Bangladesh won the toss and chose to bowl first vs England
No visiting 50-over side has won a series in Bangladesh’s conditions since England themselves secured a 2-1 win in 2016-17, but Jos Buttler’s men are in a promising position now, thanks to Dawid Malan’s outstanding unbeaten hundred in Wednesday’s first game.
And with that successful chase in mind, Tamim opted to take first use of a pitch that he described as being “a bit soft compared to the first match, and a bit tackier”.
“Mirpur has been a fantastic ground for us but today’s a big game,” he said, having named an unchanged XI. “We need to bat well today and repeat the same what we did in fielding and bowling.”
England have made two changes to their XI, with Sam Curran returning to the line-up in place of Chris Woakes, and Saqib Mahmood swapping in for Jofra Archer in what will be his first England appearance since sustaining a stress fracture of the back last summer.
“We were going to look to bat first,” Buttler said. “It’s a bit tacky but the previous wicket was similar. Dawid played an outstanding innings and carried the batting on his own there. We have a lot of areas to improve on today.”
Bangladesh : 1 Tamim Iqbal (capt), 2 Litton Das, 3 Najmul Hossain Shanto, 4 Shakib Al Hasan, 5 Mushfiqur Rahim (wk), 6 Mahmudullah, 7 Afif Hossain, 8 Mehidy Hasan Miraz, 9 Taskin Ahmed, 10 Taijul Islam, 11 Mustafizur Rahman
England: 1 Jason Roy, 2 Phil Salt, 3 Dawid Malan, 4 James Vince, 5 Jos Buttler (capt, wk), 6 Will Jacks, 7 Moeen Ali, 8 Sam Curran, 9 Adil Rashid, 10 Saqib Mahmood, 11 Mark Wood