On what was billed as something of a road England and Bangladesh produced an encounter of multiple left turns, the anticipated runfest turning into something very different once the home side put the brakes on a high-octane start to England’s pursuit of 247 and the wickets started to fall. The dead end eventually came with just under seven overs to go, Bangladesh winning by 50 runs.
After racing to 50 without loss off 52 balls, fully 30 fewer than Bangladesh had taken to reach the same score, the wheels fell off almost instantly for England, and nine balls later it was 55 for three. Though James Vince and Sam Curran – promoted to bat at five – restored some stability with a partnership of 49, as the floodlights came on the sun gradually set on England’s chances. So badly did they struggle as night fell that there was only one boundary between the second ball of the 21st over and the last of the 40th, by which time their hopes were dwindling.
Bangladesh’s bowling was brilliantly precise, with Shakib Al Hasan outstanding with both bat and ball, collecting his 300th ODI wicket along the way, and Ebadot Hossain excelling on his first appearance of the series.
It was Shakib who started the collapse. Phil Salt had looked in fearsome touch, and after pulling Shakib for four in the seventh over and hitting Ebadot for two more boundaries in the next appeared to be finding top gear. But at the end of the ninth over he made clean contact with another Shakib delivery only to biff it straight to point, where Mahmadullah took an easy catch. Salt beat his bat in fury at the waste of a fine start, and he was not the last Englishman whose bat was to be beaten.
Shakib’s second wicket came in his next over, Jason Roy missing an attempted cut as the ball kept low and losing his stumps. In Ebadot’s intervening over Dawid Malan slapped straight to mid-on without scoring, an unusual choice of shot for a batter often so careful early in his innings. After his match-winning century in the first ODI, over the course of the series Malan has gone very literally from hero to zero.
Across the series Vince had failed twice with the bat and, earlier in the day, three times in the field – two misfields and a dropped catch – but he too batted with authority for a while. He peaked when thumping a Shakib delivery down the ground for four dismissively; the next ball took an edge on its way into the gloves of Mushfiqur Rahim. Rehan Ahmed, on his white-ball debut, was Shakib’s other victim, brilliantly caught by Mehidi Hassan at short midwicket to bring Bangladesh to the verge of victory. Chris Woakes was well caught, at the second attempt, by Mustafizur Rahman to seal it.
Perhaps England might have fared better had they allowed Adil Rashid to bowl his full allocation of overs instead of Ahmed – though the debutant needed every last delivery of his 10 to claim his first wicket, a simple return catch to dismiss Mehidi. Rashid had half as many overs but produced a masterclass for Rehan to admire at close quarters, taking three wickets, including that of Mushfiqur with a delicious googly to break a partnership of 98 with Najmul Hossain Shanto, and of Mahmadullah with a beauty that snuck between bat and pad to clatter middle stump.
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Najmul and Mushfiqur both scored half-centuries – the latter scoring only five runs fewer than Shakib – but there was no doubt about who was the star of this performance. Shakib is an icon in this country, one of the world’s great ODI players – after this performance he is 24 runs away from adding a 7,000th run to his 300 wickets in the format – but this had been a disappointing series both for him and much of Bangladesh’s old guard. He ended it with a champion’s flourish, his 71-ball 75 instrumental to hauling his team to a defendable total, and his bowling key to them defending it.
Just before the series started it was revealed that the relationship between Shakib and Tamim Iqbal, the ODI captain, has soured to the extent that they no longer talk; in the second game in Dhaka the act of them bumping fists in the middle prompted wild celebrations in the stands. After this display, though, some kind of congratulations might be in order.