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By Peter Della Penna

Scorecard powered by New Inning Foundation

William Perkins and Jason Mohammed took the USA bowling unit to the cleaners on Friday afternoon as Trinidad & Tobago scored a massive 111-run win over USA at Maple Leaf CC in King City, Ontario. Mohammed was named Man of the Match after crushing 87 off 44 balls to top score in T & T’s 20 over total of 207 for 7.

T & T won the toss and chose to bat first with USA making two changes from their lineup against Canada, dropping Muhammad Ghous and Stuart Mills in favor of Bhim George and Amir Nanjee. USA struck an early blow by removing Perkins’ opening partner Justin Guillen for 9 as part of a wicket maiden over by Anand Tummala to make it 10 for 1 after two overs.

Perkins started to launch his prolonged assault in the next over as 18 runs were scored off George Adams. Tummala took his second in the sixth when Daren Ganga was caught for 7 to make it 48 for 2. That only served to accelerate the scoring rate though as Mohammed entered and put on 95 runs for the third wicket with Perkins. The two were particularly harsh to Samarth Shah, hitting the left-arm spinner for three sixes in the 12th over, and off-spinner Hussain Haidar who gave up 18 runs in the 14th.

Perkins was finally run out for 85 in the 15th over, but T & T was well on track to posting an insurmountable total with the score at 143 for 3. Jignesh Desai pinned Denesh Ramdin for 3 in the 17th to make it 151 for 4 but Mohammed reestablished control for T & T by plundering Amir Nanjee for three fours and two sixes as part of a 27-run 18th over.

Two more sixes were struck off Desai in the following over, but Desai also struck twice by having Sherwin Ganga and Navin Stewart caught off consecutive deliveries to end the 19th to make it 198 for 6. Mohammed was bowled by Adams for 87 two deliveries later, but a boundary by Samuel Badree took T & T past 200 and they added a few more runs to finish on 207 for 7 in 20. Tummala and George were the only two bowlers who walked away with somewhat respectable figures of 2 for 24 and 0 for 27 respectively in their four-over spells. The other six bowlers used all went for at least 10 per over.

Akeem Dodson and Andy Mohammed opened the chase for USA, but both men were dismissed by Badree for 5 as USA stuttered to 18 for 2 in the fifth over. Quasen Alfred didn’t fare much better, out for 8 to give Badree his third. Nanjee and Desai put on 20 runs for the fourth wicket, USA’s highest partnership in the game before Nanjee got out for USA’s top score on the day with 33, caught behind by Ramdin off the bowling of Stewart to make it 57 for 4 in the 11th. George was run out two runs later without scoring as USA sunk even lower at 59 for 5.

Leg-spinner Imran Khan offered no respite and nabbed his first wicket when Tummala gave him a return catch for 8 in the 15th over to make it 73 for 6. In the 17th, Khan wrecked USA with three wickets in five balls, including a stumping off a wide, to make it 86 for 9. Haidar and Shah held on for the last three overs to prevent USA from being bowled out as they finished on 96 for 9. That makes it twice in two days that USA has failed to reach 100 as a team and the task does not get any easier against a Hamid Hassan led Afghanistan attack on Saturday.

Earlier on Friday, Canada defeated Afghanistan by 4 wickets as Hamza Tariq was named Man of the Match for the second game in a row, this time for scoring 33 not out in 18 balls, including a single off the final ball of the 20th over to win the match. USA plays Afghanistan at 11 a.m. EST on Saturday while Canada plays Trinidad & Tobago at 3 p.m. to finish the Twenty20 portion of the 2011 Etihad Summer Cricket Festival.