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By Peter Della Penna

With five new players in USA’s squad that toured Bermuda, it was going to be hard for USA to defend their ICC Americas Division One title after going undefeated at the 50-over event two years ago in Lauderhill, Fla. While USA fell to Canada and finished second in that portion of the event in Bermuda, they did very well to come back to win the Twenty20 competition only days later in what USA captain Steve Massiah said was a flawless performance.

“The tournament as a whole I would like to think was a success for the United States,” said Massiah in an interview on Monday. “It was good for us to be crowned inaugural champions of the Twenty20 tournament because we’ll always be remembered in history as we won the first one. I thought it was the crowning achievement of the tour because it was known that we can play 50 overs but now we’ve demonstrated that we can be a force to be reckoned with in the Twenty20 game.”

USA team manager Imran Khan agreed that it was an impressive performance for the squad considering the fact that they were missing several frontline bowlers including Usman Shuja and Kevin Darlington as well as Imran Awan, who was the leading wicket-taker at the same event in 2008.

“I think we did much better than was expected of us,” said Khan in a separate interview on Monday. “The realistic proposition by everyone was not to finish below third, but we knew we could do quite well. The challenge was only in reality from Bermuda and Canada. I think we punched above our weight. I’m pretty happy with what happened.”

The solid performance in the 50-over event where the team went 4-1, including the demolition of Argentina and Cayman Islands, has given USA a big confidence boost ahead of the World Cricket League Division Four tournament in Italy this August.

“We knew we’re going to play against Cayman Islands and Argentina in Italy,” said Khan. “Our objective was to go out there and set a precedent and establish a psychological edge over them. We didn’t want to just go out and beat them. We wanted to smash them and it worked. They now know our strengths. Italy and Tanzania are kind of unknown quantities and it’s going to take some strategic planning on USACA’s part to help us out.”

“There’s two countries that we’re going to be coming up against in Italy and we will have already demoralized them in the sense that we completely outplayed them in the 50 over,” said Massiah. “We scored in excess of 300 against Argentina and bowled them for 200 and then we would have defeated Cayman Islands by 10 wickets in 15 overs. So I thought going forward we have taken the psychological edge so hopefully that can make it easier for us going to Italy.

“I’m pretty confident that we’ll come out of that division, but one thing we have to be conscious about is not to get complacent or not to think that we defeated these guys in this tournament and the same thing is gonna happen. Everybody is capable of playing anyone on a given day so we need to take a professional approach and we need to understand how important it is for us moving forward that we play good cricket on a consistent basis and not to take anyone for granted. The key thing is guarding against complacency. In the past we may have been guilty of being a little complacent, if you go back two years ago maybe when we lost to Jersey and failed to qualify in Jersey, so that’s the one thing I’d like to stress on is for us to not get complacent.”

While USA and Nepal, the two teams moving up from the WCL Division Five, are also favored to advance from Division Four into Division Three in Hong Kong next January, Massiah wants to stress that USA must keep focused in order to keep climbing up the ladder to get to the top rung of Associate teams.

“We’ve gotta stay focused and think of what’s ahead of us and how important it will be for us to continue to move forward because if we do well, there’s a good chance that by next year we could be back among the Associates,” said Massiah. “My immediate goal is to try my best to get USA back to where I think it belongs. It’s quite evident that Bermuda and Canada are ranked ahead of us. For us to defeat them, it just goes to show our talent level and to know that we are missing some of our key players in this tournament, hopefully when they are back we will definitely prove a handful for most of the teams.”

One of the features of this tournament was the infusion of young and fresh legs into the squad, something that had a great effect on the fielding.

“Unbelievably, surprisingly and magically good,” said Khan when asked to sum up the overall fielding performances on tour. “We did not drop catches. Our performances against Bermuda and Canada were some of the best I’ve ever seen. That may have something to do with our young guys on the field. [Muhammad] Ghous, [Moazzam] Imtiaz, Timroy Allen in the field really brought a lot of energy to the field. It’s the best US has fielded for quite some time and I think it had a lot to do with our younger legs as well.”

“That definitely is helpful when you’re younger because the legs are much younger and you’re able to withstand playing 9 games in 10 days,” said Massiah. “So I thought that really helped because when you’re younger it’s expected that you’ll have more energy and your fitness levels should be better than someone who has been playing competitively for 20 years.”

In terms of the veteran players, they did their part too. Aditya Thyagarajan had the highest individual score of any player in Bermuda with his 159 against Argentina and also finished second in the runs column. Ashhar Mehdi was named the best wicketkeeper at the event while Orlando Baker was once again a very crucial player for USA wherever he batted and bowled. However, it was 23-year-old Allen who seemed to be a catalyst for USA’s success in the eyes of Khan.

“Timroy Allen was the key to most of our victories,” said Khan. “When he opened the bowling in the T20s, he was fast and he was accurate and he shook everybody up. If we take the time to develop him, he could become a world class bowler.” Massiah also credited the start that Lennox Cush and Allen gave opening the bowling against Canada in the Twenty20 final as a major reason for winning the title.

Collectively, the new players did very well, but it was 20-year-old Ghous who turned the most heads in Bermuda. After delivering a series of strong performances while playing for the USA U-19 team over the last year, Ghous continued to demonstrate some impressive bowling in his first chance playing for the senior squad.

“The one new player which I would like to single out and I thought responded brilliantly was Ghous,” said Massiah. “Given that it’s his first opportunity at the senior level, I thought he responded brilliantly. His bowling was outstanding and I think he has the right attitude. He’s willing to learn and that’s good.” Ghous had the best economy rate for all bowlers in the 50-over competition with 2.56 runs per over. He also took six wickets in three matches before taking another four wickets in four Twenty20 games for USA.

“Muhammad Ghous was the find of the tournament,” said Khan. “He fielded well and bowled exceptionally. He bowled in tight situations, in the power plays. Cayman Islands got off to a great start and then he came on and tore them apart.”

Massiah also gave credit to Ghous for keeping a cool head batting at the end of the Twenty20 semifinal against Bermuda which helped push USA into the final against Canada and eventually to the Twenty20 title.

“I thought his innings against Bermuda in the semifinal, for a young player I thought it was very responsible the way he batted and full credit to [Rashard] Marshall for trusting him and giving him the confidence he needed,” said Massiah. “We required 14 runs in the last over and Marshall was the last recognized batsman there and he basically trusted Ghous with the strike and the young man responded brilliantly. His bowling was very good. It definitely augurs well for the future of cricket. I’m sure his performance should motivate the other younger players and the message should be clear that there’s a place for them in the future of US cricket.”

Khan also hopes that giving opportunities to players like Ghous will not just be a one off and that USA should start to lean more toward bringing in and keeping younger players in the squad for the future.

“I think the selectors need to identify them not because they have energy, but because they are promising,” said Khan. “We should not just leave them behind now, we should help develop them. By the time that Division Three and Division Two come around, some of the older guys might not be around so we need to start giving some of the younger guys a chance.

“Hopefully we’ll invest more time in our younger players, help them develop, and no matter where we go commercially, we need to focus on our younger players in the cricketing structure. Once we have that in place, everything will go forward. The impetus for us is to blood some younger players in the next tournament as well and look for some sort of domestic program to be initiated in the USA and start to build that and get the right people involved because there are some really good people involved and credit must go to them.”

Another thing that is necessary is consistent preparation and a greater amount of matches against better competition. USA got a chance to play against Jamaica before heading off to Bermuda. However, USA will be missing out on an opportunity to play in the newly formed West Indies domestic Twenty20 competition after it was announced over the weekend that Canada will be included to fill the eighth spot in the July event along with the seven regional first class teams in the Caribbean. The winning team will then move on to participate in the Champions League Twenty20 in South Africa this September.

“Talking to Andy [Mohammed], Adrian Gordon and Muhammad Ghous and Imtiaz and Bilal Khan and Ashhar Mehdi, because their first match was against West Indian opposition, that kind of established the benchmark for them and that’s what they expected to have to play at for every match at this level,” said Khan. “So then when they came across the Cayman Islands and Bahamas, etc., they didn’t think about bowling to club players. They were thinking about bowling to Test match level players. Myself and [USA coach] Clayton Lambert are trying to impress upon USACA to get more involved in West Indies first class competition because the competition is higher.”

While Massiah has said in the past that USA’s failure to advance out of WCL Division Five in 2008 was due to a lack of preparation, he points to the fact that when USA has had good preparation, they have played very well.

“I’ll give two good examples of what America can be if we prepare well,” said Massiah. “The previous Americas championship that we won in Florida, prior to that we went to Guyana and played in a 50-over tournament and we came back and we played brilliantly. We went 5-0 and won the Americas Cup. Before going off to Bermuda, we had good preparation in terms of playing against a quality side in Jamaica. We went to Bermuda and we performed very good. So it just goes to show if we prepare very well moving forward, definitely we would be able to do well in future tournaments.”

At the moment, there is no planned preparation before the team leaves to go to the WCL Division Four in Bologna, Italy, scheduled for August 14-21, but Massiah hopes that USACA will organize something to get the team in rhythm before their first match.

“They will have us engaged in some sort of activities before we leave to Italy,” said Massiah.