On Sunday, England faced the defending champion, Bangladesh, at Warner Park, Basseterre. In the first match for both the teams, Bangladesh won the toss and elected to bat first.
Well, the decision of batting first didn’t end up well for Bangladesh as they were entirely dominated by the England bowling attack led by Joshua Boyden. England bowled Bangladesh out at a score of 97 in 35.2 overs. Boyden looked ferocious from the first bowl of the innings and got complete support from the other end. Joshua Boyden bowled a spell of 16/4 in nine overs, bowling four maidens at a magnificent economy of 1.77.
Other bowlers who took wickets for England were James Sales (1 wicket), Fateh Singh (1 wicket), Thomas Aspinwall (2 wickets), and Tom Prest (1 wicket). The complete England bowling attack bowled at tight areas and didn’t give any chance to the Bangladesh batters to score.
Surprisingly, 9th down batsman Ripon Mondol was the highest scorer for Bangladesh with 33 runs. Aich Mollah (13 runs), SM Meherob (14 runs), and Naimur Rohman (11 runs) were the only other three batters to touch the double-digit mark.
George Thomas and Jacob Bethell started the innings for England. Chasing down a short target of 98 didn’t look like a big task for England as they achieved this target comfortably in 25.1 overs by just losing three wickets.
Jacob Bethell was the highest run-scorer for England with 44 runs in 63 balls, striking four boundaries and two sixes. James Rew, 26* runs, and George Thomas 15 runs were the other players who contributed to the chase.
England added valuable two points to the points table, winning their first game of the tournament by seven wickets with 149 balls remaining.
