ICC Champions Trophy 2017: England Vs Bangladesh: Hatke player of the match

London, June 1: Bangladesh opener Tamim Iqbal slammed his career's 9th ODI ton in the opening match of the ICC Champions Trophy 2017 against England. He therefore is the 'Hatke Player of the match'.

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Iqbal took 124 balls to complete his century and went on scoring 128 before being dismissed. He played a crucial role to take his team post a big total against Eoin Morgan and company.

The left-handed batsman started his innings with caution and constructed his innings brilliantly against sub-standard looking English bowling attack. Hardly any England bowler offered any resistance to Iqbal who played his shots freely after bringing up his fifty.

A few words were also exchanged between Ben Stokes and Tamim Iqbal in the 32nd over as the batsman hit him for a boundary. Sledging was at its best between the two players all through that over and even at the end of if.

Umpires Rod Tucker and S Ravi had to step in to calm things down, Stokes then walked back to his place in the field and waved for the crowd to get behind England.

The verbal exchange of words, perhaps, inspired Iqbal to convert his fifty to a brilliant hundred. His knock was studded with twelve fours and three sixes.

Iqbal got the support of wicketkeeper-batsman Mushfiqur Rahim (79) to guide his team to a 300-plus score against England. The two stitched a partnership of 166 runs for the third wicket, which is the highest partnership for any wicket in the Champions Trophy.

After winning the toss, England invited 'minnows' Bangladesh to bat first but their plan of restricting the latter to a below-par score didn't reaped the dividends.

Bangladesh didn't have the best of starts as they didn't score much in the first powerplay, but they kept their wickets intact and shifted gears in the middle overs. As a result, runs started coming easily for them.

With this batting performance, Bangladesh signalled that no team can afford to take them lightly as they could be dangerous with the bat on their day.

The track also looked conducive of batting as the ball came easily on the bat and assisted batters. It didn't had much for the English bowlers as they kept leaking runs.

No England bowler managed to put pressure over Bangladesh as they played freely against them. However, Bangladesh fell at least 20-25 runs short as they could have easily posted a total past 330 to post a challenging total against a formidable England batting line-up.

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