Bangladesh victory gives England do-or-die match to stay in World Cup

Imrul Kayes scored an unbeaten half-century as Bangladesh crushed Holland by six wickets in their World Cup Group B match in Chittagong. The result means that England must win their final group game against West Indies on Thursday and hope that other results go their way to have any chance of qualifying for the quarter-finals.

Opener Kayes scored 73 off 113 balls to complete Bangladesh's domination of the match after their bowlers bundled out Holland for a paltry 160.

Abdur Razzak was the pick of the Bangladesh bowlers with three for 29 as the inexperienced Dutch batsmen struggled against the accurate left-arm spinners.

Batting first after winning the toss, Holland had a pedestrian start although Eric Szwarczynski and Wesley Barresi hung around for nine overs.

Shakib al Hasan provided the breakthrough by trapping Barresi lbw and Razzak soon saw off pinch-hitter Mudassar Bukhari.

Shafiul Islam was luckless in a probing opening spell that read 6-3-7-0, but the seamer set the stage up for the left-arm spinners to skittle out Holland.

Szwarczynski scored 28 off 63 balls before Shakib ran him out and Holland's innings from thereon revolved around Ryan ten Doeschate (53 not out), who eventually ran out of partners.

In reply, Kayes and Junaid Siddique put Bangladesh in the driving seat with a second-wicket stand which added 92 runs before a loose shot caused the downfall of Siddique, who made 35, but by then Kayes had completed his eighth one-day half-century.

Kayes soon took Bangladesh past 100 by the 25th over along with Shahriar Nafees, who struggled initially taking ten balls to get off the mark.

Nafees, however, found his rhythm quickly and passed 2,000 ODI runs with a lofted boundary off Tom Cooper as Bangladesh closed in on the target.

Cooper's double strike soon saw off Nafees (37) and Shakib, but Kayes and new man Mushfiqur Rahim (11 not out) took Bangladesh home with 8.4 overs remaining. If England beat the West Indies in Chennai, they will be likely to progress to the knockout stages.

Defeat, though, would mean they can book their flight home two weeks early.

But as far as off-spinner Graeme Swann is concerned, Andrew Strauss men have simply entered the knockout stages a game early.

"There's no point dwelling on the two games we've lost, that we should have won from the situation we got ourselves in," said the off-spinner.

"We just need to win four big games now and then go home victorious. It's four games and we could take home the spoils and shut a few people up who have been knocking us back."

In yesterday's other match, Pakistan secured their World Cup quarter-final berth with a three-wicket victory over Zimbabwe in a rain-affected Group A clash at Kandy, in Sri Lanka.Two rain interruptions during Zimbabwe's batting meant Pakistan were chasing a revised target of 162 in 38 overs, and World Cup debutant Asad Shafiq's unbeaten 78 off 97 balls - backed by Mohammad Hafeez's 49 - helped see them through.

Earlier, Pakistan's Umar Gul picked up figures of three for 36 to help restrict Zimbabwe to 151 for the loss of seven wickets, with the Africans forced to rely on Craig Ervine's face-saving 52 off 82 balls.