- Bangladesh fall short in bid to record historic win
- Full scorecard: check in on the scores from Chittagong
In a match like this, there should really be three people on the podium. Gold would go to Stokes, of course; silver to Sabbir Rahman, who made a magnificent game of it on his Test debut, and bronze to Jonny Bairstow, who scored 47 and 52 and took some superb catches behind the stumps in the heat. He and Stokes (103) each made more runs than England’s entire top four (96). The old line about having an allrounder being like having an extra man may need to be revised.
Over on Twitter, Tim Passey has a question, possibly rhetorical. “@TimdeLisle ‘what a shame’? How much more @guardian can you get? Good job @englandcricket” Yes, very good job, and a fair cop about The Guardian. And yet, still a shame, in my book: a Bangladesh victory would have resounded around the cricket world. But it will come another day. And this match at least goes down as the narrowest of their 72 Test defeats.
Related: Bangladesh fall short as England secure victory on final day of first Test
And the man of the match is... Stokes. If it hadn’t been, we would have had to call for a review. He was the only player to make 100 runs in the match, and the only Englishman to take six wickets, but it’s less about stats and more about seizing the moment. When Bangladesh looked like taking a lead, he wrapped up their first innings. When England looked like collapsing, he propped them up. And when those last two wickets were needed this morning, he got them in the space of three balls. He seems an even better player, calmer and more collected, since he was made vice-captain of the one-day team the other day – which wouldn’t have happened if Eoin Morgan hadn’t pulled out of the tour. Is that the law of unintended consequences, or chaos theory?
An email from Rishabh Maheshwari.“Remember Andrew Flintoff’s superhuman performance in that epic Test in the Test series that people still can’t stop talking about.” Would that be Edgbaston 2005, by any chance? “Ben Stokes has similar batting and bowling figures to Freddie in that revered Test. So has Stokes finally stepped into Flintoff’s shoes???” Well, there are definite similarities – dynamism, charisma, brute strength and skill. But this feels like a syndrome we have seen before. For years, every new England allrounder was hailed (the technical term) as the new Botham. And it was never quite true, or fair. “Undergraduates are like decimals,” an Oxford don once said, “they recur.” Cricketers, I would say, are more like fractions: they don’t.
Last night, it felt as if it was all over bar the reviewing, and so it proved. This game of a thousand reviews ended with two more, both favouring England. The final tally, according to our friends at Cricinfo, is 26.
“Well done Tim,” says the indefatigable John Starbuck. “You probably now have your own record as the shortest last-day OBO writer and a victory to boot. Looking forward to the next one.” Thanks, but it doesn’t feel good. When you write about the game, a part of you turns to neutrality, and as much as I Root for England, I was willing Bangladesh on. Sabbir Rahman did so, so well and there he is, left high and dry, a nearly man rather than a history-maker.
What a shame that his faith in Taijul was misplaced in the end, while Alistair Cook’s lack of faith in his spinners was vindicated. But let’s put that more positively: Cook’s boundless faith in his seamers was repaid.
An email from someone who was there when England did this 18 years ago.“Re: Headingley 1998,” writes Jenny Thompson. “I remember Alec Stewart joking to the crowd that the reason we’d turned up in such large numbers on the last day was because it was free entry and Yorkshire people love getting their money’s worth! Being from the other side of the Pennines, I couldn’t possibly comment further.”
England have won by 22 runs. What a shame. But what a Test. And what an all-round performance by Ben Stokes, who took the game by the scruff not once but twice. He deserves this denouement after the battering he suffered at the end of the World T20 final.
Dharmasena has given the new batsman, Shafiul Islam, out, lbw to Stokes – is that it? The DRS will decide.
That was soooooo close – clipping just enough of leg stump. A great decision to review by England. And yes, the umpire was Dharmasena. Once again, England are favourites.
Taijul lbw b Stokes 16 (263-9)
Well, we had to have one... It’s for lbw against Taijul, who was given not out against Stokes. The new ball has been taken, so each team has a pair of reviews to play with.
81st over: Bangladesh 262-8 (Sabbir 64, Taijul 16) target 286 Cook spreads the field to offer Sabbir the single, and off Broad’s third ball he takes it. But Taijul seems calm, and clips a single himself. The auto-correct on my screen is determined to call him Tail. Good old Grauniad. (Which it wants to call Graunad.)
“Good morning,” says John Starbuck. “Let’s hope they can wrap this up within the hour, so I and probably many others can go back to bed for a bit. It’s not often I follow cricket at this time, probably only for an Ashes tour before, but they need to make it worth our while. Any stats yet on England mucking it up in similar situations?”
80th over: Bangladesh 261-8 (Sabbir 63, Taijul 15) target 286 Sabbir trusts Taijul enough to give him four balls to face – and Taijul immediately repays him with a four! He hooks at a bouncer from Ben Stokes and gets a top edge for four, over Jonny Bairstow’s head. Taijul then plays and misses, but he survives. Trust, eh: does Cook trust his spinners? It seems not. Broad to continue, with the new ball due but not taken.
79th over: Bangladesh 256-8 (Sabbir 62, Taijul 11) target 286 Broad opens the bowling, and Sabbir takes a comfy two, pushed into the covers, and a streaky single, off the inside edge. That’s three of the 33 Bangladesh need. Sabbir has played like an old pro, not a debutant.
Have we been here before? Not in Bangladesh, which only joined the Test fray in 2000. But Ian Forth sees a parallel just before that. “England’s Test vs South Africa at Headingley in 1998 bears a spooky resemblance to this match. Chasing 219, South Africa were 185-8, needing 34 runs with two wickets in hand on the fifth morning. It all ended swiftly in front of a huge, success-starved crowd in Leeds. Allan Donald was caught behind off Angus Fraser, then Makhaya Ntini was sawn off by umpire Javed Akhtar, with a decision that Barry Richards described as ‘yet another that would have missed a second set of stumps’. I somehow doubt we’ll see a repeat of twitchy-fingered officialdom today.” And if we do, there’s always the Decision Review System, which, like Bangladesh, is having the match of its life.
This is going to be brief, but then how long does it take to make history? Bangladesh need just 33 more runs for their first Test victory against England, and only their eighth in all (against 71 defeats). A couple of lusty blows from Sabbir Rahman, and the odd ball shooting along the deck past Jonny Bairstow, could make that target look tiny.
And yet England are still favourites, because Sabbir has only two tailenders for company, and the youngest Test nation is quite old-fashioned when it comes to the tail, and about four of the bowlers are seasoned match-winners who have the scent of victory in their nostrils. It should only take an hour, but cometh the hour, on the whole, cometh the Broad. And Gareth Batty, in his comeback Test, is a five-for waiting to happen, if only he can remind Alistair Cook that he exists.
Tim will be here shortly. In the meantime, here’s Vic Marks on the dramatic day four action:
Related: England braced for dramatic finale as Bangladesh near historic Test victory
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