News

More of the same for England

England, fresh from their crushing victory in the first match of the three-game one-day series at Chittagong, are likely to name an unchanged side for the second match, a day/nighter at the Bangabandhu Stadium in Dhaka tomorrow (start 0730 GMT)

Steven Lynch
Steven Lynch
09-Nov-2003


Andrew Flintoff: virtuoso performance in the first match
© Getty Images
England, fresh from their crushing victory in the first match of the three-game one-day series at Chittagong, are set to name an unchanged side for the second match, a day/nighter at the Bangabandhu Stadium in Dhaka tomorrow (start 0730 GMT).
Any experiments are likely to wait until England have wrapped up the series, so Andrew Strauss will have to hang on a little longer for his international debut, and Gareth Batty will also remain on the sidelines unless Duncan Fletcher and Michael Vaughan decide to field an extra spinner.
At Chittagong England were indebted to a virtuoso performance from Andrew Flintoff, the Man of the Match. After destroying the Bangladesh innings with 4 for 14, he calmed England's nerves after three quick wickets had fallen with a forthright 55 not out. And Flintoff is just one of a quartet of handy allrounders: Paul Collingwood (back after a long injury break), Rikki Clarke and the beefy Ian Blackwell will also be eager to get at the bowling. Collingwood explained his role today to the BBC: "It's great to be a part of this one-day team because we're a good fielding unit and everyone has an assigned batting role. My job is to keep the scoreboard ticking over with ones and twos. Andrew Flintoff, on the other hand, comes in and just bangs the bowlers around."
The problems are mostly Bangladesh's. They have lost their best fast bowler, Mashrafe Mortaza, with a knee injury that requires an operation in Australia. He may be out for as long as eight months. But it was the batting that failed in the first match, where Bangladesh crumbled from 65 for 2 to 66 for 7 in the space of 14 balls. Khaled Mahmud, the increasingly under-pressure captain, is overplaced at No. 6, and there may be a call-up for Mohammad Moniruzzaman, who is uncapped but who heads the domestic runscoring lists this season. In the bowling department Mohammad Rafique, the canny left-arm spinner, is hoping to be fit after missing the first game with a knee injury.
Bangladesh (probable): 1 Hannan Sarkar, 2 Nafis Iqbal, 3 Habibul Bashar, 4 Rajin Saleh, 5 Alok Kapali, 6 Khaled Mahmud (capt), 7 Mushfiqur Rahman, 8 Manjural Islam Rana, 9 Khaled Mashud (wk), 10 Mohammad Rafique, 11 Tapash Baisya.
England (probable): 1 Marcus Trescothick, 2 Vikram Solanki, 3 Michael Vaughan (capt), 4 Paul Collingwood, 5 Andrew Flintoff, 6 Rikki Clarke, 7 Ian Blackwell, 8 Chris Read (wk), 9 Ashley Giles, 10 Richard Johnson, 11 James Anderson.