England sweep to eight-wicket win

LONDON (AP):

England swept to an eight-wicket victory over Bangladesh in the first Test at Lord's yesterday, after a sparkling performance from pace bowler Steven Finn.

The 21-year-old Finn finished with 5-87 in the second innings and nine wickets for the match before England's batsmen, led by captain Andrew Strauss, finished off the tourists on the fifth day.

The second and final Test of the series begins at Old Trafford, Manchester, on Friday.

Set a victory target of 160 after Bangladesh were dismissed for 382 in their second innings at the end of the morning session, the home side comfortably made it to 163-2, with Strauss hitting 82.

The margin of victory was comfortable but Strauss acknow-ledged Bangladesh's improvement in Test cricket.

"I definitely think they're getting closer," he said. "More of their batsmen have the belief that they can go out and get decent scores, but it's the same with most sides - if you keep pressing, eventually you'll see a collapse.

"We had to work very hard for the win and in some ways you've go to give credit to the way Bangladesh's batsmen played in the first and particularly the second innings, when they held us up with a combination of stubborn resistance and pretty good strokeplay."

Bangladesh began the day on 328-5 - a lead of 105 - but Finn and Tim Bresnan (3-93) combined to dismiss the tail. Junaid Siddique, who batted for more than four hours, impressed for Bangladesh with 74. Finn had match figures of 9-187.

Run chase loss

England lost Alastair Cook (23) and Strauss during the run chase, but Jonathan Trott (36 not out) and Kevin Pietersen (10 not out) saw the team home.

Finn, who stands at 6 feet, 7 inches, struggled to keep his footing at the Pavilion end, where he repeatedly fell over.

"That's something I do fairly regularly," Finn said, joking about the situation. "I'm like Bambi on ice when I get going sometimes. Without getting too technical about it, when the wicket breaks up underneath, you sometimes you slide a little."

Shakib felt his side had batted well, but said the bowlers needed to improve.

"We need to keep bowling in the right areas, that was our main problem," he said. "Our batsmen did well, especially the top four, but we need to contribute in the middle order. They've been playing well recently, so we need them to contribute in Manchester."