Story Andy Flower: After The Ashes|England Win The First Test In Dhaka|

[harrisb]

23rd August 2009 @The Oval
Graeme Swann bowls with Alistair Cook taking the catch, crazy celebrations follow seconds later and Andy Flower is the saviour of English Cricket, England have won the 2009 Ashes Series 2-1.

Now, the winter nears and England has widely forgotten the events of a few months ago, and Andy Flower and the England Selectors are at Lords to name the squad for the forthcoming series against Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

The Squad is as follows:

Strauss (C)
Anderson
Bell
Bopara
Broad
Collingwood
Cook
Flintoff
Onions
Pietersen
Prior (wk)
Rashid
Sidebottom
Swann
Harmison
Trott

Travelling to Bangladesh first, they will play;
3 Tests
3 ODI's
1 T20I

After that, they will face harder competition against Murali and co. as they travel on to Sri Lanka to play;
3 Tests
5 ODI's
3 T20I's
This is the main battle in a winter of intense cricket for Andy Flower and his England Team.

Can they continue their great form following on from the Ashes??

Updates coming soon...

Vs Bangladesh

1st Test:

Day 1: Click Here To Read

Day 2: Click Here To Read

Day 3: Click Here To Read

Day 4: Click Here To Read

Day 5: Click Here To Read

 

[gutterman]

looks promising. great start mate look forward to seeing more. i think bangladesh will put up a fight so dont expect an easy win over there and sri lanka well you have got to face the little spin master murali

 

[harrisb]

vs Bangladesh

1st Test

Day 1

England: 324/2

After losing the toss and being given first use of a decent looking batting track by the Bangladesh captain, England's openers both made a mark by making centuries both, Cook scoring 113 and Captain Strauss continuing on from his great summer form by making a solid 145 before they both fell in quick succsession in the evening session leaving Bell and Trott batting at 3 and 4 respectively at the crease overnight, Bell on 32 and Trott on 16.
On the pitch front, it is a crusty track that will crack and produce lots of spin as the match goes on, which could be why England went with two spinners instead of just Swann as we saw during the summer. Adil Rashid will be looking to cement his place in the team with some good bowling against the Bangladesh batsmen.
Bangladesh have struggled so far, they would've been hoping to take more than two wickets on the first day. The pick of the bowlers has been Shakib Al Hasan, who has bowled 13 overs with figures of 1/13 and 7 maidens. However at the other end of the scale, Mahmudullah has bowled 36 overs and taken 0/103. Inbetween, Mortaza was taken off early on and Bangladesh are running out of options rapidly.

Next update coming soon

 

[harrisb]

vs Bangladesh

1st Test

Day 2

England: 497/3 dec.

Bangladesh: 157/3

England finally declared after 144 overs on 497 for 3, the only English wicket falling today was Ian Bell who went for 104, LBW to Shakib al Hasan after sharing a 150+ run partnership with England's hero from the Oval Jonathan Trott who was 78 n.o. when Strauss finally called him and Pietersen back to the pavillion. Pietersen made a steady 30 from 36 deliveries, including 2 luscious drives through the covers.
On the Bangladesh bowling front, Shakib was the pick, taking 2/23 from 16 overs. The only other wicket taker, Syed Rasel, bowled 44 overs in all taking 1/163. All of the Bangladesh bowlers apart from Shakib will need to improve considerably if they are to bowl England out cheaply in England's second innings if there even is one.

The players took an early tea after Strauss' decleration, and since then the evening session saw 3 wickets fall, 181 runs, 11 maidens, 11 extras and 23 boundaries, 3 of them 6's.
Bangladesh lost an early wicket leaving them 14/1, Rahman caught behind by Prior after edging a fullish delivery from Stuart Broad on 8. After the first wicket fell, Bangladesh's bowling hero Shakib came in and started whacking England everywhere, quickly bringing the score up until the second wicket fell, the other opener Iqbal again edged to Prior, this time off of a Jimmy Anderson delivery bringing in Ashraful with Bangladesh teetering on the edge of colapse at 53/2. Fortunately for Bangladesh, Ashraful joined in with Shakib and the score soon roared past 100 and 150. Strauss began to look desperate and turned to his 2nd spinner Adil Rashid, back in the team. After a couple of overs, Rashid was making Shakib rethink his slogging and soon had him caught at square leg by Stuart Broad. This over turned out to be the last of the day and so Bangladesh finished 157/3 and are looking like they might get a decent score of 300+.

More to come soon

 

[harrisb]

vs Bangladesh

1st Test

Day 3

England: 497/3 dec & 29/0

Bangladesh: 415

Story Of The Day:

Jimmy Anderson takes one of his five wickets.

Bangladesh almost succeeded in batting out day 3 of the first test here in Dhaka, but a superb performance from England's leading bowler Jimmy Anderson saw Bangladesh fall from 319/4 to 415 all out, a clear indication of both England's bowling strength and the deterioration of the Dhaka pitch.

Bangladesh started well enough, with the middle order of Ashraful, Rahim and Hasan all making half centuries. Ashraful even went on to make 104 before falling to Anderson. Once the middle order had departed though, Bangladesh's lack of depth started to show as wickets fell at regular intervals until they were left at 376/9 and some resilient batting from Syed Rasel saw a 10th wicket stand of 39, until Adil Rashid took the second of his two wickets. A surprise wicket was also taken by Kevin Pietersen, as Strauss looked to take wickets with his spinners in the afternoon session. Unfortunately for Graeme Swann, the wickets just wouldn't come his way and he ended up with figures of 0 for 91 from 19 overs as he was the victim of the early onslaught by Shakib and Ashraful.

Bangladesh were all out with just over an hours play left, which gave Strauss and Cook enough time to take England to 29/0 at the close of play.

 

[harrisb]

vs Bangladesh

1st Test

Day 4

England: 497/3 dec & 277/3

Bangladesh: 415

The 4th day of the first test saw England lose 2 early wickets, Cook caught Iqbal for 20 and Strauss run out on 7, the England captain's poor form continues. These two early wickets left England 30/2 and at risk of losing a quick succession of wickets.
However in came Bell and Trott, who both carried on from their excellent innings in the first innings. Full of confidence, they brought up the 50 partnership in 9 overs and Bell got to 50 from 67 deliveries. Trott was a bit slower getting to his 50, it took him 79 deliveries. Then the Bangladesh bowlers slowed the batsmen up, but when Trott scored his century from 143 deliveries with another trademark cover drive, Bangladesh lost all momentum and Bell reached his 100 soon after. Eventually though, all good innings come to an end (unless you're Brian Lara) and Trott was run out on 112.

This wicket saw the umpires remove the bails and the players go off at 6:07pm. England lead by 357 runs, and they need to declare overnight to have any chance of forcing a result however, have they got enough runs to avoid a defeat.

 

[harrisb]

vs Bangladesh

1st Test

Day 5

England: 497/3 dec & 277/3

Bangladesh: 415 & 220

Graeme Swann and Stuart Broad both took advantage of the pitch on the fifth day in Dhaka to help England bowl Bangladesh out for a mere 220.
The day started brilliantly for England, with Stuart Broad taking 2 wickets in 2 balls to leave Bangladesh stunned at 1/2.
Things didn't get much better for Bangladesh when Collingwood removed Ashraful for just 6, Bangladesh now 14/3 and the pitch wasn't getting easier to bat on. However Bangladesh weren't done yet and began to knuckle down, the next wicket falling at 54, and the one after that at 111 and then 154. But this steady flow of wickets meant that they were now 154/6. Another ok partnership saw Bangladesh get to 199 until losing another wicket.
With an hour to go, Bangladesh were 220/7 with an hours play to go, ok, a Bangladesh victory was out of the question, but could they prevent England winning.
No, they couldn't. Graeme Swann took 3 wickets in 4 balls to win the match for England and also claim a five wicket haul, a great way to get back in amongst the wickets after not taking one in the first innings.

The next test starts on Tuesday