Key occasions
I loved this explainer from our American colleagues:
Might the US go all the way in which?
Let’s not get grasping. They’ve completed beautifully to make it to the Tremendous 8s, the place they’ll face South Africa (19 June), the West Indies (21 June) and reigning champions England or Scotland (23 June). Nonetheless, there have been different upsets. Afghanistan crushed New Zealand and Canada overcame Eire. Maybe most significantly, being within the Tremendous 8 ensures the US a berth within the subsequent T20 World Cup, to be held in Sri Lanka and India in 2026.
Who’re these newly minted sporting legends?
The US are coached by the previous Australian batter, Stuart Regulation. The US’s star bowler, Saurabh Netravalkar, is a software program engineer at Oracle. Netravalkar, 32, bowled the tie-breaking “tremendous over” towards Pakistan and took the wicket of Virat Kohli, the Indian celebrity with 269m Instagram followers, although India gained the match. Netravalkar was born in Mumbai and performed for India under-19s. Batter and vice-captain Aaron Jones, born in Queens and raised in Barbados, smashed 10 sixes within the win over Canada. (A six, or a “dinger”, as Chuck would name it, is scored when a batter hits a fly ball over the boundary, just like a house run.)
USA win the toss and bowl first
Sunny, sizzling and humid in Antigua. With what seems to be to be a robust breeze throughout the bottom, shirts billowing, a toupée botherer. Shaun Pollock is within the center and says he doesn’t assume will probably be a excessive scoring wicket (it’s the unused pitch quantity 5, for all you pitch nerds on the market).
USA have gained the toss and will bowl first. “We’re going to go along with the additional spinner,” Aaron Jones says after calling the coin appropriately. “I don’t assume it’s (the pitch) goes to be too completely different to Dallas.”
Aidan Markram admits he wasn’t solely certain what to do had he gained the toss. “We might even have leaned in the direction of bowling however we’re not too bothered with the results of the toss.”
I’ll publish the groups in a sec.
Preamble
James Wallace
In Pythagorean numerology the quantity eight represents victory, prosperity and overcoming. You knew that after all. The USA cricket group clearly did.
Howdy and welcome to the OBO of the primary sport of the Tremendous Eights on this T20 World Cup. Pakistan are on the airplane residence regardless of the timings of this fixture being earmarked by the ICC for subcontinent prime time time. That tells you one thing – no one actually anticipated the US to nonetheless be up and working, however that they’re, they usually’ve been one of the crucial thrilling groups to look at within the event. Swatting apart Canada, holding their nerve towards Pakistan and even inflicting just a few wobbles within the mighty Indian batting line up.
South Africa are their opponents as we speak, the Proteas have gained all of their video games… however not with out incident. Having performed three of their 4 matches on the tricksy New York wicket they’ve had just a few scares alongside the way in which. Diminished to 12 for 4 looking down 104 towards the Dutch, profitable by simply 4 runs towards Bangladesh and even squeakier – by a single run – towards Nepal.
The Antigua pitch ought to go well with the batters a bit extra, however will under no circumstances be a street. Let’s hope for a cracker to get the subsequent part of the event began.
Play begins in simply over half an hour – 10:30am native time/ 3.30pm BST. In case you are tuning in then do be at liberty to drop me a line – on Electronic mail or @Jimbo_Cricket.
