One swallow does not make a summer, but it was good to see Canada’s Under-17 beat USA U17’s by 9 wickets on the opening day of the ICC Match Play Tri-Series at the Moosa Stadium, near Houston, Texas July 14, 2016). The USA won the toss, chose to bat then stumbled to 77 all out from 30 overs. Canadian opening bats Emmanuel Khohkar (30) and Ravi Sandhu (34*) clipped 55 runs from 8.3 overs and Canada reached a winning 78/1 after 13.4 overs.
Opening bowlers Faisal Jamkhandi and Blake Seebaran kept the runs down in the early overs. Control that saw Jamkhandi pick up the wickets of both openers with 20 on the board after 6.4 overs. Akash Gill picked up the number three bat then spinners Aran Pathmanathan (3/11, 7 overs) and Rommel Shahzad (3/18, 9 overs) took control. Pieter Pretorius took 1/5 from 4 overs as the USA left 20 of the available 50 overs unused.
US captain, Arjun Patel top-scored with 26, extras contributed 19 (mostly wides) and number seven Vivek Narayan was the only other bat to reach double figures. Narayan made 11.
Canada plays Bermuda today (Friday, July 15, 2016) at Moosa Stadium and will be looking for another win as the developmental road to the next ICC Under-19 Cricket World Cup continues for ICC Americas leading Associates and Affiliates.
ICC America High Performance consultant Tom Evans mentioned a lack of experience in playing on natural grass wickets as a factor in USA’s total of 77 in a YoutTube video. Evans also noted the use of flight by the Canadian spinners, which induced too many of the US batsmen to give up their wickets. The USA will be practising while the Canada-Bermuda game takes place today and will be working to produce a much better showing against Canada when the teams meet again on Sunday (July 17, 2016). Canada will also be looking to build from Thursday’s win, starting today and followed by practice on Saturday when USA and Bermuda are playing. (EN)
Update: Canada have made a big score against Bermuda, thanks to a century from Arsalan Khan which has set Bermuda 261 to win.
Scorecard
Canada-Bermuda scorecard
Dreamcricket report