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USA beat Canada by Seven Wickets
Canada 194-5 (20 overs)
USA 197-3 (17.3 overs)
Believe it or not, for large swathes of this game, 28 0f the 40 0vers to be exact, Canada were the better and more composed team.
Their 194-5 in the alloted 20 overs looked an excellent total and they probably had enough batting untapped to have takem even a few more risks than they did.
After eight overs of the US reply, the hosts stood at a watery 48-2 and very few at the nearly packed Grand Prairie Stadium in Texas would have bet against Canada. Aaron Jones had failed to score from his first four balls before a single. Canadian skipper Saad Bin Zafar had conceded just 10 off 2 overs.
The US required run rate had crept over two runs a ball. Canada were in charge.
Then came the ball that changed everything. With the first delivery of the ninth over, spinner Nikhil Dutta inexplicably bowled a high wide. Nothing would be the same again.
Two more wides followed. The first free hit went for a 6, the USA’s first. A second 6 followed as the spinner struggled to even complete his over. His over cost 19 runs and Canada had let the American tiger loose.
Then followed a team collapse that cricket usually only associates with batting. Zafar shed 14 in the next over. Heylinger followed and Jones hit him out the ground. 15 came off P Singh before Jones hammered the first two deliveries of Zafar’s next over for two more 6s in an over that eventually cost 20.
Jeremy Gordon was brought back in to stem the tide but he started with a wide. His next ball was sliced for 6 by Andreas Gous, then a four. ELEVEN had come off two balls before he bowled another wide and then two no balls one of which was caught befor he bowled a no ball when facing the penalty for bowling the first no ball. Jones hit that for six before Gordon bowled another wide, conceding a further six and a four.
That over eventually shed 33 which may, or may not, be some kind of World Cup record.
The next over merely had a dropped catch and a four that went through both wicketkeeper and fielder.
The USA had shifted from 48-2 to 148-2 in just 33 balls! That’s over three runs a ball a ball for a century of runs.
By the time, Jones scored the boundaries that sealed the game, Canadian heads had dropped so low that the Americans could have strolled home.
More reaction to follow.
Team USA squad features familiar names
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