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Match Preview – USA vs Canada, 1st Match, Group A, T20 World Cup

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Match details

America vs Canada
Dallas, 7:30 p.m. local time

The Big Picture – USA Starts as Favorite to Win

It’s fitting, in a way, that cricket’s oldest international rivalry will be the opening match of its biggest, 20-team World Cup. Long before Australia and England played their first Test match in 1877, the United States and Canada clashed in a three-day match in 1844, with Canada winning that match in New York by 23 runs.

Now, 180 years later, the same two teams will face off in the opening match of the T20 World Cup 2024 in Dallas. Coincidentally, it will be the first T20 World Cup for both teams. The United States qualified as co-hosts, while Canada won the Americas Qualifier.

Saturday’s match will be the first T20I to be played at Grande Prairie Stadium, but with little excitement in Dallas, the 7,000-seat stadium may never be filled to capacity, and there is also the risk of thunderstorms marring the match, as happened while both teams were warming up at the venue.

Still, the U.S. will be the favorite to win Saturday’s match. The U.S. has played just seven T20Is since the 2022 T20 World Cup — all in the past two months — but that’s enough to show what they’re made of. They first beat Canada 4-0 and then beat Bangladesh 2-1, both at home.

Barring rain, former New Zealand all-rounder Corey Anderson, who currently plays for the United States, will become the fifth player to represent the two teams in the T20 World Cup. Former India U-19 World Cup winner Harmeet Singh, once touted as the next Bishan Bedi, is also expected to play a key role with both bat and ball.

Other behind-the-scenes information is that Canada’s coach Pubudu Dassanayake previously held the same position in the United States and batting all-rounder Nitish Kumar, who currently plays for the US, was with Canada until 2019.

Form Guide

united states of america LWWWW (last 5 completed matches, most recent first)
Canada LLLLW

People of Interest – Corey Anderson and Aaron Johnson

Corey Anderson made his T20I debut for the USA in April. He started with scores of 28 and 55 but at the same time looked a little rusty. In his five T20Is for the USA so far, he has averaged 112.30. He once held the record for the fastest ODI hundred. Can he turn back the clock?

Aaron Johnson from Jamaica is a powerful opening batsman with a penchant for the no-look shot. The 33-year-old Johnson made his T20I debut for Canada in 2022. In 16 matches so far, he has scored 713 runs at an average of 50.92 and a strike rate of 166.58. In the format, he has scored one fifty, two hundreds and 48 sixes.

Team news

Steven Taylor, Monank Patel and Andries Ghous will be at the top of USA’s batting order, with Ali Khan and Saurabh Netravalkar leading the pace unit, while their main spinner Harmeet can also contribute at the back end of the batting order.

united states of america (Projected XI): 1 Steven Taylor, 2 Monank Patel (captain, weekend), 3 Andries Guth, 4 Aaron Jones, 5 Nitish Kumar, 6 Corey Anderson, 7 Harmeet Singh, 8 Shadlee van Schalkwyk, 9 Jasdeep Singh, 10 Ali Khan, 11 Saurabh Netravalkar

Canada will depend heavily on their bowlers. Besides Gordon and Sana, they also have Dhillon Heyliger in the pace attack, while captain Saad Bin Zafar and Nikhil Dutta know how to silence batsmen with their spin variations.

Canada (Projected XI): 1 Aaron Johnson, 2 Navneet Dhaliwal, 3 Rajan Pathan, 4 Nicholas Kirton, 5 Pargat Singh, 6 Shreyas Mova (week keeper), 7 Saad Bin Zafar (captain), 8 Nikhil Dutta, 9 Dhillon Heyliger, 10 Jeremy Gordon, 11 Kareem Sana

Key Stats

  • Taylor and Patel have recorded six 50-plus stands in the 12 T20I innings they have played together for the United States, with their partnership running at a run rate of 9.65.
  • Since the last T20 World Cup in 2022, only two batsmen — India’s Suryakumar Yadav and Canada’s Aaron Johnson — have scored more than 700 runs at an average of 50 or above and a strike rate of 150 or above.
  • Johnson restricted Netravalkar to 50 in 30 balls in the entire T20 match and was only run out once.
  • Aaron Jones struck out Heyliger with 23 runs on 11 pitches and one out, but Saad outplayed Jones, scoring just 15 runs on 23 pitches with two outs.
  • Saad is the only bowler to score four maidens in a T20I innings and achieved the feat in 2021 against Panama with figures of 4-4-0-2.
  • So far, only four players have represented two different teams in the T20 World Cup – Roelof van der Merwe (South Africa and Netherlands), Dirk Nannes (Netherlands and Australia), David Wiese (South Africa and Namibia) and Mark Chapman (Hong Kong and New Zealand).

Pitch and conditions

Of the four warm-up matches scheduled here, only one was played – Canada batted first and posted 183 for seven, while Nepal were all out for 120. However, there is a 40 per cent chance of rain on Saturday.

Quote

“Fearless cricket, positive cricket, intelligent cricket. I think that’s what we’re really trying to do wholeheartedly. We don’t want to have any regrets. We want to give it everything. And of course, if we win, great. If we don’t, that happens in cricket. But we don’t want to have any regrets.”
American Vice Captain Aaron Jones About the brand of cricket they want to play

“At the domestic level, we are rivals as we are from the same region. We play each other a lot, mostly in qualifiers where a lot is at stake – ODI status, T20 World Cup qualification – but at the same time, we play a lot of tournaments and franchise cricket in the North American region. So, there is a lot of friendship between the two countries as well.”
Canada’s Captain Saad bin Zafar About the conflict between the two

Hemant Brar is Associate Editor at ESPNcricinfo.



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