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1 week ago
15
England survived a nervy wobble with the bat to beat Bangladesh by four wickets in Guwahati and go top of the table in the World Cup.
Bangladesh reduced England to 103 for six chasing 179 but a watchful 79-run partnership between Heather Knight and Charlie Dean steadied the ship, helped by the absence of Bangladesh’s key strike bowler, Marufa Akter, from the field for the last 15 overs of the chase.
Nevertheless, the performance will raise questions as to how far England have overcome the issues which dogged them under previous coach Jon Lewis, notably their ability to focus in pressure moments. Bangladesh are a nation who scraped through the qualifiers for this World Cup back in April, have played no international cricket since then, and whose domestic structure is still almost entirely amateur: coming within a whisker of slaying the giant of the No 2-ranked side in the world was never in the script.
England were extremely fortunate to be on the right side of two controversial TV umpiring decisions, which handed Knight lives on 0 and 13. The rules surrounding use of the Decision Review System state that in the absence of any definitive evidence to the contrary, the initial on-field decision should stand. Here, though, the third umpire chose to overturn an on-field “out” decision against Knight, ruling that the batter had not edged Marufa behind the stumps despite the fact that Ultraedge appeared inconclusive.
Then, as Bangladesh celebrated Shorna Akter’s diving catch at cover in the 15th over, the third umpire again intervened to state that the catch had not been taken cleanly – despite audibly suggesting on microphone that the replays were once again inconclusive.
In between times, Knight herself used DRS to overturn a leg-before decision against Marufa, somehow surviving the scratchiest of starts – at one stage she was 14 from 44 balls – to bring up the half-century which enabled England to stagger across the finish line.
The match has put a substantial dent in England’s net run rate, which had been healthy after last week’s astonishing 10-wicket win against South Africa: they only sit above Australia by virtue of the reigning champions’ washout against Sri Lanka at the weekend.
This should have been an easy run-chase for England after a leisurely batting performance by Bangladesh, who scored just 178 despite batting for all but two balls of their 50 overs.
But Amy Jones and Tammy Beaumont both fell victim to the hooping inswing of Marufa up top, before leg-spinner Fahima Khatun reduced England from 69 for two to 78 for five, removing Nat Sciver-Brunt, Sophia Dunkley and Emma Lamb. Left-arm spinner Sanjida Akter Meghla then curved one in to Alice Capsey, rapped her on the back-pad and sent her packing lbw: Capsey ran out of time to send the decision upstairs, but replays showed it was in any case plumb.
Earlier, England’s opening partnership of Lauren Bell and Linsey Smith had again proved effective, reducing Bangladesh to 25 for two in the first six overs with their best batter, captain Nigar Sultana Joty bagging a duck.
Sophie Ecclestone extracted sharp turn and bounce from the wicket, picking up three for 24 as Bangladesh limped along through the middle overs, at one point going for 10 overs without scoring a boundary. The tempo of the innings was typified by Sobhana Mostary, who – seven years on from her ODI debut – celebrated a maiden international half-century, but took 92 balls to reach the milestone.
After her own early dismissal, popping up a soft catch to Dean at short extra cover, an animated Joty was seen encouraging her players from the dugout to up the pace. But Bangladesh’s innings only came alive at the very end – 48 runs coming off the final seven overs, thanks to an exciting, unbeaten cameo of 43 from 27 balls from No 9 Rabeya Khan. In the end it was not quite enough to enable the giantkill.
