USA have finished their Cricket West Indies Super 50 campaign in perfect fashion with a quite stunning 74 run win over Jamaica Scorpions at the 3W’s Oval in Barbados to score their second Group B win of the tournament.
The Jamaicans would have been heavy favorites going into today’s game having already secured their semi-finals spot. Jamaica were in need of a win to be in with a chance of topping the group outright but a dedicated and focused Team USA had other ideas.
With Steven Taylor ineligible to play due to his NOC with Jamaica Cricket, USA were boosted by the return of their captain, Saurabh Netravalkar whilst Aaron Jones, recently named in the USA Squad for the ICC World Cricket League Division 3 in Oman, played his 2nd game for USA. Losing the toss, USA were inserted to bat first and got off to the worst possible start with the early loss of Jaskaran Malhotra.
Monank Patel looked in superb touch as he built a nice partnership with Alex Amsterdam before he fell for 21 caught behind by Chadwick Walton. Patel was then joined by Aaron Jones who set about making a maiden List A 50 in his 9th innings in the format and just his second for the United States.
Patel zoomed past another 50 but had his eyes on the one thing that has eluded Team USA in their 7 matches thus-far, an individual century, and the celebration when he hit the ball into the off-side from Patel and all of his team-mates spoke volumes as to how much the innings meant to the whole squad.
It was a magnificent innings that contained 8 x 4’s and 2 x 6’s in all and his partnership with Jones, who fell for an equally pleasing 66, was worth 135. The only displeasing aspect of the USA innings was the final 9 overs of the innings as just 51 runs came for the loss of 6 wickets despite Elmore Hutchinson’s 16 not out.
Patel’s 109 also moved him into 2nd place in the overall run-scorers charts so far at the Super50 with his tally of 290 runs behind only Jonathan Carter in the whole tournament.
100!!! ?????
Supreme from Monank Patel, he’s the leading #TeamUSA?? run-scorer in the tournament and he’s now got the first century by an American batsman at this year’s #Super50!
WATCH LIVE??️?: https://t.co/PMQm0FCKa1 pic.twitter.com/GS0wFAmXEa
— USA Cricket (@usacricket) October 22, 2018
After the strongest batting performance of the tour, the bowling effort got off to the best possible start as Kyle Phillip took out Chadwick Walton caught at point in the first ball of the Jamaica chase and Netravalkar then claimed a wicket to leave Jamaica reeling at 10 for 2.
Jermaine Blackwood struck a quality run a ball 51 but all six American bowlers that were used claimed a wicket and Aaron Jones used his leg-spin to claim the crucial breakthrough of Blackwood as 99 for 3 all of a sudden became 119 for 7 with Nosthush Kenjige completing a fine tournament with 1 for 32 from his 10 overs.
Timil Patel‘s leg-spin has really been one of the highlights of the tournament for Team USA and his control was evident again as he struck in his first over, with Aaron Jones holding a fine catch. Patel fittingly took the final wicket to end with the wonderful figures of 3 for 15 from his 7 overs.
Jamaican Captain Nikita Miller was left stranded on 20 not out and Jamaica Scorpions had been dismissed for 166 with USA running out comprehensive 74 run winners to finish their tour of the Caribbean in the perfect fashion with their 2nd win of Group B.
Bigger challenges lay ahead though for Team USA with ICC World Cricket League Division 3 next month and the tournament couldn’t be more important given the recent ICC structure announcements.
ICC confirmed today a new qualification pathway for ICC Cricket World Cup 2023
This makes ICC World Cricket League Division 3 in Oman next month absolutely crucial as to where USA will sit in the qualification structures for the next cycle
MEDIA RELEASE: https://t.co/ZQIA3a4393 pic.twitter.com/98SMEwLftn
— USA Cricket (@usacricket) October 20, 2018
You can watch back on the match in full, which was live streamed by Cricket West Indies below.
