Party time as T20 World Cup begins
THE T20 CRICKET WORLD CUP GOT underway at the Grand Prairie Cricket Stadium in Texas last Saturday (Jun 1) as the US won a pulsating seven-wicket victory over Canada.
It was the US’s first ever T20 World Cup game, played out in front of a passionate crowd inside the purpose built, 7,000 capacity home of Major League Cricket.
Aaron Jones’ unbeaten 94 off 40 balls, featuring 14 boundaries, 10 of them sixes, with the stadium PA blasting out Miley Cyrus’s “Party in the USA” after the biggest hits, transformed what could have been a very low key American debut in elite cricket into a spectacular celebration.
“Especially because America is not really a ‘cricketing country’. I wanted to win the first game of the tournament for our fans and we did that,” a smiling Jones said after the game.
But there is a bigger context to this tournament for the co-hosts because as much as organiser’s play down the attempt to convert American sports fans to the pleasures of the old game, part of the whole idea of holding the biennial tournament in the US is to establish some firmer roots for the sport here.
There were two things to note about the crowd at Grand Prairie – as expected the majority of spectators were drawn from the Indian community in Texas but as they showed throughout, they are fervent backers of the national team of their adopted country.
Every one of New York-born-but-Barbadosraised Jones’ sixes was greeted with a massive roar and the final one, to seal victory, set off wild celebrations in the stands.
The second element was that, scattered among those Indian-heritage fans were local Americans who have, to a greater or lesser degree, been won over by the game.
Jones, still buzzing from his spectacular innings was understandably in no mood for measured considerations even with Pakistan and top-ranked India to come.
His accent may be Bajan but the attitude and rhetoric was all-American.
“We want to play fearless cricket. We want to play hard cricket. We want to play smart cricket and I think we’re going to go into the Pakistan game with the same mindset. We want to play fearless cricket regardless of who we play against,” he said.
The US were set to play Pakistan at the same venue yesterday (June 6).
In other games last weekend, the West Indies defeated Pupua New Guinea by 5 wickets, South Africa overcame Sri Lanka by 6 wickets and Namibia beat Oman by 12 runs in the deciding super over after both teams finished on 109 runs from their allotted 20 overs to tie the game.