Now that we've wiped the egg off our face after we moaned only two days ago that England versus Bangladesh duals were becoming a little bit boring and unpredictable, we can now offer hearty congratulations to Bangladesh for finally managing to beat England at cricket. The celebrations at the end of the match were wonderful.
20 defeats in 20 matches were fairly daunting odds coming into the match at Bristol, but this Bangladesh side doesn't lack spirit and despite only posting 236 for seven from their 50 overs, they bowled with intelligence and some bravery at the end to win a nailbiting encounter by five runs.
In truth England, Jonathan Trott excepted, batted appallingly with a number of the dismissals having a slightly hubristic nature about them. Having reached 49 for nought in the eighth over, England should have sauntered to victory even without the David Beckham injury copying absentee Ian Bell. Hopefully, the defeat will give England a wake-up call following success in the World T20 and Nat West Series.
But England's malaise should not detract from Bangladesh's triumph, They have got themselves into good positions several times against England over the last few months but always conspired to throw any initiative away. They nearly did the same yesterday allowing England to get within sight of victory from 166 for seven (effectively eight with Bell's injury), but for once they held their nerve.
We thought that their celebration of the wicket of James Anderson, when they hadn't realised that Ian Bell would come out to try and help Trott see England over the line, might come back to bite them on the bum. But thankfully for Bangladesh it didn't. Even as an England fan, part of me was pleased to see Bangladesh triumph.
It's all set-up for an interesting final match of the series at Edgbaston tomorrow.
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