafizur Rahman

England (probable): 1 Jason Roy, 2 Jos Buttler (wk), 3 Dawid Malan, 4 Jonny Bairstow, 5 Liam Livingstone, 6 Eoin Morgan, 7 Moeen Ali, 8 Chris Woakes, 9 Chris Jordan, 10 Adil Rashid, 11 Tymal Mills/Mark Wood

Match starts at 4.00pm.

 

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