Canada will place 6th or lower in Group A after beating Italy by 5 wickets in their final group stage match. Italy never recovered from Gordon’s opening spell, falling to 15/3. Damian Crowley made 61* to take them to 104/6 from their 20 overs. Gordon took 3/15. Canada made an equally poor start, losing Gunasekera, Patel and Bagai with only 124 runs on the board, but Cheema with 34 (opening and batting through to the 18th over) and Hansra (32) gave Canada a win by 5 wickets (with 4 balls remaining.
Canada will play a placing match with a group B non-qualifier to conclude a highly disappointing tournament, As it turned out one more win would have put them into the play-offs, and they will regret losses to opponents that on paper at least they should have beaten. The shorter T20 tournament does encourage upsets, but the 5 losses appear to point to a significant decline of Canadian cricket when compared to the other associates.
Scorecard