England eyes huge win over USA to stay alive in semifinal race
BRIDGETOWN: Defending champion England will need its power hitters to do the job against a demoralised yet tricky USA in its final Super 8 match as it eyes a huge win to keep itself in contention for a semifinal spot at the T20 World Cup here on Sunday.
England batters couldn’t produce the big hits while chasing a target of 164 during their last Super 8 match against South Africa, suffering a narrow seven-run loss on Friday.
West Indies’ impressive nine-wicket win over the USA has opened up the group, leaving England with the task of notching up a big victory to push its net run-rate up as it might come down to it in the end.
While South Africa is currently sitting atop the Group 2 with two wins, both West Indies and England have a win and a loss each with the former having a better NRR than the latter.
However, no team is assured of a semifinal berth and England will need to defeat USA by either 10 runs or at least an over to spare to stay in contention for the semifinals.
For SA, a loss -- even in a Super Over -- against WI in its final match will knock it out of the race if England can achieve its task.
England batters produced an authoritative performance against the West Indies but they failed to tame the SA bowlers and faltered in their chase of 164 on Friday.
Phil Salt has been in great form, having blasted two centuries, a fifty, and three thirties in his last 10 T20Is but his early dismissal meant England couldn’t get the explosive start as Jos Buttler and Jonny Bairstow couldn’t quite bring out the big shots.
Harry Brook and Liam Livingstone played sensibly to take the chase deep but England eventually failed to score 25 runs in the last three overs.
However, despite the loss, England’s batting remains a formidable force which the likes of Saurabh Netravalkar and Harmeet Singh will find tough to tame.
In the bowling unit, Adil Rashid and Jofra Archer have been the standout bowlers with 13 and 12 wickets each.