CT 2017, Match 1 ENG v BAN: Who said What

Favourites England successfully chased down 306 as the Champions Trophy 2017 got underway with a one-sided affair between the hosts and Bangladesh at the Kia Oval in London. Batting first Bangladesh were powered by opener Tamim Iqbal’s century and a half from Mushfiqur Rahim which took their total to 305/6 in 50 overs but considering how flat the pitch was they were still a good 40-50 runs short.

England went about the task without much ado as opener Alex Hales and Joe Root shared a 159-run partnership for the second wicket. Morgan who joined Root after the dismissal of Hales also scored a half century while the Test skipper went on to achieve a magnificent hundred; his 10th in ODI cricket and stayed there till the end to take his team home.

It was Eoin Morang who won the first toss of CT 2017 and wanted to chase. They backed their stronger suit batting and preferred to let Bangladesh give them a target. The Tigers had a good start with both the openers playing cautiously while the ball didn’t do a lot. Soumya Sarkar fell for 28 at the time they would have liked to capitalise on the good work.

Tamim carried on and got to his 9th ODI century, Mushfiqur with his 79 supported him well as they set the team up for a 300ish total. Sabbir Rahman’s 24 from 15 took them to 305 on the last ball of the innings. England in their reply were clinical though Jason Roy who had a lot of eyes on him failed to get going and was dismissed for just 1.

Root and Hales soaked up the pressure and played the waiting game backing their abilities to run through once they were in. Hales, unfortunately, missed out on what would have been a splendid hundred by 5 runs while Root concluded the game with a boundary and at the individual score of 133 as England registered a thumping 8-wicket win in the opening game.

Joe Root was awarded the Man of the Match for his match-winning hundred.

Root said: “It (England’s performance) is going to get better. Lot of confidence in the dressing room. We back each other’s abilities and it rubs on everyone. It’s nice to have Buttler and Stokes coming after you. It’s about making sure that we have plenty of wickets at the back end. One of the top four/five has to get a 70 or a 100 not out. Sure there will be different scenarios in the tournament but we have to give it our best. Good to start on this note. Ankle is alright, it’s more of a calf issue.”

English skipper Morgan who stayed unbeaten on 75 was mighty pleased with the effort of his batting team given there was not much for the bowlers.

Morgan said: When a guy bats like that it becomes a lot easy. Having an in-form Hales is very important. He (Root) really has scored a lot of runs and he continues to do that. He has been working a lot on his power hitting and tonight it paid off. I want to lead from the front in this tournament. The guys are hungry to do well.

We have got ourselves in good position after this one. Two more games to go. Probably we would have liked to take more wickets. An in batsman can really be dangerous. To continue to take wickets is going to be very important.

He justified his decision of dropping leg-spinner Adil Rashid from the XI saying, “No absolutely not, we went with the right decision in the morning considering one side of the boundary was so short and the ball was not turning.”

“Chris (Woakes) is the biggest concern right now. At the moment it does not feel right. We will assess everything in the morning after the scan. It will be a great game. World cup final (Australia vs New Zealand tomorrow) rematch so yeah will be watching.”

Bangladeshi captain Mashrafe Mortaza felt the batsmen could have done better if they had to win the game since 305 was pretty achievable on this wicket.

Mortaza said: I think 305 was a little bit short. We could not get wickets in the middle overs. Root batted pretty well and took the game away from us. Initially the wicket can swing and the batsmen can take time but at the end with 6-7 wickets in hands we could been a lot better.

We will have to think about it (the team combination). The main bowlers have to bowl better and We have to think about extra bowlers as well. The third umpire knows better than us. We have not seen yet (replays perhaps), the umpire’s decision is final.