USA Stun Pakistan

 

USA Stun Pakistan

 

To be honest, this match against the United States seemed like a tailor-made Pakistan stumbling block. USA was coming off a fun victory against Canada over the weekend, at this same venue. Pakistan was coming off a massively un-fun tour of the UK, in which several of their strategies were shown not to seriously work. The Grand Prairie pitch was a bit of an unknown as well.

 

But USA then turned up the heat in all departments. They bossed the Pakistan power play, kept a lid on the death overs hitting, then in their own innings set up an outstanding foundation, and willed them to a tie in regular play.

 

Pakistan then disintegrated in the Super Over. Mohammad Amir conceded a slightly unfortunate four first ball, and then then went on to deliver three wide deliveries which cost seven runs. On all the wide balls, USA batters ran the bye. On the last one, Mohammad Rizwan throw to the non-striker's end was wayward, and they took an extra one.

All up, the USA made 18 runs off that Super Over, despite having struck only one four.

In response, Pakistan's batting Super Over never got going. One four was hit second ball, but then Iftikhar Ahmed was given out caught third delivery - as Nitish Kumar barely got a finger under the falling ball, as he ran in from long off. Pakistan got four leg byes later in the over, but were always struggling. They needed a six to force the match into a second Super Over, but all Shadab Khan could manage was a shot to deep point.