Knight rescues England as Bangladesh seethe after three reviews go her way

England survived a nervy wobble with the bat to beat Bangladesh by four wickets in Guwahati and go top of the table at the World Cup.

Bangladesh reduced England to 103 for six chasing 179 but a watchful 79-run partnership between Heather Knight and Charlie Dean steadied the ship, helped by the absence of Bangladesh’s key strike bowler, Marufa Akter, for the last 15 overs of the chase.

Nevertheless, the performance will raise questions as to how far England have overcome the issues which dogged them under their previous coach, Jon Lewis, notably their ability to focus in pressure moments. Bangladesh are a nation who scraped through the qualifiers for the World Cup back in April, have played no international cricket since then, and whose domestic structure is still almost entirely amateur; their coming within a whisker of slaying the giant of the No 2-ranked side in the world was never in the script.

England were extremely fortunate to be on the right side of two controversial TV umpiring decisions, which handed Knight lives on nought and 13. The rules surrounding use of the decision review system state that in the absence of any definitive evidence to the contrary, the initial on-field decision should stand. Here, though, the third umpire chose to overturn an on-field “out” decision against Knight, ruling the batter had not edged Marufa behind the stumps despite the fact that UltraEdge appeared inconclusive.

Then, Bangladesh celebrated Shorna Akter’s diving catch at cover in the 15th over and Knight walked towards the pavilion, but the on-field umpires were unsure and the third umpire, after a lengthy review, deemed the pictures were inconclusive as to whether Akter had grounded the ball in breaking her fall.

In between, Knight used DRS to overturn a leg-before decision for Marufa, somehow surviving the scratchiest of starts – at one stage she was 14 from 44 balls – to bring up the half-century that enabled England to stagger across the finish line.

“I certainly had a little bit of luck today but the year I’ve had I deserved it,” Knight said. “I just tried to ride that and make it count.

“It’s my first innings in an ODI since January, so it was always going to take a bit of time to find my feet. The hardest thing sometimes coming back from injury is rhythm. It can take a bit of time to get back, so I’m delighted I was able to spend a bit of time out there and get through that pressure.”

The match has put a substantial dent in England’s net run rate, which had been healthy after last week’s astonishing 10-wicket win against South Africa; they sit above Australia only by virtue of the reigning champions’ washout against Sri Lanka at the weekend.

This should have been an easy chase for England after a leisurely batting performance by Bangladesh, who scored just 178 despite batting for all but two balls of their 50 overs. The tempo of the innings was typified by Sobhana Mostary, who – seven years on from her one-day international debut – celebrated a maiden half-century, but took 92 balls to reach the milestonedo so.

Amy Jones and Tammy Beaumont both fell victim to the hooping inswing of Marufa, before the leg-spinner Fahima Khatun reduced England from 69 for two to 78 for five, removing Nat Sciver-Brunt, Sophia Dunkley and Emma Lamb. The left-arm spinner Sanjida Akter Meghla then curved one in to Alice Capsey, rapped her on the back pad and sent her packing lbw.

After her own early dismissal for a duck, popping up a soft catch to Dean at short extra cover, Bangladesh’s captain, Nigar Sultana, had been seen encouraging her players from the dugout to up the pace. “I wanted them to play until the last ball,” she said.

But Bangladesh’s innings only came alive at the very end – 48 runs coming off the final seven overs, thanks to an exciting, unbeaten 43 from 27 balls from the No 9, Rabeya Khan. In the end it was not quite enough to enable the giantkill.

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