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By Peter Della Penna in Fort Lauderdale
Another day and another romp for USA as the team bowled out Cayman
Islands for 40 before chasing the runs in 4.4 overs to win by 10 wickets
on Wednesday inside the Central Broward Regional Park stadium at the
ICC Americas U-19 Division One in Lauderhill, Fla. Left-arm orthodox
spinner Shayan Abdulghani was named Man of the Match for USA after
finishing with figures of 3 for 3 in four overs.
“I’ve been practicing mostly my line and length and flighting the
ball because I bowl a little flat,” said Abdulghani. “Coach told me
flight the ball a little towards middle stump and you’ll get more
wickets and you’ll get more nicks, edges and stuff like that.”
Cayman Islands won the toss and elected to bat first on a sunny
morning with a different pitch being used than the ones for the first
two matches inside the stadium at the tournament. They came into the
match 1-1 with a narrow defeat to Bermuda and a win over Argentina
during which opening batsman Sacha DeAlwis racked up 196 runs. However,
it was a much different story on Wednesday for DeAlwis and the rest of
his team.
Salman Ahmad made the first 
breakthrough
for USA, claiming DeAlwis’ fellow opener Shane Cato for a five-ball
duck, playing around a full length ball to be hit in front and given LBW
with the score on 6 in the third over. Ahmad struck again two overs
later when he got DeAlwis to chase a wide delivery and an edge was sent
to Gurpreet Sandhu at gully. After a bobble, Sandhu took the catch and
DeAlwis walked off for 5 to make it 8 for 2.
Image (right) - USA U-19 opening bowler Salman Ahmad goes up for
an unsuccessful LBW appeal against Cayman Islands batsman John Tweedie.
USA piled on the pressure all morning to bowl out Cayman Islands for 40
in 25 overs. [Courtesy - Peter Della Penna/DreamCricket]
“I guess the batting was revolving around their opener,” said USA
U-19 Coach Robin Singh. “It was a question of getting him out early.
He’s probably scored most of the runs in the past few games so we just
really needed to go and get his wicket and I think we did that quite
easily.”
With the backbone of the Cayman Islands order gone, captain Darren
Cato arrived at number four and tried to provide as much resistance as
possible. He added 20 runs with John Tweedie for the third wicket, but
Tweedie finally departed after facing 23 balls without scoring when he
was clean bowled by Hammad Shahid. Cato fell four runs later for 13,
bowled through the gate by Mital Patel and from there the rout was on in
full force.
After Shahid claimed Edward Bodden for 1 to make it 33 for 5, Sandhu
and Abdulghani came on for a twin spin attack and quickly wiped out the
tail. Extras wound up being top score with 14 while Darren Cato was the
only batsman to reach double figures as Cayman Islands were bowled out
for 40 in 25 overs.
“I think once you get the opposition on the ropes, I think you need
to bury them,” said Singh. “That’s what we want to do in all the games.
Any opposition where we have an advantage, we want to make sure that we
stay with the advantage whether we bat first or we bowl.”
Steven Taylor and Fahad Babar came out and quickly picked off the
runs. Taylor set the tone with a boundary hooked to fine leg on the
first ball and he added three more on his way to 23 not out in 15 balls.
Babar scored 7 in 15. Cayman Islands conceded 11 extras, including a
wide to end the match, as USA reached the target of 41 with 45.2 overs
to spare.
“I still think that even this was quite a weak team,” said Singh. “We
have yet to face any really good opposition. Saying that, I think the
players and our guys have actually improved as matches have gone by. I
think they’re slowly getting into the routine. They understand what
their roles are and what needs to be done. I think the last two games,
we want to give a few guys a run and see how they play because I’m
seeing these guys for the first time, most of these guys. I’m pretty
happy and pretty satisfied with the way we’re going about things.”
All teams have an off day on Thursday before resuming play on Friday
with USA scheduled to take on Bermuda at Brian Piccolo Park. A 30%
chance of showers is in the weather forecast. Any rain that could come
is projected to start around noon. Live coverage of USA’s match against
Bermuda will begin Friday morning at 9:30 a.m. on DreamCricket.