When Bangladesh maintained composure to defeat the world champions England by six wickets in the opening Twenty20 international on Thursday in Chittagong, Najmul Hossain scored 51 off 30 balls. Bangladesh reached 158-4 in 18 overs thanks to Najmul’s third T20I fifty, after the hosts had restricted England to 156-6 despite Jos Buttler, their skipper, scoring 67 runs off 42 balls.
“Bangladesh finished the innings really well. We were in a position to really kick on and launch at the end, but we couldn’t manage to get away,” said Buttler. “We were probably 20 short with our score and we had to chase a little bit in the field.” Once the hosts decided to put England in to bat first, Buttler and Phil Salt put on an 80-run opening partnership.
But, after Buttler was dismissed for just 21 runs in the final five overs, England collapsed. Hasan Mahmud, a pace bowler, finished with 2-26 after forcing Buttler to throw a catch at long-on in the 16th over. Rony Talukdar (21) and Liton Das (12) scored 33 runs together to give Bangladesh a strong start. To break the stand, Adil Rashid bowled Talukdar, and Jofra Archer shortly got rid of Liton.
However, a 65-run third-wicket partnership between Towhid Hridoy, making his debut, and Najmul gave Bangladesh the upper hand. As Najmul quickly reached his fifty off just 27 balls, Moeen Ali broke their partnership by dismissing Hridoy for 24. After giving up fours off each of his first four balls to the left-hander, Mark Wood bowled Najmul to exact a little measure of retaliation. Shakib Al Hasan stopped England’s momentum and sealed the victory by staying 34 not out with a boundary off Chris Jordan.
During their uninterrupted fifth wicket stand, which saw the pair add 46 runs, Afif Hossain was not out for 15 at the other end. “The way we approached the game was fantastic, can’t ask more from our team,” Bangladesh skipper Shakib said. “When we were bowling, we were under the pump but no one panicked.”
After scoring 38 runs off 35 balls, Salt became the first England batsman to be removed when he connected the bottom edge off a Nasum Ahmed delivery. Shakib’s poor high catch at mid-off prevented Nasum from dismissing Buttler when he was 19, which was unfortunate. Prior to Mustafizur Rahman bowling Ben Duckett for 20, Shakib made up for it by getting rid of Dawid Malan for four.
Since claiming the World Cup in Australia in November, England had not played in a T20 match until this one. The sole T20I match between the hosts and England had taken place at the 2021 World Cup, and England came out on top by an eight-wicket margin. On March 12 and 14, Dhaka will host the final two matches of the series.