By Peter Della Penna in Fort Lauderdale
Salman Ahmad and Jodhbir Singh took two wickets each to spark a dramatic collapse by Canada as USA defended 143 to win by 23 runs at the Central Broward Regional Park stadium on Saturday at the ICC Americas U-19 Division One in Lauderhill, Fla. Ahmad was named Man of the Match after taking 2 for 20 as USA finished undefeated to win the tournament title.
“I think definitely my two wickets today were a lot better than the wickets that came before them, especially coming in such an important match,” said Ahmad. “I had kind of a rough start to today’s game so it just felt good to come back and help the team out and I’d like to thank my teammates for supporting me.”
After morning showers caused a two-hour delay and reduced the match from 50 to 36 overs per side, USA won the toss and batted first. The opening combination of Steven Taylor and Cameron Mirza got USA off to another solid start, putting on 37 runs for the first wicket.
The pair looked like they were set for a long stay after Taylor flayed Manny Aulakh behind point for his fourth boundary, but on the very next ball, Taylor chased a wide one and sent an edge through to the keeper Darren Ramsammy to go for 21.
First change bowler Rayyankhan Pathan proceeded to rip through USA’s lineup to turn the match upside down. Abhijit Joshi was struck in front to be LBW for 5 and three balls later Fahad Babar was clean bowled to make it 50 for 3. Singh was run out for 5 in a mix up with Mirza when Singh tried to push a Pathan delivery into midwicket and set off for a run, but both Singh and Mirza were hesitant and Tristan Ali’s throw beat Singh trying to get back in his crease and the score became 66 for 4 in the 16th.
Pathan struck again in the 18th when he removed the well set Mirza for 29 by taking a simple return catch in his follow through to make it 77 for 5. The medium pacer got his fourth when he snagged his second caught and bowled to dismiss Gurpreet Sandhu for 4 to make it 83 for 6 in the 20th. In the 22nd, Pathan just missed his five-wicket haul when Pranay Suri sent a chance back to Pathan. The bowler couldn’t complete a one-handed catch, but the ball went off his hand and cannoned into the non-striker’s stumps with Ahmad just out of his crease and USA was 7 down for 93. Pathan finished with 4 for 30 in addition to the two run outs that came off his bowling.
USA had looked set for 180, but with the rapid fall of wickets, Suri and Hammad Shahid consolidated and produced a vital 28-run stand for the 8th wicket. Towards the end of the stand, Suri stepped out to launch two big sixes off Canadian spinners Kesavan Juvarajan and Nikhil Dutta. He was finally caught on the long off boundary going for a third against Juvarajan, but Suri’s 34 was USA’s high score on the day and a key contribution coming in at number six. Shahid and Mital Patel added another 22 in the final 5.2 overs to boost USA’s total as they finished on 143 for 8.
Akash Shah and Dutta provided a steady start for Canada, staging 32 for the first wicket in nine overs before Patel had Shah caught by Shayan Abdulghani at mid on for 17. Dutta was then run out for 12 in a big mix up with Tristan Ali and Shahid fired to Taylor, who flicked off the bails to make it 41 for 2 after 11.
Kyle Edghill came in and teamed up with Ali to put on 50 runs for the third wicket. During the partnership, it looked like Edghill was going to lead Canada across the line. Abdulghani and Sandhu had come on to choke the scoring rate, but couldn’t make the breakthrough to end the stand.
Ahmad returned for his second spell and seemingly out of nowhere managed to bowl Edghill for 33 after the batsman tried backing away to play through the off side but inside edged a good length delivery onto his stumps on the first ball of the 26th over. That was the catalyst that turned things around for USA in the field. With Edghill at the crease, Canada needed 53 to win in 11 overs with eight wickets in hand, but 29 runs later, they were all out.
“At the drinks break, they were 69 for 2 and it looked like they were really taking the game away from us,” said Ahmad. “But we stood back, we looked at the score and we realized that they weren’t going at the run rate they needed to be going at. They were still going around three and a half, four, they needed just around four an over. So we decided that we had five, six tight overs, we’d be able to bring them back and it does feel good winning against Canada after losing to them twice [in 2009].”
Singh came on from the other end to bowl medium pace and in his second over, had Ramsammy caught by Patel at midwicket off a full toss for a duck. Ahmad struck again in the 30th to get rid of the captain Juvarajan who went for a big heave and was clean bowled for 5. Four balls later, Ali’s long and torturous stay at the crease finally ended for 14 when he drove Singh to Patel coming in from long on to make it 99 for 6.
With the tight bowling from the spinners in the middle overs, the run rate climbed dramatically and now Canada had to go for everything, but just about nothing came off with any success. Pathan was run out by a direct hit from Babar at square leg for 2 after Aulakh clipped a full delivery and set off for a run that wasn’t there.
Aulakh tried to clear the fences against the leg spin of Sandhu in the 34th, but only managed to find Singh at midwicket inside the circle for 8. Three balls later, Sandhu clean bowled Sudeepta Aurka for 2 to make it 116 for 9. Jobanjot Sidhu was run out two balls later by the teamwork of Shahid and Taylor once more to set off wild celebrations on the field as USA’s players went about grabbing souvenir stumps to commemorate bowling out Canada for 120, finishing the week with a perfect 5-0 record.
Canada finished the week in second place at 4-1 while Bermuda finished at third with a 3-2 record after beating Argentina by 10 wickets on Saturday. Meanwhile, there was a three-way tie for fourth after Bahamas beat Cayman Islands by 3 wickets as both teams joined Argentina at 1-4 on the week.
At the tournament awards ceremony, Sacha DeAlwis of the Cayman Islands was named Best Batsman while Canada’s Aulakh was named the Best Bowler. Ramsammy from Canada was named Best Wicketkeeper while USA’s Mirza was named Tournament MVP.