A brilliant yorker which smashed into middle stump to send last man James Anderson packing, and England's miserable, pathetic, extremely poor, as-bad-as-it-gets journey at this ICC Cricket World Cup ended, with Bangladesh getting the win they needed to qualify for the quarterfinals and with it knock the "mighty" English out of the Cup.
England were as bad as they could have possibly been, chasing down a score of 276 on a beautiful batting track at the Adelaide Oval with a short boundary on one side. Every single one of their right-handed batsmen decided to nick the ball behind one after the other, while their left-handers gifted their wickets away – one via a run out, other courtesy an ill-advised hook shot – to take Bangladesh to the brink, with inspired efforts from Jos Buttler and Chris Woakes not enough to pull England ashore and save them from drowning into an impossible-to-get-out-of abyss as they were bowled out for 260 in 48.3 overs.
Coming into the match, England knew they needed to win their last two group games to seal a quarterfinal place from Pool A and they started off pretty well, with James Anderson doing what he does best -- swinging the ball, getting the outside edge to knock out the openers.
However, Mahmudullah (103, 138b, 7x4, 2x6) stopped the rot in brilliant style with an immaculate hundred, with Soumya Sarkar giving him good company at the other end to steady the ship.
The two quick wickets of Sarkar (40, 52b, 5x4, 1x6) and Shakib Al Hasan gave England hope of restricting Bangladesh to a below-par total, but Mahmudullah and the in-form Mushfiqur Rahim (89, 77b, 8x4, 1x6) ensured that would not be the case with a brilliant partnership of 141 from 23.5 overs.
England pulled things back a little towards the end and would have, or at least should have, backed themselves to get past Bangladesh's 275/7 on the nice batting wicket, but that penchant for playing 1980s cricket hurt them badly again.
Setting a platform is fine, and needed, in Australia and New Zealand, especially if you are chasing a considerably score, but the manner in which England went about doing was like it was from a long bygone era.
Ian Bell (63, 82b, 7x4), who should have gone on and made a hundred and held one end up, had a strike rate of 76.82, Alex Hales (27, 34b, 4x4), 79.41, Joe Root (29, 47b, 2x4), the centurion from the last game got out with a strike rate of 61.70, while Eoin Morgan and Moeen Ali did not score enough runs for it to matter.
That meant way too much pressure on their only batsman who looks like he is from this era for limited-overs cricket – Jos Buttler – and it looked for the longest time that the wicketkeeper would pull that rabbit out of his hat and take England home.
Mixing unconventional and conventional stroke-making brilliantly, Buttler banged 65 (52b, 6x4, 1x6), and seemed to be taking England to the target alongside Chris Woakes (42, 40b, 3x4). However, the crucial wicket of Buttler in the fifth ball of the 46th over, via a caught behind, the fifth one of the innings, swung the game Bangladesh's way, even if Woakes refused to give up.
If only one of the remaining three England batsmen had stayed with him until the end, the match might have been won, but Chris Jordan got himself run out, while Stuart Broad and James Anderson were bowled by the brilliant Rubel Hossain (9.3-0-53-4), who with Mashrafe Mortaza (10-0-48-2) and Taskin Ahmed (9-0-59-2) gave Bangladesh an incredible victory and, most likely, a date with India in the quarterfinals at the MCG.
