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