England skipper Jos Buttler did not seem disappointed with his team’s performance despite their 50-run loss to Bangladesh in the third ODI of the series. Buttler feels that the team was able to tick all the boxes and got what they wanted in order to prepare for ODI World Cup later this year.
Buttler promoted Sam Curran up the order even when the visitors were struggling in the run chase. Earlier, he gave ‘Player of the series’ Adil Rashid just five overs despite taking two wickets in order to give debutant Rehan Ahmed more overs to bowl.
“We desperately wanted to win this game but we're still delighted to win the series. We were happy with the score they posted but Bangladesh fought back hard with the ball. It was a great opportunity for Sam Curran to go out and express himself with the series already won,” Buttler said in the post-match presentation.
“We got exactly what we wanted from this series. We wanted to play on wickets like there and it was great to challenge ourselves. It'll serve as great preparation for the World Cup. We're really looking forward to the T20 series, it's a format we like so we're hoping for an exciting series.”
This was England’s first ODI loss to Bangladesh since October 2016. Chasing 246, England batters struggled against Bangladesh spinners, especially Shakib Al Hasan who took four wickets.
Buttler could not keep up with the required run rate either and got out lbw in an attempt to reverse sweep Taijul Islam. England got all out for 196 with 41 deliveries left in the innings and lost the game by a big margin of 50 runs. This is their biggest defeat to Bangladesh in ODIs by runs.
“We've been very good at home in the last 5-7 years. Unfortunately we lost this series but I think we showed a lot of character today so we can take credit from it,” Shakib said after leading his team to a historic win to prevent clean sweep at home by reigning ODI World Champions.
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