England to sweep aside the minnows

Michael Vaughan will demand another dominant performance from England when they return to the port city of Chittagong tomorrow.

Vaughan's Test team, having been stretched by Bangladesh here a fortnight ago, romped to a 329-run victory last week after finding a livelier pitch in the country's second city.

Now, regardless of the surface awaiting them, England's captain expects his one-day team to hit the ground running and then go on to take the limited-overs series 3-0 with two more wins back in the capital next week.

So he should. If anything, Bangladesh's one-day statistics make worse reading than their Test record of played 26, lost 25.

After 70 limited-overs internationals against the main cricketing nations they have one victory to point to - and that was the 1999 World Cup win over Pakistan at Northampton, which will be tainted forever by whispers of match-fixing.

"You don't look at records, you just look at your own performance and try to make sure that's right," said Vaughan, who has known nothing much but success since becoming one-day captain early last summer.

His new-look team beat Pakistan and then won a triangular tournament involving Zimbabwe and South Africa.

"We performed well in the summer with a young side and we are building for the future," added Vaughan. "But I do expect us to win out here and my goal is for us to win 3-0. There's no reason why we can't, although you don't win anything without hard work."

Unlike many England one-day squads of the past, Vaughan's cast list contains several batsmen who can bowl - and bowl well in the right conditions, if required.

Paul Collingwood's medium-pace was effective in New Zealand, Ian Blackwell's left-arm spin proved useful in Australia and Vaughan's off-breaks ought to be used more.

"I'm quite fortunate with this squad in that there are a lot of different combinations we can come up with," said the captain.

"If you look at Australia, the best team in the world, they have a number of people in the top five who can bowl a few overs and that gives the captain different options."

Against Bangladesh, though, the specialists should shine. Marcus Trescothick and Vikram Solanki ought to enjoy themselves against the new ball while pace bowlers Jimmy Anderson and James Kirtley can do serious damage.

England need to find top form, not in order to beat Bangladesh but because, soon enough they will be up against an altogether

tougher Sri Lankan outfit - assuming that tour goes ahead as planned.

England (from): M Trescothick, V Solanki, M Vaughan (capt), P Collingwood, A Flintoff, R Clarke, I Blackwell, C Read (wkt), A Giles, J Kirtley, J Anderson, A McGrath, A Strauss, G Batty, R Johnson.

Bangladesh (from): Nafees Iqbal, Hannan Sarkar, Habibul Bashar, Rajin Saleh, Mohammad Moniruzzaman, Alok Kapali, Mushfiqur Rahman, Khaled Mashud (wkt), Khaled Mahmud (capt), Jamil Uddin, Mohammad Rafique, Anwar Hossain, Tapash Kumar.