● The USA U19 Men’s Team has won the ICC U19 World Cup Qualifier for the Americas Region
● The team has qualified for the World Cup for the first time since 2010.
The USA Cricket board wishes to congratulate its men’s U19 national team players, coaching and support staff, and selectors for winning the ICC Americas Region U19 Cricket World Cup Qualifier in Toronto. By doing so the team also booked a place at the 2024 U19 World Cup in Sri Lanka; only the second time USA will have qualified for the global event in its history, and the first time since 2010.
As has so often been the case at these tournaments, it came down to a last day match up against our closest rivals Canada, who so often in the recent past have come out on top in these encounters. For most of the day it looked like rain, and King City’s poor drainage was going to spoil the party. A washout would have seen Canada win the overall spoils due to their last ball victory over the USA earlier in the tournament. However, the weather finally cleared long enough for play to begin at 3:40pm, over 5 hours after the scheduled start time, and despite another short interruption for rain, USA put in a dominant display to beat Canada by 7 wickets in a match reduced to 22 overs a side.
Despite the one loss to Canada, the US team was dominant throughout, highlighted by some exceptional individual performances. Pranav Chettipalayam finished as the top run scorer in the tournament with 384 runs at an average of 76.80 and a strike-rate of over 120. He finished over 100 runs clear of the next highest scorer. Not surprisingly he was also named as the tournament’s MVP.
USA’s top wicket taker was Aarin Nadkarni, who finished with 10 wickets across 5 matches, whilst Utkarsh Srivastava finished with 9. Srivastava also produced some crucial contributions with the bat in the middle, and as such he finished 2nd overall behind Chettipalayam in the MVP stakes.
Click here for all of the scores and stats from the tournament.
Whilst it was a stunning last day performance which secured USA this historic result, USA Cricket wishes to acknowledge that the journey began back in late 2022 with the Hub and Zonal Trials which took place across the country. Through these successful pathway events, including the U19 National Championship Tournament, selectors were able to identify the best available talent in the country to represent the USA. These cricketers are our future, and we look forward to watching them represent us all in Sri Lanka in early 2024.
USA Cricket wishes to thank the Hub Leads, Zonal Coordinators, volunteers, umpires, coaches, administrators, parents and supporters who have helped with the U19 pathway in 2022/2023. The team couldn’t have achieved this success without all your efforts, and we are encouraged and excited about building on this legacy moving forward into the future.
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ABOUT USA CRICKET
USA Cricket is the National Federation for cricket in the United States as recognized by the International Cricket Council. USA Cricket’s mission is to govern, regulate, develop and promote all forms of cricket at all levels in the United States, and to enable U.S. cricketers to achieve sustained competitive excellence and successfully compete in national and international competition. Through a diverse Board of Directors that has representation from most cricket stakeholder groups, USA Cricket will lead the sport to new heights by creating and administering value added programs to grow and develop the sport.
