Dawid Malan’s brilliant century takes England to ODI win over Bangladesh

There must have been so many occasions as this game edged nervously towards a conclusion and English wickets continued to fall that Bangladesh thought it was destined to be theirs. Instead it belonged to Dawid Malan. In World Cup year every match becomes an audition and Malan aced this one, scoring a genuinely brilliant hundred to haul his side to victory in the first ODI of this three-game series.

His was an innings of patience and, eventually, belligerence, featuring at one stage of gap of 46 balls between boundaries, followed by three in six as he accelerated after the drinks break. That England had any chance of winning this match as it entered its final stages was almost entirely down to the 35-year-old’s calm reading of the match situation – one in which the only constant was the increasing amount of pressure on his own shoulders – and ability to adapt to it.

Nobody else on either side got within 50 of Malan’s eventual total of 114, and no other English player managed more than the 26 Will Jacks contributed on his ODI debut. Bangladesh are the masters of the low, slow Mirpur pitch, but here they met their match.

There were several excellent performances from the home side, with the seamer Taskin Ahmed compelling and constantly threatening with the ball – but in truth England would have won this match with relative ease but for their own indiscipline. Several batters were guilty – Jason Roy fell foolishly in the opening over; Jos Buttler calmly and deliberately guided the ball straight to slip; for some reason Jacks attempted to clear the fielder at deep square leg and failed – but particularly damning is the extras count: Bangladesh’s bowlers conceded just three; England had leaked five by the end of the second over, and eventually reached 26.

The hosts will rue the moment in the 15th over when Taijul Islam beat Malan’s defences and hit his pad. The umpire was unmoved by the raucous appeal and the inevitable review suggested the ball might have clipped leg stump, but not so clearly as to overturn the on-field decision. He was on 32 at the time, and never looked back.

England were a little ragged from the off, and Jofra Archer started the day with a wide, a no-ball and a full toss, but the same bowler also personified their subsequent improvement – having conceded 12 from his first over leaked just another 25 from his remaining nine. Even with the benefit of a lightning outfield, the kind of surface that condemns fielders to forlorn chases as any ball that makes it past them skids away towards the boundary padding, Bangladesh’s scoreboard moved only sluggishly.

Najmul Hossain Shanto, who came into the game with an ODI average of 14 and had only scored at all in one of his three previous innings, was their outstanding batter with 58 but too many of the top order disappointed: Litton Das, Shakib Al Hasan and Mushfiqur Rahim got 7, 8 and 16 respectively – when Bangladesh last played here, against India last December, the same players got 7, 8 and 12, and unlike on that occasion the lower order could not come to the rescue.

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The home side’s total of 209 looked a little short, and left England a sober path to victory if they could avoid unnecessary risk-taking and punish the poor deliveries. In the end it was a path that only one man chose to take; in the end, that was enough.