Coach Monunk Patel hailed a “flawless performance” by the United States in their most dramatic and historic win over Pakistan in Dallas on Thursday.
In their T20 World Cup debut, the United States defeated Canada in the opening match, took two straight wins to top Group A and then followed up with another impressive string of wins.
The US forced Pakistan to bat first and restricted them to 159-7, chasing down the target extremely well with Nitish Kumar scoring a four off the final ball to take the match into a super over.
Pakistan remained without an answer and lost their opening match of the tournament by five runs.
Patel did not play in the opening match against Canada but scored a fifty off 38 balls, including two fours and two boundaries, and immediately brought the focus to the entire team.
“You don’t get a chance to go to the World Cup every year,” he said. “We knew we had to give it our all. [to] Against Pakistan, we defended every ball. It was a full-on team play.
“Beating Pakistan in our first match is a big achievement. It was a flawless performance. We took advantage of the conditions. We managed to restrict them to 160, which helped us chase down the challenge. I am happy with my contribution but even happier that we won.”
“The plan was to build a strong partnership between the top three and pursue it in depth. [Andries] Goose played some cricket shots and took the pressure off us. As a player and a captain, you want to showcase your talent at the big moments. We wanted to score runs to win the game.”
Pakistan struggled to get going and captain Babar Azam finished with 44 runs, but a slow start to the game prevented them from gaining any momentum.
Pakistan ultimately finished their first innings strongly but struggled to contain the US chase and a string of errors throughout the match left the tournament’s co-hosts with no chances.
Azam blamed slow starts in both innings for the loss.
“We couldn’t capitalise on our batting in the first six overs. We were on a roll but successive wickets hurt us,” he said.
“We didn’t live up to expectations in the first six games. [while bowling]”We didn’t get any wickets, we didn’t get any spinners. We caught up at the end but we couldn’t finish it well. We want to do well in the future.”
“[Result makes it] It was very tough. Kudos to the USA for playing well in all three categories, which is why we won. The pitch was wet. There were two paces. As professionals, we needed to assess the conditions better.”
