Bangladesh's home record was on the line in the second one-day international against England as the last time they lost a home series in the 50-over format was back in 2016 against the same opposition.
The first game was a good contest between Bangladesh and England but Friday, in the second match of the three-ODI series, the Tigers were simply outplayed in every aspect – be it bowling, fielding or batting – throughout the whole game.
Invited to bat first, England posted a huge total of 326 on the board riding on Jason Roy's brilliant 132.
Bangladesh neither bowled well nor fielded with discipline in order to restrict the opponent to a marginal score.
And the start of the chase was horrible as they lost Liton Das and Nazmul Hossain Shanto for ducks and experienced Mushfiqur Rahim in the third over in pursuit of a daunting task and eventually got bundled out for just 194.
Skipper Tamim Iqbal admitted Bangladesh were thoroughly outplayed by the world champions.
“When you lose two wickets in the first over and third in the third over then you are in big trouble. Then you need to start rebuilding again which Shakib (al Hasan) and I tried initially. And chasing a total of 327, somebody at some point has to take some chances. Unfortunately, when I tried it did not pay off but again when you are three down in the first two overs then it becomes difficult to chase 327,” said Tamim during the post-match press conference.
“We were lagging behind in many areas. We did not bowl well in the first four-five overs after electing to bowl first. I think there was enough help in the pitch initially. We could have bowled much better in the early overs. And also, we missed a runout opportunity which proved costly. Our fielding effort was not upto the mark either. In the first game, we fielded well compared to England. Although we did not drop any catches, we let go a few runs. There are many reasons behind our loss.
“England are world champions and they played these two matches like that. They played in a difficult condition in the first game and still won and (Friday) they had a specific plan and played very well. From our team's point of view, we should have used conditions a bit better and bowled better. I think we bowled well (Friday). We will definitely try to improve our performance in the last match. We want to finish the series on a high.”
The third and final match of the series will be played in Chittagong this Monday.
