Tamim Iqbal’s century went in vain as Joe Root’s career-best ODI score helped England complete the highest successful run chase in ICC Champions Trophy history in the opening game of the eighth edition of the tournament, at The Oval.
After winning the toss and electing to field, England did well to restrict the visitors to 305 before a masterclass from Root, who scored an unbeaten century and handy contributions from Alex Hales, who fell five short of a century and captain Eoin Morgan helped England cruise home with eight wickets to spare.
Extra Cover: Stats: England register highest successful Champions Trophy run-chase
Eoin Morgan
When a guy bats like that it becomes a lot easy. Having an in-form Hales is very important. He (Root) really has scored a lot of runs and he continues to do that. He has been working a lot on his power hitting and tonight it paid off. I want to lead from the front in this tournament. The guys are hungry to do well. We have got ourselves in good position after this one. Two more games to go. Probably we would have liked to take more wickets. An in batsman can really be dangerous. To continue to take wickets is going to be very important.
(On whether there was any regrets in not picking Rashid and the reason behind leaving him out) No absolutely not, we went with the right decision in the morning considering one side of the boundary was so short and the ball was not turning.
Chris (Woakes) is the biggest concern right now. At the moment it does not feel right. We will assess everything in the morning after the scan. It will be a great game. World Cup final (Australia vs New Zealand tomorrow) rematch so yeah will be watching.
Man of the match Joe Root
It (the performance by England) is going to get better. Lot of confidence in the dressing room. We back each other's abilities and it rubs on everyone. It's nice to have Buttler and Stokes coming after you. It's about making sure that we have plenty of wickets at the back end. One of the top four/five has to get a 70 or a 100 not out. Sure there will be different scenarios in the tournament but we have to give it our best. Good to start on this note. Ankle is alright, it's more of a calf issue.
Mashrafe Mortaza
I think 305 was a little bit short. We could not get wickets in the middle overs. Root batted pretty well and took the game away from us. Initially the wicket (was referring to the pitch) can swing and the batsmen can take time but at the end with 6-7 wickets in hands we could been a lot better.
(On the reason to omit Mehedi Hasan) It was the first match so we thought we could go with 8 batsmen but we will have to think about it. The main bowlers have to bowl better and we have to think about extra bowlers as well.
(About the controversial Tamim Iqbal catch) The third umpire knows better than us. We have not seen it yet (replays), the umpire's decision is final.
Here are the reactions from the cricket fraternity:
The controversial catch by Tamim Iqbal certainly drew a lot of reactions. Shaun Tait:
Michael Vaughan:
Harbhajan Singh:
James Anderson:
Ian Bishop:
Alex Tudor:
James Taylor:
Michael Vaughan: There was plenty of praise that came Root's way as well. Mark Butcher:
Alex Tudor:
Gary Lineker:
Neil Fairbrother:
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