England's series of depressingly one-sided encounters with Bangladesh culminated in a five-wicket win at Headingley with 11.5 overs to spare. An England v Australia final next Saturday is now assured.

Set 208 to win, England batted with a casual abandon that they are unlikely to show in their two matches to come against Australia. Andrew Strauss made 98, struggling at first, then cutting, pulling and driving superbly until he was out trying to slog his way to his hundred with a six.

There will be tougher challenges ahead for Strauss and Marcus Trescothick (43) who have flayed Bangladesh to all parts but have yet to make runs against Australia's opening bowlers this summer. But the prospect of stiffer tests will not cause nervous panic in this England side, which will be as relieved as everybody else finally to reach the summer's main event.

The difference in intensity is best illustrated by the fact that, whereas no one questions Australia's competitive drive, Bangladesh did not even attempt to win this game. After reaching the strong position of 82-1 in 16 overs they batted cagily, not striking a single boundary between the 15th and 33rd overs, their sights set only on batting out their overs.

It was an understandably wary performance in view of their collapse to 137 all out against Australia at Old Trafford, where they lost eight wickets for 26 runs. But the limit of their ambitions was to avoid humiliation in a game they had to win.

They achieved that thanks to a barnacle-like innings of 81 from 151 balls by opener Javed Omar, though his slow scoring put pressure on other batsmen to take more risks. The total would have been bigger but for two magnificent spells from Flintoff, who demonstrated all the arts of one-day bowling, mixing slower balls, yorkers and bouncers, and earned figures of 4-29 in nine overs.

To put the game into perspective, this was the closest Bangladesh came to beating England all summer, which is to say not at all close. The two-Test series was the most one-sided in history, with England losing a total of only six wickets while inflicting two defeats by an innings. And in the one-dayers England won by 10 wickets for only the second time in their history, at the Oval, and made their highest ODI score of 391-4 in their Trent Bridge victory.

Now England must focus their minds on Australia and a number of things are already clear if they are to compete. Whereas Brett Lee and Glenn McGrath are offering firepower at the start of the innings, England are struggling to take wickets.

Against Bangladesh here, Darren Gough and Simon Jones were expensive and lacked penetration. It would be better to open with Steve Harmison, perhaps against his wishes, because early wickets are vital and he is the best strike bowler. Jones has more control when reverse-swinging the old ball than with the new ball, which he splayed around for eight wides at Headingley.

Secondly, England's batting order is lop-sided, with Paul Collingwood, more of a finisher, batting too high up at number four and Kevin Pietersen, a batsman not a hitter, too low at six to influence enough games. They should swap places.

Bangladesh will at least take home the memory of their extraordinary win at Cardiff against Australia, but for England the real contests are only just beginning.

England: ME Trescothick (capt), AJ Strauss, VS Solanki, PD Collingwood, A Flintoff, KP Pietersen, GO Jones, AF Giles, D Gough, SP Jones, CT Tremlett.

Bangladesh: Habibul Bashar (capt), Javed Omar, Shahriar Nafees, Tushar Imran, Mohammad Ashraful, Aftab Ahmed, Mohammad Rafique, Khaled Mashud, Mashrafe Mortaza, Manjural Islam Rana, Nazmul Hossain.

26 Jun, 2005