Former champion England continued its smooth ride in the ICC T20 World Cup 2021.
On Wednesday, it defeated Bangladesh by eight wickets in Group 1’s Super 12 stage at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium in Abu Dhabi.
England is well on course for the semis with this win.
Bangladesh is very close to elimination.
Bangladesh win the toss
Winning the toss, Bangladesh skipper Mahmudullah chose to bat, bringing in Shoriful Islam for Mohammad Saifuddin.
However, English captain Eoin Morgan played with an unchanged side.
Bangladesh was off to a panicky start, losing Liton Das (9), Mohammad Naim (5) and Shakib Al Hasan (4) within the sixth over of the Powerplay, with just 26 runs on the board.
Their innings had started well, with Liton Das hitting successive boundaries from the final two balls of the opening over, again bowled by Moeen Ali.
But with neither opener having a convincing record against off-spin, England persisted with Moeen, and in his second over they both got out.
For a while Mushfiqur and Mahmudullah brought some calm to the Bangladesh innings.
Then Livingstone came into the attack and along with Chris Woakes – whose four overs cost only 12 runs, helped England took grip of the game.
England finally restricted their opponents to 124 for nine in their 20 overs.
England canter to victory
England eased to their victory target with 35 balls and eight wickets to spare.
England lost Jos Buttler (18) to spinner Nasum early in the fifth over of the Powerplay with 35 runs on the board.
However, fellow opener Jason Roy (61) and Dawid Malan (28*) produced an useful 73-run stand for the second wicket that sealed the deal.
Jason Roy celebrated his 50th Twenty20 international appearance by hitting his seventh half-century.
Eventually, Roy was well caught in the deep soon after hitting the shot of the day, swatting a short ball over his left shoulder for six.
Said Jason Roy – “It’s an area of my game I’ve been working extra hard on, on slow pitches against left-arm spinners,”
“It was a big opportunity to go out there and put the practice into play.
Roy’s dismissal left Dawid Malan to finish things off in the company of Jonny Bairstow.
Five Bangladeshi bowlers were put into the attack, with only a couple striking.
Pacer Mustafizur Rahman was the most economical from his side.
Bangladesh 124/9 (Rahim- 29; Livingstone- 2/15) lost to England 126/2 in 14.1 overs (Roy- 61; Shoriful- 1/26) by eight wickets.