England march on with emphatic win over Bangladesh
JASON Roy’s 61 off 38 balls made sure England easily negotiated a potentially tricky chase of 125 as they continued their excellent start at the T20 World Cup with an eightwicket victory over Bangladesh.
England had skittled the West Indies for 55 en route to a six-wicket win in their tournament opener and, despite the overbearing heat in this day fixture in Abu Dhabi, another disciplined performance in the field restricted Bangladesh to 124-9.
Tymal Mills (3-27) ended the innings with wickets from successive deliveries after Moeen Ali had earlier taken two in two before Roy took centre stage as England triumphed with 35 balls to spare.
Roy’s innings in his 50th T20, where he reached his fifty off just 33 balls, contained five fours and three sixes, and while he was dismissed with 13 more still required, Dawid Malan and Jonny Bairstow saw England over the line.
This was the first T20 between the teams but England needed no reminders of Bangladesh’s capacity to spring a surprise in global tournaments after the Tigers eliminated Eoin Morgan’s side at the 2015 50-over World Cup.
But there was rarely any sense of an England loss in the Gulf yesterday as they allowed Bangladesh few occasions to cut loose, with the economical Chris Woakes taking 1-12, while Liam Livingstone collected two wickets.
England, the number one ranked side in the world, unsurprisingly opted for an unchanged line-up in this Super 12s contest after their impressive win over the West Indies.
Moeen was again entrusted to open the bowling after setting the tone against the West Indies and he was granted another over here after twice being driven by the purposeful Liton Das, whose expansive approach proved his undoing when he top-edged a sweep into the deep while Mohammad Naim injudiciously clothed the next ball to mid-on.
Woakes was proving difficult to get away as he bowled in tandem with Moeen for the six-over powerplay, and he chipped in with the wicket of Shakib Al Hasan, who pulled to short fine leg. Adil Rashid is not renowned for exceptional fielding, but he took a stunner over his shoulder by running to his right and plucking the ball out of the air to see off the dangerous Shakib.