GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas (AP) — Aaron Jones produced an astounding power-hitting display for a runless 94 off 40 balls to lead the U.S. team to a historic seven-wicket victory over rival Canada in the opening match of the Twenty20 World Cup on Saturday.
Co-hosts the United States seemed under pressure when Canada, batting first, scored 194-5 and lost a wicket on the second ball of their innings. The total meant the US needed to complete the highest run chase ever in a T20 international, beating the previous record of 169, to win the match.
In the end, the ball reached its target easily, and Jones hit his 10th six with 14 balls remaining to seal the victory for the USA.
The USA appeared to be in a hopeless situation when captain Monanku Patel was out at 66-2 in the top of the seventh innings. At one point in the innings, the USA needed to score more than 12 runs per innings to surpass Canada’s total.
However, Jones, who has been in poor form in recent matches and was at a strike-rate of 100 coming into the match, hit six sixes off 22 balls to achieve the country’s fastest T20 half-century at a strike-rate of 227. Jones finished the match with his career-best score and strike-rate of 235.
At least two of his hits traveled more than 100 meters (328 feet) and would have been home runs when Grande Prairie Stadium was previously used as a baseball park.
Jones turned the tide of the match with a brilliant innings, putting Canada under firm pressure, which became evident when Jeremy Gordon bowled his 14th over, stretched to 11 balls with a wide and a no-ball, conceding 33 runs.
Jones shared a 131-run partnership for the third wicket with Andres Goose, who hit seven fours and three sixes off 46 balls to score 65 runs and win the match. The South African-born Goose was run out just before the final whistle as chants of “USA, USA” rang out around the stadium.
Jones, who was born in Queens, New York City, but grew up in Barbados in the West Indies where he played at the top level of cricket, had previously hit a fifty in a T20 international match but on Saturday hit the second-most sixes in an innings of a T20 World Cup.
“Obviously, we know Canada always comes at us hard, it’s a great rivalry, so I was happy to lead my team to a win tonight,” Jones said. “To be honest with you, I thought we could get under 200. Our pitch was good, our outfield was fast.”
“We believed in ourselves, played some good cricket and came away with the win.”
USA captain Patel also felt they had the batsmen capable of matching Canada’s total.
“Aaron always goes out there and he played fearlessly today,” Patel said. “He landed his shots well and got some clean hits. You don’t get an innings like this every day.”
Earlier, Navneet Dhaliwal and Nicholas Kirton each recorded their first fifties in a World Cup to give Canada a defendable total.
The India-born Dhaliwal scored 61 off 44 balls and his opening partnership with Aaron Johnson of 43 gave Canada early momentum in their innings.
The Barbados-born Kilton then maintained his momentum in the middle and later stages of the innings, scoring 51 off 31 balls to surpass his previous best score of 37 in a T20 international match.
Johnson scored 23 off 16 balls and Shreyas Mova scored 32 off 16 balls. Dilpreet Bajwa was the final bright spot with 11 runs off five balls.
“I thought 194 was a great total and we were pretty confident at the time,” Canada captain Saad Bin Zafar said. “I thought Navneet and Kilton played well for us.”
“We started well and took some early wickets in the powerplay, but Jones and Goose were batting outstanding and our bowlers just couldn’t cope with them.”
The match was a fitting opening for the World Championship, with Grande Prairie Stadium packed to capacity with 7,000 players and a fine example of T20 cricket, a sport still unfamiliar to most Americans.
Although cricket does not have deep roots in the United States, it has a long history. The United States and Canada played the first ever international cricket match in 1844 on the grounds of a private home off Broadway in Manhattan. The three-day match ended with Canada winning by 23 runs.
The T20 World Cup will feature 20 teams, including global superpowers India, Australia and England. The United States and Canada are in Group A with India, Ireland and Pakistan.
The tournament’s co-hosts, the West Indies, begin their campaign on Sunday with a match against Papua New Guinea in Guyana, while Oman will take on Namibia in Barbados.
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AP Cricket: https://apnews.com/hub/cricket
