After some brave batting displays during the winning streak, the American batsmen found India’s fast-bowling attack several notches above them in terms of level and quality.
There were few instances when the home team felt the noose around their necks was loosening.
But the US scored 42 points in the first 10 minutes before adding 68 more in the final 10 minutes thanks to efforts from Nitish Kumar (27), Steven Taylor (24) and former New Zealand international Corey Anderson (15).
Once Arshdeep got some breakthroughs, including the first-ball wicket of Shayan Jahangir in the opening over, India never looked back.
They never failed in terms of intensity, bowling a mixture of hard and longer balls.
The left-arm pacer was brilliant both at the start and during the death bowling, smashing an astounding 17 dot balls.
Arshdeep had a dream first delivery of the match as he sprinted backwards to catch Jahangir (0) square on a ball pitched on a length.
The final delivery of the same over was scored by Andries Guth (2) with a delayed pull shot against a short digged delivery.
The powerplay conceded just 18 runs and Aaron Jones (11), captain for the day, hit one six off Mohammed Siraj but was forced to block most of the deliveries thereafter.
Hardik Pandya (2/14 in four overs) ended things in misery when he top-edged a short ball back to Siraj at deep fine leg.
The quality of the opposition also gave skipper Rohit Sharma a chance to check Shivam Dube (0/11 in one over), who is the weakest in both the batting and bowling departments.
Opener Taylor survived the powerplay and hit a big six off Akshar Patel, but the next ball was sent back to the stumps.
However, Nitish (27 off 23 balls) proved a thorn in India’s side with some powerful hitting, including a beautiful straight drive after Pandya’s maximum, while his talented companion Anderson got a maximum off Akshar in the cow corner region.
However, a brilliant catch by Siraj at the midwicket boundary led to the loss of Nitish with half the team returning to the pavilion on 81.
With Nitish gone, America’s dream of scoring 120 was also shattered.
