England supports increases by 160m

No fewer than 160 million Bangladeshi fans will be fervently throwing their support behind England when they take on Australia in tonight's final Group A Champions Trophy match in Birmingham.

The Tigers achieved an incredible come-from-behind victory over New Zealand overnight and must now hope the tournament hosts and favourites can beat the Aussies to allow Bangladesh to sneak through to the final four.

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In what will be music to the ears of Bangladeshi fans, England's players have dismissed the notion they have nothing to play for against Australia (they are already guaranteed top spot in the group), suggesting that any match against their Ashes rivals holds special significance.

"We will have a very serious attitude. I think if we're truly going to be contenders for this tournament, we need to beat the best teams," captain Eoin Morgan said.

"And Australia are one of the best teams. They always are going into a white-ball tournament.

"They seem to produce limited-overs cricketers at will.

"So to go into a game like that with no other attitude than winning is very important to us."

If the subcontinental side do happen to reach the semi-finals, they will be riding a tsunami of confidence after arguably their greatest-ever ODI triumph.

Having slipped to 4-33 in pursuit of the Black Caps' 266, Shakib Al Hasan (114) and Mahmudullah (102no) put on a Bangladesh record one-day stand of 224 to navigate the difficult chase and take their team to victory.

It was just Bangladesh's second win from 11 attempts in the Champions Trophy, the other success having come against Zimbabwe in the 2006 edition of the tournament.

Former New Zealand captain Brendon McCullum praised the efforts of Tigers paceman Mustafizur Rahman (1-54), who he said stemmed the flow of runs at crucial times in the Kiwis' innings which subsequently meant their batsmen were forced to lash out in the final overs.

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"(Late NZ wickets came) on the back of the good work Mustafizur was able to generate," McCullum explained.

"The pressure he built up meant New Zealand had to try and accelerate at some stage. They've tried to take on Mosaddek (Hossain) and all Neil Broom's done there is get a leading edge for another comfortable catch for Tamim (Iqbal).

"To me that's the good work from Mustafizur that's put the pressure on New Zealand."

McCullum also felt the Black Caps got their strategy wrong late in their batting innings, which ultimately restricted their total to an achievable one for Bangladesh.

"You can't help but feel New Zealand have missed a massive, massive opportunity tactically in this game so far," he said.

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"We talk a lot about tactics in the field and about taking aggressive options. For me, they had to send a left-hander out when Broom came to the wicket.

"To me, where this game has changed … Mustafizur's six overs in the middle overs went for just 26 runs and to me sucked the life out of what was building to be quite an imposing platform.

"You had three left-handers to come – (Jimmy) Neesham, (Corey) Anderson, (Mitchell) Santner – all one after the other, and you had two right-handers out there.

"Neil Broom (is a) very, very good player, historically he's done very well against Bangladesh, but at this point in time, to me a left-hander had to come to the crease with (Ross) Taylor … if you look to the small boundary out to the left for the left-hander, there's a huge opportunity for New Zealand to steal a march.

"What transpired after that, after those tight overs there was a shift in momentum and New Zealand had to up the ante.

"The off-spinner comes on, bang, bang … all of a sudden New Zealand (are) 234 for six, the platform is gone."

Champions Trophy 2017 Guide

Squads: Every Champions Trophy nation

Schedule

1 June – England beat Bangladesh by eight wickets

2 June – New Zealand v Australia, No Result

3 June – Sri Lanka lost to South Africa by 96 runs

4 June – India beat Pakistan by 124 runs

5 June – Australia v Bangladesh, No Result

6 June – England beat New Zealand by 87 runs

7 June – Pakistan beat South Africa by 19 runs (DL method)

8 June – Sri Lanka beat India by seven wickets

9 June – Bangladesh beat New Zealand by five wickets

10 June – England v Australia, Edgbaston (D)

11 June – India v South Africa, The Oval (D)

12 June – Sri Lanka v Pakistan, Cardiff (D)

14 June – First semi-final (A1 v B2), Cardiff (D)

15 June – Second semi-final (A2 v B1), Edgbaston (D)

18 June – Final, The Oval (D)

19 June – Reserve day (D)