Twitter Reactions: Mashrafe Mortaza’s all-round show ensures Bangladesh level series

Over the last couple of years, Bangladesh has been quite a force at home. Despite some of the best teams touring the Asian nation, none of them have managed to beat them in a bilateral limited-overs series and that shows the quantum of their improvement as far as closing in on games and victories is concerned. Having lost the first ODI to England from a position where they should have won it Mashrafe Mortaza and his men walked out

Having lost the first ODI to England from a position where they should have won it Mashrafe Mortaza and his men walked out on the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium today with intentions to not repeat their mistakes. England skipper Jos Buttler won the toss and decided to bowl first. The Bangladeshi top order failed to deliver this time and the centurion from the previous game Imrul Kayes too was disappointingly dismissed for just 11 runs.

But when Tamim Iqbal, Kayes, Sabbir Rahman failed it was Mahmudullah who took the responsibility. He held the inning together with his 88-ball 75 and with useful contributions from Mushfiqur Rahim (21), Mosaddek Hossain (29), Nasir Hossain (27*) and Mashrafe Mortaza (44) ensured that they posted a challengeable total of 238. Chris Woakes, Adil Rashid and Jake ball shared a couple of wickets each for England.

Coming out to chase a modest total the Poms didn’t have the best of starts either. The top 3 Jason Roy, James Vince and Ben Duckett were dismissed with just 24 runs on the board. Ben Stokes who hit a half century in the last match was dismissed for a duck on the 5th ball and England were in all sorts of troubles 4 down for 26. Jonny Bairstow had seen all that from the other end and finally found a partner of substantiality in skipper Buttler.

Also read – Bangladesh v England, 2nd ODI Review: Bangladesh level the series with an exciting win

The partnership took them over the 100-run mark and just when things had started to look good Taskin Ahmed had Bairstwo caught by Rahim. Moeen Ali emerged out of the dressing room with a lot of expectations hovering over his head but couldn’t do anything more than 4 runs. Buttler too fell in the 28th over after contributing 57 runs and the match was over for England.

But that was not Ball and Rashid had on mind. The 10th wicket pair hung in there and gradually started to play their shots, they got together on 159 and took them over 200 with enough balls in hand. There was a point now where Bangladesh had started to worry as it appeared they might well witness another too close yet too far scenario. It was Mortaza’s night and he was determined to not let that happened. He finally had Ball caught by Nasir and they won the game by 34 runs.

Here is how Twitter reacted to Bangladesh’s close win:

https://twitter.com/AltCricket/status/785150627282321408