CRICKET TEST MATCH:BANGLADESH HAVE managed to leave some favourable impressions during the past couple of weeks but the last two sessions of this Test, during each of which they contrived to lose all 10 wickets of an innings, do not count among them.
If the batting of Tamim Iqbal has made for some scintillating watching then yesterday’s pratfall of a response, a benchmark for ineptitude, will be the lasting impression of a side still struggling for recognition as a viable Test nation. It is a real shame, for there has been evidence of progress, most obviously in the batting, which makes the manner of their defeat by an innings and 80 runs something of an irony.
For a while in the morning, as the dank murk and dripping rain persisted, it looked as if they may at least force the game into a fourth day. There were even doubts that Andrew Strauss might opt instead to bat Bangladesh out of the game by not enforcing the follow-on, a decision he had all night over which to mull.
What if they follow on and Tamim gets another hundred, some were pondering, and someone else gets runs and England are faced with a tricky 150 on a wearing pitch? As if.
If England could not utilise the overcast conditions presented yesterday afternoon to dismiss a Bangladesh side already demoralised by their implosion on Saturday, then there can be little hope of better things to come. It was, or should have been, as the ugly modern parlance has it, a no-brainer.
As it transpired, the Tamim show could not last for ever and once he had gone to the second ball of the innings, bowled by James Anderson, Bangladesh had nothing left to offer, as if the heart and soul had been ripped from them. By the time the 14th over was done, the scoreboard read 39 for six, the innings was in total disarray, and the records were being scoured.
A bit of spirited hitting down the order, when little mattered, restored a little balance, but it was no more than cheap make-up on a raddled complexion – all out for 123, the tea interval not even reached, and defeat by an innings and 80.
From the heat and exhilaration of Saturday, when Tamim’s brilliant century had helped take them to 153 for one and promoted ambitious thoughts, they managed to lose 19 wickets for 186 in a little more than 57 overs, to spin and seam alike.
Anderson bowled superbly through the first 10 overs from the Stretford end to take three for 16, while Steven Finn, rhythm awry and a way short of the standard he achieved at Lord’s, emerged with five for 42, and the award for England’s man of the series.
England: first innings 419 (Pietersen 64, Bell 128, Prior 93); Bangladesh: first innings 216 (Tamim 108; Swann 5-76)
Bangladesh: second innings
Tamim c Prior b Anderson 2
Kayes c Shahzad b Finn 9
Siddique c Pietersen b Anderson 6
Ashraful c Trott b Anderson 14
Jahrul c Prior b Finn 0
Shakib b Shahzad 1
Rahim c Sub b Finn 13
Mahmudullah c Prior b Finn 38
Razzak c Morgan b Swann 19
Shafiul c Strauss b Finn 4
Shahadat not out 4
Extras (13b) 13
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Total: (all out; 34.1 overs) 123
Fall of wickets: 1-2, 2-14, 3-18, 4-21, 5-37, 6-39, 7-76, 8-97, 9-119, 10-123.
Bowling: Anderson 10-3-16-3, Finn 10-2-42-5, Shahzad 7-2-18-1, Swann 7.1-0-34-1.
