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England thrash Bangladesh by 21 runs in first ODI

Mirpur,Dhaka: Welcome Jos Buttler to the emotional torture of being an England captain, writes Nick Hoult in Dhaka. One minute his team were up, the next they were down but then Jake Ball turned the noise of a 25,000 capacity crowd into the silence of an exam hall with a record breaking debut.

Bangladesh had the game wrapped up at 271-4 with Shakib al Hasan and Imrul Kayes bringing back painful memories of the past two World Cups as they steamed towards their target of 310.

Buttler, the most measured of cricketers, even had his head in his hands rueing his own drop behind the stumps, an absolute sitter off Kayes when he was on 106 that seemingly cost his team the match.

But Richie Benaud always used to say captaincy is only 10 percent skill. The rest is luck. Buttler was saved by a Nottinghamshire seamer Ball, who defied cramps and exhaustion from the humidity to make history in the process of winning this game for England.

Bangladesh had never chased down a 300 plus total to win in Dhaka and as Ball took two top order wickets and batsmen holed out on the boundary to give Adil Rashid cheap wickets, it seemed that would not change. But Kayes was in brilliant form after his hundred against England on Tuesday and Shakib is a master performer at this ground. Together they took the fight back to England and with only 39 needed from 52 balls it seemed the game was over.