The second Test match between England and Bangladesh will be played at the Old Trafford in Manchester from Friday. England leads the series 1-0 and will look to wrap it up in the same fashion that they had on their recent tour of Bangladesh, a 2-0 sweep.

However, it was not all black clouds for the Bangladeshis. They batted extremely well on a good track, and despite struggling when the atmosphere grew dark, they made a good fist of batting in parts. Tamim Iqbal has been, for some time now, their best batsman, and he proved it yet again with his ability to score a half century and then smack a century in the next innings.

In fact, it was not only him, but the top three of the Bangladeshi batting who held fort right throughout the match; Iqbal scored a total of 158 runs in the game, Imrul Kayes made 118 whereas Junnaid Siddique scored 132 runs in both the innings.

Unfortunately, the problem with the Bangladeshi batting was after the top three. There weren't too many who scored too many, as the likes of Mohammad Ashraful and Shakib al Hasan also failed to get going and that is where the match was lost.

The bowling on the first day was an issue, as the Bangladeshis took time to get going with the bowling. The Lord's slope was an obvious issue, but the bowlers gave away too many freebies which England capitalised well.

Having said that, they returned back well on the second day to get going and restricted the English side to a 505 all out, after it looked like they would probably end up getting to more than 600 at one stage.

England were admittedly rusty. Especially their bowlers, who looked to be playing international cricket after a long time. James Anderson had said before the game that he was looking to play more county cricket in order to get back his rhythm, and there cannot be too much doubt that he struggled to find it. It took, in the end, a debutant like Steve Finn to get going and capture a nine-wicket haul to make the opposition cringe.

Finn's height will be a huge plus for him, and he should continue to do well to keep picking up the wickets against the inexperienced Bangladeshis. However, what will be interesting to watch is how the English bowlers comeback after the first Test and bowl at Bangladesh in the second Test.

Tag :- Bangladesh   England   Imrul Kayes   James Anderson   Mohammad Ashraful   Steve Finn