9 April, 2024
U.S.A. put in a dominant performance in the opening match of a five-match T20I series against Canada, winning by six wickets in Houston.
Electing to bowl first after winning the toss, the U.S. rattled Canada early and often, eventually bowling the red and white out for 132. Captain Saad Bin Zafar top scored with a cameo of 29 from just 16 deliveries while Nicholas Kirton did his level best to hold the innings together with 27 off 23.
With the bat, American captain Monank Patel looked to put Canada on the backfoot in the opening Powerplay with terrific attacking intent and finished with a sparkling 50 off 34. He was ably supported by Andries Gous who added 50 off 35. The pair were separated in the 13th over with just 29 to get, having 57 for the second wicket off just 37 balls.
It was elementary from there as the U.S. reached their target with 15 balls to spare. Canada will now look to regroup with the second match coming up on Tuesday at 11 a.m. EST. All the matches are available on Cricket Canada’s YouTube page.
Below is a YouTube link to the match, the Canadian playing XI, and some takeaways:
LINK
PLAYING XI
Aaron Johnson, Srimantha Wijeyeratne, Pargat Singh, Navneet Dhaliwal, Harsh Thaker, Nicholas Kirton, Dilpreet Bajwa, Saad Bin Zafar ©, Dilon Heyliger, Rishiv Joshi, Uday Bhagwan.
TAKEAWAYS
Debutant Kenjige puts Canada in early hole
Aaron Johnson looked like he was just hitting his stride with two fours and a sweep for a massive six. Misjudging the pace of a delivery from left-arm seamer Saurabh Netravalkar, he top edged one to the onside that was easily taken by Jasdeep Singh. From there, it was the Nosthush Kenjige show.
Kenjige’s slow left-arm orthodox had Srimantha Wijeyeratne sweeping straight to deep square leg and luring Pargat Singh down the track to attempt a lofted cover drive but turning the ball away just enough to beat the edge and give Monank Patel an easy stumping. In between those two dismissals, Navneet Dhaliwal was back in the pavilion for a duck after Singh defended a ball from Kenjige to point and initially took off for a single before changing his mind, leaving Dhaliwal halfway down the pitch and no chance of getting back. In hindsight, there was no single on offer.
By the time Kenjige picked up his third wicket – knocking over Dilpreet Bajwa’s off-stump with a ball from wide of the crease around the wicket that pitched on off and straightened – Canada was reeling at 72/6 after 13.2 overs.
Kirton, Bin Zafar take Canada to respectability
Coming in at No. 6, Nicholas Kirton played a steady hand for Canada with 27 off 23 after coming in with Canada in heaps of trouble. It looked unlikely that Canada would even reach 120 at one stage, but Bin Zafar came in and played a crucial cameo of 29 from 16 deliveries.
The captain came in and punished anything that was ever so slightly loose to both sides of the wicket. There was some concern when he was batting on 17, seemingly having hurt his left hand – his bowling hand – after a hoick to long-off that saw him call for the trainer immediately. He did add another 12 runs to his total while managing to bowl his full allotment of overs later as well plus taking a wicket so it appears to have been a minor issue.
A total of 132 in the end provided hope for a bit of fight and wouldn’t have been possible without the efforts of Kirton and Bin Zafar.
U.S. batting makes light work of chase
American openers Steven Taylor and Monank Patel put to bed hopes of an early Canadian breakthrough, pouncing on wayward deliveries to put on 47 runs for the first wicket. In such a small chase, an assuring opening stand was all the difference in setting up the rest of the batting.
Rishiv Joshi and Dilon Heyliger proved the most expensive bowlers, yielding 57 runs in 6.3 overs, Heyliger picking up two wickets with the U.S. well on course for victory. Conditions for batting did seem to improve in the second half of the innings, but full credit to the American batters for leaving Canada on the outside looking in throughout.
Making his T20I debut, Uday Bhagwan bowled two overs for 12 runs.
Pargat Singh is worthy of a mention for his effort in the field, taking an excellent catch at short fine leg diving forward full stretch to dismiss Taylor off Kirton’s bowling.
In the end, there just wasn’t enough runs to work with for the bowlers to mount any kind of serious pressure. With this match done and dusted, Canada will have a better idea of what to expect by Tuesday for the second T20I.
