Mehidy and Shanto put the seal on Bangladesh’s series win over England

Mehidy and Shanto put the seal on Bangladesh's series win over England

In the second innings, the game became a thrilling dogfight but, for England, the damage was done, with Mehidy Hasan Miraz dismantling their batting

England’s response to a batting malfunction in the first T20 was to bring in an all-rounder for a bowler, and rearrange their batting order. It only served to make things worse and resembled the rearrangement of the deck chairs on the Titanic. This series, the last of nine across the formats this winter, has been lost with a game to spare by the world champions.

In the second innings, the game became a thrilling dogfight but, for England, the damage was done, with Mehidy Hasan Miraz dismantling their batting. England had some good moments with the ball, thanks to a spectacular performance from Jofra Archer and a wicket for Rehan Ahmed as he became their youngest player in T20 cricket, as he already was in Tests and ODIs. But having been bowled out for 117, there was just too much for England to do, and they lost by four wickets.

England did not help themselves. Jos Buttler made 67 from 42 balls but, once he was dismissed, the innings fell away badly. The order looked unbalanced, with three top order players who would like to open, then three players who would like to whack spin in the middle overs. So Buttler, having lost the toss for the eighth time in eight matches this year, decided to drop himself down the order, to No 4, and promote Dawid Malan and Moeen Ali.

Buttler likes to maximise a batsman’s’ “entry point” – making sure each player comes to the crease at a time that suits their strengths. His strengths are extremely flexible, but the rest of the batting order is quite specialised. It was a selfless decision to drop down the order for the first time in five years, but actually all England had done is sacrifice a strength to cover a weakness. Later, it was curious that Rehan Ahmed, on debut, did not come in until No9. The swagger and insouciance of youth might have been helpful in this crisis. When he did get to the crease, he struck two boundaries; only Phil Salt managed more.

By now, England must be ruing the decision not to replace Will Jacks or Tom Abell when they were ruled out of the series with injury. Yes, this series is not that important and exposing Curran to life in the top six has value, but they look so short on options. They are quite simply a batsman light.

Until Salt got out, things had been going quite well. After six overs, England were 50 for one, with only Malan lost, but Shakib al-Hasan dismissed Salt again trying to cut, caught and bowled this time, and the squeeze went on. After Buttler was bowled by a brilliant yorker from Hasan Mahmud, an array of spinners found plenty of turn, and England were befuddled.

The recalled Mehidy led the charge, as he did in Test matches in England in 2016. Moeen was dismissed slog-sweeping then, after four overs of England going nowhere, returned to have both Sam Curran and Chris Woakes stumped, with that turn and bounce deceiving them. Out came Chris Jordan, not Ahmed, and he soaked up 10 balls for three, before being caught on the fence. That was the final ball of Mehidy’s spell, which brought figures of four for 12.

Through all this, Ben Duckett was a frustrated observer at the non-striker’s end. As they swung hard, England’s rotation of the strike was not good enough, and Dickett was marooned. He fell to the first ball of a final over that also saw Ahmed and Archer run out, meaning England had been bowled out.

Curran and Archer had removed Bangladesh’s openers before the powerplay was over and, crucially, the hosts were not blazing ahead of the rate. Adil Rashid and Moeen settled in, before Ahmed was brought into the attack n the 10th over. He was given just two overs, but bowled well, although it was his worst delivery that brought a wicket, as Towhid Hridoy cut a long-hop to backward point.

Mehidy joined the impressive Najmul Hossain Shanto and Bangladesh trickled quietly along, until Archer was brought back. He struck twice in two overs, regularly clocking 90mph (only a day after he said he would not be bending his back on slow pitches), with Moeen dismissing Shakib between times.

As if to prove the imbalance of England’s team Woakes and Jordan, having bowled two overs each on Thursday, got just one apiece this time. Jordan’s came in the 19th, with Bangladesh needing 13 from 12 balls after Archer’s outstanding effort. They needed just five of those 12 deliveries, with three of them going to the fence.