Canada beat the USA in an exciting match today to tie the Auty Cup series 1-1. The series decider will be played tomorrow (Thursday) at Maple Leaf CC. Canada seemed well on course for victory after a good bowling effort led by debutant Shahid Ahmadzai, but then four wickets in four balls including a hat-trick from spinner Kenjige had Canada in serious trouble. An excellent unbroken partnership between Saad Bin Zafar and Pathirana took Canada to victory with 7 balls to spare.

Canada won the toss and put the USA in to bat. Canada brought in Navneet Dhaliwal and Shahid Ahmadzai made his debut, replacing Dhindsa and Adhihetty from yesterday’s XI. The first wicket fell at 27, when Pervez had Patel caught behind. Scoring proved difficult for the American bats, and when captain Ibrahim Khaleel was run out, the USA run rate had fallen to close to 3/ over- 52/3 in the 17th over. At the half way mark USA were 77/5 but Timil Patel’s 79 took the USA to 201 all out. Nitish Kumar used eight bowlers in all, but the pick was Shahid Ahmadzai who made an impressive start to his career with the national team, taking three wickets with his left arm spin, conceding 32 runs. Canada made a positive response in reply, Wijeyeratne hitting four fours from the second over. He and Kumar put on 75 for the first wicket, the captain being caught at deep mid wicket for 37 to end the partnership. Wijeyeratne and Limbada (13) took the total to 113, when the game was turned upside down by a flurry of wickets. Limbada was stumped from the last ball of Patel’s over, and then Kenjige dismissed Wijeyeratne, Dhaliwal and Cheema to complete a hat-trick (four wickets in four balls). Wijeyeratne made 59 from 69 balls with 9 fours. Saad Bin Zafar and Pathirana staged an excellent recovery, and took Canada to victory in the penultimate over. Saad Bin Zafar made 41 and Pathirana 40, and their partnership yielded 92 runs. Srimantha Wijeratne was named man of the match for his innings of 59.

Scorecard
CricInfo report