USA Cricketer : Abhimanyu Rajp

USA Cricket: Bermuda spoils Bartley century with 2-wicket win to end USA's 11-match winning streak

openingbat — Sat, 30 Mar 2013 05:02:00 GMT

Now, you can get all the USA Cricket updates via Facebook. Also follow us on Twitter via @dreamcricket

By Peter Della Penna in Lauderhill, Florida (on Twitter)

DreamCricket.com's coverage on site from Florida for the three-match 50-over series between USA and Bermuda is sponsored by New Inning Foundation.

Scorecard powered by New Inning Foundation I Match Commentary

USA allrounder Barrington Bartley scored a thrilling century that was trumped by one from Bermuda’s David Hemp as the visitors knocked off the hosts by two wickets with two balls to spare in the third and final 50-over trial match on Friday at the Central Broward Regional Park in Lauderhill, Florida. Bartley’s 111 not out off 65 balls catapulted USA to 284 for 6 but Hemp’s cool and composed 103 off 114 steered Bermuda toward victory. It was USA’s first loss since a Twenty20 defeat at the hands of Canada in November in Florida.

"When I went in there were almost 31 overs gone and for me to come out and score a century, I really feel pleased with myself and pleased with my performance," Bartley said after the match.

USA won the toss and elected to bat first, making seven changes from the team that beat Bermuda on Thursday. Steven Taylor entered the lineup and captained USA on the day and was joined by Bartley, Timothy Surujbally, Abhimanyu Rajp, Japen Patel, Naseer Jamali and Adil Bhatti in the starting lineup. Making way for them were Akeem Dodson, Sushil Nadkarni, Rashard Marshall, Elmore Hutchinson, Muhammad Ghous, Neil McGarrell and Timroy Allen. The only two members of the 21-man squad not to play in any of the three 50-over matches were Danial Ahmed and Ryan Corns.

Taylor and Surujbally opened for USA but their partnership only lasted 17 balls as Surujbally registered an eight-ball duck, caught driving loosely in the air to Dennico Hollis on the point boundary off the bowling of Malachi Jones to make it 5 for 1. Steve Massiah entered and with Taylor added 26 for the second wicket before Taylor struck a low full toss of the toe of the bat back to Janeiro Tucker for a return catch to be dismissed for 24, making it 31 for 2 in the 10th.

Massiah was joined by Aditya Thyagarajan and the pair demonstrated conservative running in their partnership, adding just 14 runs across 6.5 overs before Massiah was given out LBW for 12 off 29 balls to 15-year-old left-arm spinner Delray Rawlins for the second time in the week. Josh Dascombe entered with the score at 45 for 3 in the 17th and was part of a 50-run partnership for the fourth wicket with Thyagarajan as the pair stabilized the innings by knocking ones and two around the ground off of Bermuda’s spinners.

Dascombe was dropped on 22 by Lionel Cann at long off as the fielder turned a catch into a boundary. However, Dascombe was unable to make the most of his reprieve, dismissed two balls later when he played over the top of a full delivery from offspinner Jacobi Robinson and was bowled to make it 95 for 4 with one ball remaining in the 30th.

Bartley entered and in a harbinger of things to come got off the mark on his fifth delivery with a six over long on. He added 38 with Thyagarajan for the fifth wicket before Thyagarajan was bowled for 47 in the third ball of the 37th by Jones but not before the USA veteran fulfilled his reputation by digging his side out of a hole.

The platform laid by the grind it out partnership between Dascombe and Thyagarajan in particular allowed Bartley and Patel to play their shots freely in the latter stages of the innings. USA added 34 during the five-over batting power play from the 36th to the 40th overs to move to 164 for 5 before a startling acceleration in the final 10 overs in which USA added another 120 runs.

Patel stepped his foot on the gas pedal first, hitting two sixes and a four off medium pacer Greg Maybury in the 42nd. Bartley brought up his half-century in the 43rd over off 41 balls with his third boundary to go along with four sixes at that stage. Patel got out at the end of the 46th over, driving Tucker in the air to Samuel Robinson at long on for 40 off 26 balls, bringing an end to a 95-run stand at which point the score was 228 for 6 with Bartley on 75.

Image (right) - Barrington Bartley walks off the stadium pitch after scoring 111 not out off 65 balls against Bermuda. [Courtesy: Peter Della Penna/DreamCricket.com]

Bhatti came in at number eight and with Bartley put on an astonishing 56 runs in the final four overs. Bartley entered the 50th frame on 91 off strike, but a single off the first ball by Bhatti gave Bartley the chance to reach triple figures and he did so in style, crushing back-to-back sixes before ending the innings with his ninth sixth, this time over midwicket. Jones finished with 2 for 49 but with the exception of Rodney Trott, the rest of the Bermuda bowling unit was roughed up during Bartley’s rampage.

Bermuda was undaunted by the size of the target though and unlike the previous two matches when they stumbled after making a good start, this time they made the most of a strong platform set by the top order. Jason Anderson and Tre Manders added 30 for the first wicket before Anderson was caught behind by Taylor off Jamali for 13.

Hemp arrived at the crease and put on 59 for the second wicket with Manders. Abhimanyu Rajp broke up the pair inducing a false drive to Bartley at point to send Manders off for 26. Bermuda’s run rate hovered around five per over for most of their innings and the asking rate never got out of control as a result of Hemp’s efficiency at the crease. He was particularly useful picking balls off his pads through the leg side and brought up his half-century in 59 balls at the start of the 23rd over.

Hemp’s 70-run partnership with Tucker ended in the 34th over when Tucker fell for 25 after he skied a slog off Jamali that was taken on the run by Dascombe coming from long on to the edge of the circle. Hemp raised his century in 113 balls with consecutive fours cut through point off Usman Shuja in the 39th over. He fell one ball later to end the frame, caught by Bhatti at cover to make it 198 for 4 in 39.

With the set batsman Hemp gone and two new players at the crease, USA had a chance to take back control of the match. Shuja got Cann to offer a straightforward chance to Surujbally at deep midwicket on the second ball of the 41st over with the score on 211 for 4 and the batsman on 14. Surujbally got to the ball in plenty of time but grassed the chance and instead of having five men down, Bermuda went on to take 14 off the over in what was the turning point in the match. Rather than nipping the partnership in the bud and ending the stand at 13, Cann and Jones added 54 runs together before Cann got out for 35 in the 45th, well caught at long on by Thyagarajan off Bhatti to make it 252 for 5.

Bhatti struck again in the 47th, getting Jones caught by Dascombe at midwicket for 29 to leave the door ajar for USA to rally back. Jacobi Robinson ended any hope of that happening though with two boundaries to lead off the 49th over bowled by Dascombe. Bermuda entered the final over with one run needed to win and despite a pair of hiccups with the loss of Trott and Jekon Edness, Robinson hit the winning run with an edge to third man. Bhatti finished with USA’s best figures on the day, taking 2 for 17 in two overs while Rajp was the most economical with 1 for 34 in 10.

USACA is expected to announce the squad for 2013 ICC WCL Division Three next week. The final 14 are tentatively scheduled to arrive in Bermuda on April 25, three days before their first match of the tournament. USA will play Italy, Nepal, Oman, Uganda and the host side in a round-robin event with the top two teams advancing to the 2014 ICC World Cup Qualifier in New Zealand.

USA Cricket: Taylor creates history with USA's first T20 100, hosts move to 7-0 at 2013 ICC Americas T20

openingbat — Sat, 23 Mar 2013 07:31:00 GMT

Now, you can get all the USA Cricket updates via Facebook. Also follow us on Twitter via @dreamcricket

By Peter Della Penna in Cooper City, Florida (on Twitter)

DreamCricket.com's coverage on site from Florida at the 2013 ICC Americas Division One Twenty20 tournament is sponsored by New Inning Foundation.

Scorecard vs. Bermuda I Scorecard vs. Bahamas I Match Commentary

USA batsman Steven Taylor became the first USA player to score a Twenty20 century on Friday afternoon at Brian Piccolo Park, notching 101 off 62 balls to lead USA to victory over Bermuda by 48 runs on Duckworth-Lewis Method at the 2013 ICC Americas Division One Twenty20 tournament. USA’s win was their seventh in seven matches this week and clinched both the tournament title for them as well as a spot in the 2013 ICC World Twenty20 Qualifier this November in the UAE.

Image (above) - Steven Taylor watches the ball sail over the rope for his sixth six to bring up USA's first T20 century. [Courtesy: Peter Della Penna/DreamCricket.com]

“We just came out with a positive approach,” Baker said. “We knew it was Bermuda and it’s our last big chance at them. We wanted to crush them. We didn’t want to just win, but win big. We went out and give it our best and we come out today with a big win again.”

In the process of reaching his ton, Taylor broke his own USA record score in T20 cricket which was 95 against Cayman Islands on the first day of this tournament. Taylor is now the leading scorer in the event with 286 runs, well ahead of Bahamas’ Marc Taylor who has 228.

“It felt good because I was very disappointed in myself not getting the first hundred,” Taylor said. “I ought to have two. I was glad to get my first hundred.”

USA won the toss and elected to bat first against Bermuda as Timothy Surujbally and Saqib Saleem sat out while Elmore Hutchinson nursed a groin strain sustained in morning warm-ups. The match began after an 11-minute rain delay before Taylor and Akeem Dodson opened for USA on a placid wicket. Play was halted briefly in the second over with USA on 21/0 for an 18-minute rain break before the match resumed.

Keeping their focus in the face of the spitting rain, Taylor and Dodson produced USA’s best first wicket partnership of the tournament, 68 runs in just 5.5 overs. Dodson finished with 23 off 15 balls before he was out caught on the cover boundary off the bowling of Janeiro Tucker. Taylor added 46 with Nicholas Standford and brought up his 50 in 34 balls during their stand. Standford scored 18 and was dismissed leg before missing a sweep against Jacobi Robinson. Barrington Bartley lasted just three balls, bowled for 4 by Malachi Jones in the 14th.

Image (right) - Taylor's innings started with rain drops falling around him as he took on Bermuda's bowling unit. [Courtesy: Peter Della Penna/DreamCricket.com]

Taylor was joined by Baker and the pair generated USA’s second half-century stand of the match, 50 runs for the fourth wicket to tie a fourth-wicket record partnership for USA in T20 cricket held by Baker and Aditya Mishra against Namibia in 2012. Baker worked at giving Taylor the strike and with four overs left, Taylor was 25 away from the magic three figures.

Taylor had the strike for all but one delivery of the 17th but could only manage a three off the first ball before dots piled up in the rest of the over. His frustration was evident as he attempted an unsuccessful reverse sweep on the final ball in an effort to get unstuck. However, a full toss from Maybury three balls into the 18th disappeared over midwicket and got the wheels turning again for Taylor. After a two and a three on the next two balls, he entered the 19th over on 89.

In USA’s first match of the tournament, Taylor was caught on the boundary for 95 against Cayman Islands as he tried to bring up a century with a six. This time he was the beneficiary of some good fortune when a chance at long off on 89 was spilled by the sub fielder Sam Robinson over the boundary line for a six to take Taylor to 95. Later in the over, he went for the glory shot and this time succeeded, striking his sixth six wide of long on to bring up triple figures in just 61 balls.

Taylor was finally dismissed on his next delivery, bowled by Jones to start the 20th, but not before he took USA to an easily defendable position of 184 for 4. Tucker was the only bowler who avoided Taylor’s wrath, finishing with 1 for 19 in four overs. Every other Bermuda bowler went for at least nine runs per over.

Image (left) - Taylor punches through the off side after the sun came out. [Courtesy: Peter Della Penna/DreamCricket.com]

The pitch stayed in good shape for the start of Bermuda’s chase. After a blip at the start of their innings with the loss of Lionel Cann for 10, Bermuda was ahead of the asking rate after four overs at 39 for 1. USA’s spinners worked to rein Bermuda back in. Ryan Corns got the momentum shifting back USA’s way with the first of his three wickets, David Hemp caught at deep midwicket for 2 to make it 40 for 2. Bartley foxed Dion Stovell to have the opener out stumped by Dodson for 26 to make it 52 for 3 after 6. Bermuda captain Stephen Outerbridge was caught at midwicket for 4 to give Corns his second. Corns then delivered the knockout blow, inducing a skied chance from Tucker to Japen Patel at long on and Bermuda’s top scorer was out for 27 to make it 79 for 5 in the 11th.

Abhimanyu Rajp took three wickets in five balls to accelerate the Bermuda tailspin. First to go in the sequence was Jones for 14, caught at deep midwicket by Jamali on the fourth ball of the 12th. Rajp opened the 14th over with wickets on back-to-back deliveries. Tre Manders top edged a pull to Corns at point before Rodney Trott slogged to Patel at long off on his first ball to make it 98 for 8. Rain returned in the middle of the 17th over and the umpires took the players off for the final time at the end of the frame. The match was unable to get restarted by the 6:30 p.m. cutoff time and with the par D/L score 161, USA was declared the winners by 48 runs.

“I’m very happy for all the guys,” USA captain Orlando Baker said. “We came here on a mission and we came through and supported each other from the day we arrived in Florida. As you can see, we’re 7-0 and we’re looking forward to the next game to go 8-0.”

Image (above) - Steven Taylor finishes a lofted straight drive to come within one shot of his century. [Courtesy: Peter Della Penna/DreamCricket.com]

Earlier in the day, USA brushed aside Bahamas with a 72-run win at the Central Broward Regional Park. USA won the toss and batted first, posting 187 for 4, their highest total of the week and second highest T20 score all-time for USA. Several players got starts but no one capitalized on them as Patel and Baker were co-top scorers with 32. The pair featured in USA’s highest partnership of the innings, 65 for the third wicket to set up USA’s big total.

Bahamas made a confident start to their chase as Marc Taylor and Julio Jemison constructed the largest partnership by any of USA’s opponents this tournament, 62 runs for the first wicket in 8.3 overs. Bartley was the one to make the breakthrough for USA, getting Taylor to send Jamali a catch at long off for 30. Ryan Tappin was dismissed for a duck by Danial Ahmed six balls later and from there the Bahamas innings became unglued.

Jemison eventually finished 52 not out but the only other player besides the openers to cross double digits was Rudolph Fox at number eight with 13. Steven Taylor set the tone for his charmed day by recording a double-wicket maiden in the 20th over, his first over bowled of the tournament, as Bahamas finished on 115 for 8. Bartley was named Man of the Match after following his 25 not out with 2 for 21.

In the day’s other matches, Bermuda defeated Cayman Islands in the morning match at Brian Piccolo Park by four wickets. Suriname stumbled in the afternoon game at Central Broward Regional Park against Bahamas, who rebounded from the loss to USA by notching a six-wicket win.

Bermuda sits in second place at 4-2 after six games and can clinch the second available spot from the Americas for the 2013 ICC World Twenty20 Qualifier with a win over Bahamas on Saturday morning. Suriname is still mathematically alive for second place at 2-4 but needs Bermuda to lose to the Bahamas on Saturday combined with Suriname wins over Cayman Islands on Saturday and Bermuda on Sunday. In addition to that, Suriname would also need to close the net run rate gap with Bermuda. Cayman Islands sit in last place at 1-5. Should they lose both their remaining games against Suriname and USA, they will be relegated to ICC Americas Division Two.

USA has Saturday off before their final game against Cayman Islands on Sunday. DreamCricket.com will have live coverage of the match, sponsored by New Inning Foundation, beginning at 9:30 a.m. on Sunday.

“We’re here on a mission,” Baker said. “We’re 7-0 and we still got one more to go. Definitely we’re looking to go 8-0. We’re not easing up on no one. We’re not taking any team for granted.”

USA Cricket: 2012 ICC WCL Division Four Report Card Part 2 - Player Grades

openingbat — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 15:35:00 GMT

Now, you can get all the USA Cricket updates via Facebook. Also follow us on Twitter via @dreamcricket

By Peter Della Penna (on Twitter)

Click here for Part 1 - Team Grades

Player Grades

Sushil Nadkarni – A-: USA’s vice-captain finished as the leading scorer at the tournament with 238 runs at 47.60 and two half-centuries. His century stand with Steven Taylor to open the tournament against the host side set the tone for a solid event. He top scored for USA in three of the five games he played. His highest score, and the highest score at the event by a USA player, was his 84 in the group game against Nepal. If he had been able to bat to the end to score a century and take the team to victory, it would have been perhaps his greatest knock in a USA uniform, but he fell just short thanks to a spectacular catch by Binod Das at backward point.

Nadkarni’s fitness has waxed and waned over the last couple of years depending on the tournament. It was definitely waxing at this event where he looked much slimmer than he was at the ICC World Twenty20 Qualifier in March. Nadkarni and Timroy Allen were the only USA players who never looked tired while at the crease. He was a spritely fielder inside the circle as well, regularly flinging his body along the turf to save runs.

Image (right) - Sushil Nadkarni completes a cut shot against Malaysia. Nadkarni finished as USA's leading scorer for the second tour in a row. [Courtesy: Peter Della Penna/DreamCricket.com]

Steven Taylor – B+: The youngest player in the squad may have taken over the mantle from Nadkarni as USA’s most intimidating batsman during this tournament. He finished second overall in the runs list behind Nadkarni with 216 at an average of 36.00 and a strike rate of 104.85. He scored half-centuries against Malaysia and Singapore. The only game he really failed to get going was in the final match against Nepal where he made just 11.

While he had several explosive starts, Taylor somehow managed to get out just when he appeared set to destroy the opposition. He looked tired toward the end of the tournament, particularly in the ways he got out against Nepal so fitness may be something he should focus on, particularly if he is committed to keeping wicket. He finished with six catches and a stumping, but also missed two stumping chances.

Steve Massiah – C-: The reinstalled captain struggled to get going on a day when batting looked easy for everyone else against Malaysia, then looked even more out of sorts against spin versus Denmark. He made his highest score of the tournament against Nepal with 41 coming in at number five, but the batting order was mangled for that match to accommodate him after his early troubles against spin. USA wound up paying for it by the end of the match despite an 89-run stand between him and Nadkarni that put the team on the brink of victory. He finished as USA’s fourth highest scorer on the week with 121 runs at 24.20, but generally did less with more opportunities at his disposal than other batsmen.

In the past, Massiah has typically been one of USA’s most reliable fielders, both on the ground and in the catching department. At this tournament though, he looked a step behind, grassing three catches against Nepal and missing a golden opportunity for a run out early against Denmark. He was also responsible for a slow over rate against Denmark that prevented USA from using some of their more desired options later in the innings though he did well leading the side during a hectic second innings against Singapore by going to spin within a few overs after play resumed following a rain delay.

Aditya Thyagarajan – C-: USA’s leading scorer in 2010 had a lukewarm return from injury at this tournament. He top scored in the team’s warm-up match win over Denmark with 48 coming in at number four, but then managed just 35 runs in four innings during the live matches. He didn’t seem to respond well after being shuffled around the batting order to accommodate others, batting at three different positions for his four innings.

Image (left) - Aditya Thyagarajan in action against Denmark at the Selangor Turf Club. Thyagarajan had a rough return to the national team after missing more than a year due to injury, making 35 runs in four innings. [Courtesy: Peter Della Penna/DreamCricket.com]

He played for the team against Malaysia, going to slog after entering with six overs to go and wound up getting out for 2. He failed against Denmark, then got out cheaply again in a situation that appeared tailor-made for him with 10 overs to go against Nepal. His 21 against Singapore might not look special on paper, but it was part of a vital 59-run stand, providing the anchor at one end to allow Allen to swing away at the other. Thyagarajan also gets credit for his fielding. In a team full of butterfingers, he held on to three solid catches running in from the boundary and never dropped a chance.

Aditya Mishra – C-: Mishra was one of USA’s best batsmen in March at the ICC World Twenty20 Qualifier, but overall in this event he was inconsistent and mixed two decent innings with two failures. He provided a solid late boost against Malaysia scoring 25 off 14 balls and along with Taylor tried to score as quickly as possible against Tanzania to lift the team’s net run rate, which made a huge difference by the end of the tournament. He had two sloppy failures against Denmark and Nepal in the group stage and then threw away his wicket in the final against Nepal after getting a decent start. He’s a batsman who can be classified as a team player after being rotated into three different batting positions to suit the needs of the team, although it wasn’t always to great effect for him personally.

A greater cause for concern for him is his fielding. Along the ground he is okay and generally puts in some good efforts to slide or dive to save balls from going over the boundary. In the air though, he is poor at judging the flight of the ball coming off the bat and it leads to bad mistakes, such as when he ran in from the rope against Nepal for a chance against Paras Khadka only to see the ball go over his head before landing inside the rope and bouncing over for a boundary.

Orlando Baker – C: Someone who didn’t do a lot wrong, but didn’t set the world on fire either on this tour. Baker stabilized USA with help from Allen against Denmark after a middle order collapse, but the pair never got a proper chance to bring USA completely back into the contest once rain intervened. He failed after being thrust into the opening slot against Nepal in the group game and then was somewhat harshly dropped for it. Recalled for the final against Nepal, he showed that he still has some gas left in the tank by grinding out 39 to top score with Nadkarni in the defeat. He finished with 66 runs at an average of 33.00 on tour, USA’s fourth best average in Malaysia.

With the ball, he wasn’t used that much, but took three wickets in 15 overs, a strike rate that other players in the squad would have gladly traded for. He dropped two chances that came his way, a sharp one at square leg against Nepal and a reflex return chance against Malaysia. He also missed a chance to run out Subash Khakurel on 99 in the group game against Nepal and fluffed a stumping late in the final against Nepal after putting on the pads to relieve Taylor. The four misses by Baker summed up a forgettable tour in the fielding department for USA overall. However, the fact that Baker is willing to keep wicket if called upon in an emergency shows his unselfishness for the team.

Timroy Allen – A-: USA’s most dynamic player, Allen showed how much USA missed him last year in Hong Kong and again in the UAE in March. Came in with 15 overs to go against Malaysia and produced his best score in a USA uniform, 72 not out in 43 balls on his way to claiming the first of two Man of the Match awards in Malaysia. Allen topped the averages for USA in the event with 166 runs at 55.33. Had he come in at number seven with 11 overs to go against Nepal instead of number three in the fifth over of the chase during their group game, USA would have had a much better chance of winning that game.

Image (right) - Timroy Allen poses with his Man of the Match award after USA's win over Singapore that clinched a spot in next year's ICC WCL Division Three in Bermuda. [Courtesy: Peter Della Penna/DreamCricket.com]

In addition to topping the batting averages for USA, Allen took the most wickets with 10 at an average of 19.80, although he was slightly expensive going at more than five runs per over. Allen also had more chances put down off his bowling than anyone else. USA’s fielders dropped six chances off him and that had an effect on his numbers across the board. In the field, he’s not as energetic as he used to be. He took one catch and put down a sharp one at gully in this tournament. In general he looks more reserved when it comes to throwing his body around, mindful of how he aggravated a back injury in Italy two years ago while diving to stop a boundary in a 10-wicket win over Tanzania.

Ryan Corns – C: When given an opportunity, Corns responded quite well. His stats might not say so, but he was a valuable niche player on tour and has plenty of room to grow into a position where he can be a solid all-rounder for USA in the future. Selecting him as the lone left-arm spin option ahead of Asif Khan was a bold move as Khan is a better pure spinner, but Corns justified the move with some handy performances and the tour did a lot for his continued development.

Batting wise, Corns did about as well as could be expected when thrust into a role he is not suited for, coming in late in the innings to slog quick runs batting at number eight. He finished with 45 runs in three innings at an average of 15.00, his best contribution coming against Singapore with 24 in a tight match. Fielding wise, he needs to work on his throwing accuracy. He is very energetic fielding at point, but dropped a chance and missed two run out opportunities, including a crucial one against Nepal when Subash Khakurel was on 22, before finally converting one against Singapore.

Elmore Hutchinson – B-: Quietly was one of USA’s better bowlers on tour. Hutchinson had the best economy rate for any of USA’s pace bowlers at 3.90 in 40 overs, the second most overs bowled by USA behind Muhammad Ghous. He sometimes had trouble locating his line though, bowling a team-high 14 wide deliveries that went for 19 wide runs out of the 62 wide runs USA conceded. He finished with six wickets, tied with Ghous and Shuja for second on the team.

With the bat, he had USA’s sixth best average on tour, 17.66. Hutchinson scored 53 runs in four innings and was used as a pinch hitter against Tanzania, coming in at three to slog some runs when USA was looking to boost their net run rate. He showed good athleticism overall in the field and despite only taking one catch, never grassed any and always showed tremendous effort and hustle to save balls from going over the boundary.

Image (left) - Elmore Hutchinson bowling against Nepal at Kinrara Academy Oval. Hutchinson was one of USA's better bowlers in Malaysia and finished with the second best economy rate on the team behind Muhammad Ghous. [Courtesy: ICC/Peter Lim]

Abhimanyu Rajp – C-: Rajp was dropped after three games, which may have mystified many back home as he was USA’s second best wicket-taker at the time behind Allen, but his economy rate was frightfully high for a finger-spinner. Rajp shined at the ICC World Twenty20 Qualifier because it’s a format where a bowler can get away with trading off runs for wickets. A 7.55 economy rate in that event looked okay next to 10 wickets, which was good enough to tie for the team lead. However, a 5.73 economy rate standing next to five wickets in Malaysia was not good enough. Rajp has a learning curve to adjust to in 50-over cricket. He must strike a balance between being economical and attacking for wickets.

With the bat, he was bizarrely asked to bat at number three in the final against Nepal in his only appearance at the crease and didn’t score. Fielding wise, teams aren’t afraid to take him on in the circle and he missed a critical run out chance against Andreas Lambert of Denmark, but in the air he is one of USA’s sure-handed fielders. He got official credit for two catches but also took two other very crucial ones as a sub fielder in a tense battle against Singapore.

Usman Shuja – C: Shuja was named Man of the Match in an easy win over Tanzania after taking 3 for 14. Overall though, he was very average. In the other four games he played against Singapore, Denmark and twice against Nepal, he took just 3 wickets for 116 runs. While he was economical against Denmark, he struggled to make the most of the new ball when conditions were in his favor in that match, taking 1 for 20 in seven overs. Entering the tournament, he had a phenomenal record against Nepal with 14 wickets in six games at an average of 11.86 and an economy rate of 3.25. In the two matches USA played against Nepal in Malaysia, Shuja finished with 1 for 75 in 12 overs.

Shuja had multiple chances dropped off his bowling in the group game against Nepal, but in general was just not as effective as he usually is. His batting has also been marginalized by the current management. This is the same player who rescued USA from 20 for 7 against Oman and took them to a remarkable two-wicket win at Division Three in Hong Kong last year by scoring 43 not out. He is good enough to bat at number eight, definitely no lower than nine but he was sent in at numbers 10 and 11 in this tournament and responded by batting down to that level, scoring 4 runs in three innings.

Muhammad Ghous – B: After going through a sophomore slump in 2011, Ghous has bounced back during his third year with the senior team to be a dependable performer. He had the best economy rate for the team on tour with 3.62 runs per over in a team high 48.3 overs. He can sometimes look lethargic when not a lot is at stake, but put Ghous in a pressure-packed situation and he is very hard to rattle. He was chiefly responsible for the shift in momentum during the second innings against Singapore. After batsman Chetan Suryawanshi flew out of the gate following the rain delay, Ghous reeled Singapore back in by applying outstanding pressure. It didn’t take long for dot balls to turn into wickets.

Like Mishra, Ghous reacts very poorly when the ball comes off the bat in the air and it can result in some angst for his fellow bowlers. When the ball travels directly to him though, he is a solid catching fielder. He put down a difficult return chance in the final against Nepal, but took two catches during the tournament. He finished tied for second with Shuja and Hutchinson by taking six wickets, but also had three chances dropped off his bowling.

Andy Mohammed – Incomplete: Mohammed played two matches, batting just once at number four against Singapore in the final group game. He entered in the 21st over in a situation that called for pushing the ball around for singles and doubles to rebuild in the middle overs after both openers had been dismissed. Instead, he kept trying to slog Singapore’s spinners for six. He succeeded once before being caught on the boundary for 10. Mohammed needs to show greater maturity and awareness of match situations to get more opportunities in the future. In the field, he converted a run out chance against Tanzania and had a brilliant diving catch against Singapore to spark USA’s fightback in the field.

Akeem Dodson – Incomplete: Dodson only played one match, scoring 3 against Singapore. He took one catch behind the stumps but also missed a straightforward stumping. Regardless of whether he was fielding inside the boundary or wearing a 12th man’s pinnie outside of it, no one brought more positive energy to the team when they were at the ground than Dodson. He’s eager to improve and his attitude demonstrates he has unwavering commitment to the team, supporting the squad wholeheartedly whether he plays no match or every match.

Click here for Part 1 - Team Grades

Coming up in Part 3 - Outlook for 2013 ICC WCL Division Three

[Views expressed in this article are those of the author who was present at all of the team's matches. If you have differing views or opinions, we respect those views and urge you to provide your feedback - both positive and negative - in the comments section.]

USA Cricket: Basant Regmi shreds through USA lineup once again as Nepal wins Division Four title

openingbat — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 12:26:00 GMT

Now, you can get all the USA Cricket updates via Facebook. Also follow us on Twitter via @dreamcricket

By Peter Della Penna in Kuala Lumpur (on Twitter)

Scorecard powered by the New Inning Foundation I Match Commentary

Left-arm spinner Basant Regmi took five wickets for the second consecutive match against USA to catapult Nepal to an eight-wicket win in the 2012 ICC WCL Division Four championship match on Monday at Kinrara Academy Oval in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Just three days after Regmi took 5 for 35 in a 32-run win over USA, he claimed 5 for 20 to help bowl out USA for 145 before Nepal chased the runs for the loss of two wickets in 28 overs. Not only was Regmi named Man of the Match, but he also walked away with the award for Player of the Tournament after taking a tournament-best 21 wickets in six matches at an average of 6.66 and an economy rate of 2.80.

“Mentally we thought we had some momentum going into the game from our win against Singapore yesterday but the end result was something different,” USA vice-captain Sushil Nadkarni said after the match. “I think it’s a combination of tiredness as well as the ability to play good spin bowling. I think the Nepal guys are good spinners and the guys in our team, some of them are more used to playing fast bowling than spin.”

USA won the toss and batted first on a day that was overcast to start with but turned clear and sunny as the match wore on. Nepal fielded an unchanged lineup from the win over USA in the group stage while USA made three changes to their starting eleven from Sunday’s win over Singapore. Aditya Thyagarajan was out injured while Andy Mohammed and Akeem Dodson were subbed out in favor of Aditya Mishra, Orlando Baker and Abhimanyu Rajp.

USA’s best partnership of the day went for just 39 runs as they looked tired and overmatched against Nepal’s fresh and energetic fielding unit. Steven Taylor opened the batting with Mishra but just as he did on Friday, Taylor fell in the fifth over to Sanjam Regmi, this time playing onto his stumps for 11 to make it 16 for 1.

Despite the fact that he was the only player in the USA squad who had yet to face a single delivery in a match on tour, off-spinner Rajp was bizarrely sent in to bat at number three. He lasted just six deliveries before edging medium pacer Binod Das behind to wicketkeeper Subash Khakurel for a duck to make it 17 for 2.

Nadkarni arrived and has he has done all tour long provided some stability to proceedings and built up a steady partnership with Mishra. They added 39 runs for the third wicket but just when it appeared they were steering USA out of trouble, Mishra skipped down the track and lofted Basant to Pradeep Airee at long off to go for 28. Steve Massiah came in and departed without scoring when he spooned a catch to Amrit Bhattarai at mid off to give Paras Khadka a wicket at 57 for 4 in 19 overs.

Baker entered and the veteran knuckled down with Nadkarni to grind out runs against the Nepal spin attack which was making excellent use of a turning track. They added 26 together before Nadkarni got out in uncharacteristic fashion, pulling left arm spinner Shakti Gauchan to Bhattarai at deep square leg for 39 to make it 83 for 5 in the 28th over. Nadkarni finished as the tournament’s leading scorer with 238 runs in five matches at an average of 47.60.

Timroy Allen joined Baker and the two built a methodical partnership to take USA to 98 for 5 when the batting power play was taken to start the 36th. Allen cracked the fourth ball of the over for a boundary, USA’s first since the 24th over, but on the very next delivery he was hit on the back leg in front of the stumps and given LBW for 10 to make it 104 for 6.

Ryan Corns entered at eight and fought hard with Baker to extend the USA innings through all 50 overs. He added 33 runs for the seventh wicket with Baker before driving Basant to Gyanendra Malla at cover to leave for 9 and make it 137 for 7. Two balls later, Baker tried to flick a short ball through the leg side and sent a leading edge back to Basant for 39 to put USA at 138 for 8 in 45 overs.

Basant removed Elmore Hutchinson for 2 with his second successful LBW appeal of the day in the 47th to make it 141 for 9 and then wrapped up the innings on the first ball of the 49th by winning a third LBW decision to claim Usman Shuja for 2 with USA all out for 145. Nepal’s innings in the field was especially impressive because they conceded just one extra, a leg bye.

Nepal had a brief hiccup at the start of the chase, losing Anil Mandal for 3 when he drove Hutchinson to Massiah at cover to make it 9 for 1 in the third. Khakurel was then joined by Malla and they added 93 runs for the second wicket as Nepal cruised toward the target. Malla played a free spirited and enterprising knock, successfully connecting on numerous reverse sweeps over the off side, including one that went for six, before crashing USA’s spinners down the ground for two more sixes. He brought up his 50 in 53 balls and eventually finished with 66 before finally perishing to the reverse sweep as Muhammad Ghous knocked back leg stump to make it 102 for 2 in the 20th.

Khadka entered and took just 8.2 more overs to finish the job with Khakurel. Khadka hit the winning runs through cover to finish 25 not out and cap an undefeated run to the tournament title. They’re the first team to go 6-0 at a World Cricket League tournament since the UAE did it at Division Two in 2011.

Image (above) - Some of the more than 100 Nepal fans in attendance celebrate with the players after Nepal received the World Cricket League championship silver. [Courtesy: Peter Della Penna/DreamCricket.com]

Both USA and Nepal now progress to 2013 ICC WCL Division Three in Bermuda from April 28-May 5. Denmark and Singapore stay in Division Four, which won’t be played again until 2014. Malaysia and Tanzania drop down to Division Five which is also due to be held in 2014 where they join Guernsey and Cayman Islands.

In the other playoff matches on Monday, Singapore beat Denmark in the third place game by five wickets after bowling them out for 83 at Selangor Turf Club. In the fifth place match, Malaysia beat Tanzania for the second day in a row, winning by five wickets after chasing down Tanzania’s 187.

USA Cricket: Denmark jinx lives on as USA loses by 56 runs on D/L Method

openingbat — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 01:26:00 GMT

Now, you can get all the USA Cricket updates via Facebook. Also follow us on Twitter via @dreamcricket

By Peter Della Penna in Kuala Lumpur (on Twitter)

Scorecard powered by the New Inning Foundation I Match Commentary

USA paid for a lethargic display in the field after sending Denmark in to bat, allowing them to rack up 244 for 9 in 50 overs, before a batting collapse saw USA go from 40 for 0 in the fifth over to 71 for 5 in 20 overs as USA lost by 56 runs on Duckworth-Lewis Method when rain stopped play in the 24th over of their chase on Tuesday at 2012 ICC World Cricket League Division Four in Kuala Lumpur. Denmark captain Michael Pedersen was named Man of the Match after top scoring with 59 off 69 balls. USA drops to 1-1 with the loss while Denmark stays unbeaten at 2-0.

The match was played at the Selangor Turf Club, the same ground where Singapore was bowled out by Nepal for 111 after batting first on Monday. Combining that knowledge with some overnight moisture in the pitch, USA elected to take the field first after winning the toss. USA was unable to make good use of the new ball though to justify the decision as Denmark openers Carsten Pedersen and Shehzad Ahmed grinded out 31 runs in 10 overs for the first wicket.

“What we talked a lot about this morning after losing the toss was obviously making sure we got through the first 10-15 overs when the ball was gonna do a bit and I think the openers did a really good job,” Michael Pedersen said.

Carsten should have been run out on 6 on the first ball of the ninth over with the score on 23 after Ahmed pushed a delivery from Elmore Hutchinson into the covers. Steve Massiah fielded the ball as both batsmen hesitated but his throw from 15 yards out bounced over the stumps at the striker’s end. Ahmed was finally removed for 13 by Usman Shuja at the end of the 10th, chipping a checked drive to Muhammad Ghous at mid on. Carsten kept plugging away until the 14th over when he was caught behind by Steven Taylor off Timroy Allen for 13 to make it 43 for 2. Despite scoring at only three per over, the openers did a very good job of seeing off the new ball to set the stage for a surge later in the innings.

Allen claimed his second wicket in the 18th when Rizwan Mahmood was beaten for pace and top edged a bouncer to Abhimanyu Rajp at midwicket for 7 to make it 57 for 3. USA failed to capitalize on a golden run out opportunity moments later in what would turn out to be a major turning point in the game. Number three batsman Andreas Lambert flicked a full delivery from Hutchinson into the on side and called for a run but his partner fresh to the crease, Freddie Klokker, was slow to respond and both men hesitated as Rajp swooped in from square leg. They finally committed to the run as Rajp fielded adjacent to the pitch and had a clear shot at all three stumps but his underhand effort at the non-striker’s end missed, which would have claimed Lambert on 9 and reduced Denmark to 58 for 4.

Instead, Lambert and Klokker produced the best partnership of the match, 65 runs for the fourth wicket as USA’s bowlers and fielders failed to exert any pressure from there on out. Lambert was methodical at the start of his innings, but played USA’s bowlers with relatives ease once he got set. He brought up his half-century with back-to-back fours off Ghous to end the 29th over, but got out on the next delivery he faced when he was beaten in flight by Rajp two balls into the 30th over and was stumped for 51 to make it 122 for 4.

Klokker teamed up with Michael Pedersen for a 45-run stand across 8.2 overs. Both players were particularly adept at using the sweep to USA’s spin bowlers. Klokker took some time to get going, playing just one scoring shot off the bat in his first 18 deliveries, but he then cruised to 39 off 48 balls before he nonchalantly walked across his stumps to paddle Rajp fine and was bowled behind his legs to make it 167 for 5 in the 38th. Rajp capped the over by bowling Aftab Ahmed for a second-ball duck and it appeared that USA had a chance of bowling out Denmark for under 200.

But just as they showed last year in Hong Kong at ICC WCL Division Three, Denmark will not fold easily and Michael Pedersen got excellent assistance from number eight Bashir Shah to build a 60-run stand in 8.4 overs. Michael brought up his half-century in 59 balls slogging Rajp for a six over long on to start the 46th. Shah smacked another six two balls later as part of an expensive 17-run over.

Image (right) - Denmark captain Michael Pedersen was named Man of the Match after top scoring with 59 in Denmark's win over USA. [Courtesy: ICC/Peter Lim]

It took Ghous to break the partnership, removing Shah for 19 when he drove to Aditya Thyagarajan at long on. Bobby Chawla was run out by Massiah for 4 with 10 balls to go in the innings and Michael top edged to Massiah in the circle off Orlando Baker to end the 49th. Denmark added seven runs off the final over to finish on 244 for 9, making them favorites to defend.

USA’s ragged display in the field was evident in the 32 extras they conceded, including 20 wides. Rajp’s three wickets were tops for USA, but they came for a costly 60 runs. Allen finished with 2 for 33 in nine while Shuja curiously finished with three overs unused in his quota after being USA’s most economical bowler on the day, taking 1 for 20 in seven.

At the start of the chase, it looked like the target was easily achievable as Taylor and Sushil Nadkarni got off to another explosive start. Taylor took a liking to opening seamer Henrik Hansen, hitting six boundaries off him in the 11 deliveries he faced from the bowler as USA finished the fourth at 38 for 0. The partnership ended in the next over though when medium pacer Aftab Ahmed had Nadkarni caught on the point boundary slicing a square drive in the air to Lambert who took a leaping catch to dismiss Nadkarni for 9.

After dominating the opening partnership, Taylor didn’t see any deliveries in the seventh and eighth overs as Massiah couldn’t turn over the strike to him. Taylor started the ninth over on strike, defending the first ball and missing a drive on the second before edging behind another attempted drive on the third ball to give Ahmed his second scalp. Taylor left for 30 in 24 balls and USA was now at 49 for 2. With dark clouds overhead and the possibility of rain looming, the second wicket gave Denmark an edge on the Duckworth-Lewis calculation which they never relinquished.

Thyagarajan came in at number four and scored 4 before being dismissed by the left-arm spin of Shah, taken at slip to make it 54 for 3 in the 12th. Aditya Mishra made 6 before he skipped down the track and was beaten in flight by Shah to be stumped, making it 64 for 4 in the 16th. Massiah finally perished for 15 off 48 balls, trapped in front by Shah to complete a destructive three-wicket spell for the spinner.

Allen and Baker entered and added 15 runs in 3.4 overs with level-headed batting, but thunder began to roll across the ground at the start of their brief partnership and shortly thereafter the rain arrived to put a halt to play. The showers stopped after about 20 minutes and the covers were taken off the field, but just when it looked like play would resume, heavier rains came back and didn’t cease for the next hour until the match was finally called off and a win awarded to Denmark.

Nepal sits alongside Denmark at 2-0 after defeating Tanzania by eight wickets on Tuesday, bowling out the African side for 82 before chasing the runs in 19.4 overs. Singapore moved to 1-1 with a 112-run win on Duckworth-Lewis Method over Malaysia. Singapore was in trouble at 35 for 4 until Christopher Janik and Munish Arora added 138 runs for the fifth wicket, Janik scoring the first century of the tournament with 106 off 144 balls to take Singapore to 230 for 9. Malaysia was then reduced to 91 for 8 before rain intervened.

USA now sits in fourth place on net run rate behind Singapore with identical records. Nepal is above Denmark on net run rate with both teams 2-0. Tanzania is fifth on net run rate and Malaysia sixth as both teams remain winless. All teams have a day off on Wednesday before play resumes on Thursday. USA will take on Tanzania at Kinrara Academy Oval. DreamCricket.com’s live coverage continues on Thursday morning from Kuala Lumpur at 10:30 a.m., Wednesday night in the USA at 10:30 p.m. EST, 7:30 p.m. PST.

USA Cricket: Allen fireworks too explosive for Malaysia in 70-run win for USA

openingbat — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 22:46:00 GMT

Now, you can get all the USA Cricket updates via Facebook. Also follow us on Twitter via @dreamcricket

By Peter Della Penna in Kuala Lumpur (on Twitter)

Scorecard powered by the New Inning Foundation I Match Commentary

A century stand by Sushil Nadkarni and Steven Taylor to open the match was followed by a scintillating knock by Timroy Allen to set up a 70-run win for USA over Malaysia at Bayuemas Oval on Monday at the 2012 ICC WCL Division Four tournament in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Allen was named Man of the Match after notching 72 not out in just 43 deliveries, a career high for Allen in a USA uniform, to take USA to an easily defendable 289 for 5.

“This is all a team sport,” Allen said. “The two openers gave us a solid start in order for me to go out there with an arsenal of shots, playing whatever shot I feel comfortable playing.”

Malaysia won the toss and elected to send USA in to bat on a hot and sticky morning at Bayuemas Oval. Usman Shuja, Akeem Dodson and Andy Mohammed were the three to sit out for USA while Taylor was asked to open the batting less than 24 hours after arriving in Kuala Lumpur and combined with Nadkarni to put on 110 runs for the first wicket.

For Nadkarni, it was a role reversal playing the anchor position in an opening partnership as Taylor took the initiative cracking five boundaries and a six straight down the ground in the first six overs to take USA to 37 for 0. Taylor brought up his 50 off 52 balls at the start of the 17th over when he guided his seventh boundary through third man to take the score to 90. He added two more boundaries before he was dismissed on a marginal LBW decision for 62 by off-spinner Suharril Fetri.

Image (right) - Sushil Nadkarni cuts through the off side in the middle of his innings vs. Malaysia. Nadkarni top-scored for USA in the match with 73. [Courtesy: Peter Della Penna/DreamCricket.com]

“We’ve always known Steve can get going pretty quick and he started doing that pretty regularly towards the end of the Dubai tour,” Nadkarni said. “Today when he started going, I quickly changed my role and wanted to support him.”

Steve Massiah joined Nadkarni and USA’s scoring rate slowed down as Massiah struggled to rotate the strike against Malaysia’s spinners with Nadkarni well set at the other end. Nadkarni brought up his half-century in 68 balls in the 25th over, pulling Hassan Ghulam over midwicket for his eighth boundary and then followed it up two balls later with a massive six to the same region.

Nadkarni got out hit wicket in the 36th over for 73 when he mistimed a hook shot against medium pacer Suresh Navaratnam. The ball hit him in the armpit and started rolling towards the stumps, but never actually touched. However, Nadkarni was slightly off balance in his follow through and took one hand off his bat to try to stay upright. In the process, the bat glanced the stumps to knock the bails off. That made the score 157 for 2 and set the stage for Allen to get promoted up the order and put on a destructive display to demoralize Malaysia after they looked like they were clawing back into the match.

Massiah was on 8 off 43 balls when Allen joined him at the crease and seemed to be spurred to find the gaps better when Allen arrived, scoring 25 off his final 25 deliveries. Allen crushed the third delivery he received from Navaratnam over long on for his first six, then did it again to Navaratnam off his eighth delivery to set the tone for what would come throughout the rest of his knock. Spinners were no match for Allen either as he dispatched left-arm orthodox bowler Shahrulnizam Yusof for a monstrous six in the 39th over that hit three quarters of the way up a 10-story viewing tower behind the bowler.

Massiah was dropped on 13 at mid off by Hiran Ralalage to keep the partnership alive and a few overs later Allen teed off on Yusof even further in the 43rd, crushing a four and two sixes over long on to bring up the half-century stand. Massiah hit his first and only six an over later as he finally looked ready to accelerate but then got out two balls later on the deep midwicket boundary for 33 to make it 227 for 3 after 44.

Aditya Thyagarajan got out second ball for 2 trying to clear the man at long off to give Yusof a wicket and make the score 229 for 4. Aditya Mishra arrived but Allen had crossed while the ball was in the air on the dismissal and proceeded to continue his demolition of Yusof with two more boundaries to bring up his half-century in just 30 deliveries and then capped the over with his sixth six into the sightscreen.

Image (left) - Timroy Allen raises his cap to the USA bench after reaching his half-century off just 30 deliveries against Malaysia. [Courtesy: Peter Della Penna/DreamCricket.com]

When Mishra finally got the strike he had no trouble keeping pace with Allen, using his feet repeatedly to the spinners with great success as he struck three boundaries and a six to finish with 25 in just 14 balls. He got out with seven balls to go in the innings just after the pair had raised a 50-run partnership in just 4.1 overs. Orlando Baker arrived and slogged one six over midwicket before finishing 7 not out while Allen walked off deservedly unbeaten with four fours and six sixes in his thrilling knock.

Malaysia suffered early damage in the chase as Allen and Elmore Hutchinson wrecked the top order to leave the host side at 21 for 3 in the sixth over. Allen had Rakesh Madhavan caught by Mishra at second slip for 4 while Hutchinson trapped Shafiq Sharif LBW for 1 and bowled Faiz Ahmed Noor for 5.

Malaysia captain Suhan Kumar Alagaratnam and Fetri then started a counter-attack with some excellent running between the wickets combined with elegant strokeplay by the captain. What initially looked like a cakewalk turned into a legitimate contest as Kumar flayed several short deliveries through the covers while USA struggled to build pressure and slow the pair down.

Alagaratnam hit his seventh boundary early in the 18th over off Baker to take him to 39 off just 47 balls before Baker spilled a return chance on the next delivery. However, Baker atoned two balls later when he drew a thin edge on a forward prod from Alagaratnam and Taylor took the catch to put USA back in the driver’s seat at 84 for 4.

Muhammad Ghous bowled with increasing precision after the first drinks break to strangle the scoring rate which aided USA’s cause further. A few overs later Abhimanyu Rajp was brought into the attack and he struck in his second over, getting Khizar Durrani to hole out to Thyagarajan at long on for 14 to make it 105 for 5 in the 27th.

Fetri kept battling though and with Navaratnam produced Malaysia’s second half-century stand of the match. The pair put on exactly 50 for the sixth wicket before Allen returned for a second spell during the batting power play and had Navaratnam caught by Mishra at midwicket for 28. Ryan Corns removed Hassan Ghulam for 7 to make it 166 for 7 and Fetri was finally dislodged by Rajp for 60 in the 47th to make it 198 for 8, but Malaysia managed to bat through all 50 overs and finished on 219 for 8.

Allen finished his all-round performance with 2 for 35 in six overs and was well supported with the new ball by Hutchinson who took 2 for 22. Rajp finished with a slightly expensive 2 for 51 in 10 overs. Ghous went wicketless but bowled a key spell to finish with 0 for 26 in nine overs.

In the day’s other matches, Denmark defeated Tanzania by 88 runs after posting 224 in the first innings while Nepal won by five wickets over Singapore after bowling Singapore out for 111 and chasing the runs in just 24.5 overs after a rocky start when they lost their fifth wicket for 47 runs.

USA plays Denmark on day two in Kuala Lumpur at the Selangor Turf Club. DreamCricket.com will have live coverage of the match with play set to get underway at 10:30 a.m. in Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday morning, 10:30 p.m. EST and 7:30 p.m. PST on Monday night in the USA.

USA Cricket: Abhimanyu Rajp's journey leads him from the land of Ludhiana to the USA National Team

openingbat — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 11:01:00 GMT

Now, you can get all the USA Cricket updates via Facebook. Also follow us on Twitter via @dreamcricket

By Peter Della Penna in (on Twitter)

It’s the second match of the 2012 ICC World Twenty20 Qualifier for USA and the game is five overs old when the captain decides to toss the ball to the debutant off-spinner. Under normal circumstances, it might be cause for feelings of nervousness to overwhelm a new bowler. Gripping the ball too tight could result in a half-tracker, clammy hands could cause the ball to slip out too early and result in a full toss, either ball probably winding up as a four or six for the batsman. Abhimanyu Rajp might have been a little nervous when bowling his first ball at the senior international level for USA, but he didn’t show it simply because he didn’t have the time.

“Normally you’re told, ‘You’re up next over,’ but Sushil didn’t do that,” Rajp said, referring to the moment his captain in the UAE, Sushil Nadkarni called his number. “He just tossed me the ball and said, ‘Abhi, come on.’ I was taken a bit by surprise so I didn’t have much time to think about anything.”

Moments later, Rajp landed one of his sharp spinning off-break deliveries right where he wanted it. The batsman, Italy’s Andy Northcote, played over the top of the good length ball and was struck on the pads.

“I think all of Abu Dhabi heard my appeal. As soon as I delivered that ball and hit Northcote’s pads I knew that I had him. That was really special.” It’s a moment Rajp says he’ll never forget, getting his first wicket on his very first delivery for USA. It’s just one of many special moments in the cricketing journey of Rajp.

Rajp was born in Ludhiana in Punjab, India, and like most kids took to the streets to play the game with his friends.

“When you’re growing up and you’re six years old, you don’t know who Sachin is or who Gavaskar was. You’re just playing for the fun of the sport. I had a good friend in my neighborhood and we were always just playing this game every day.”

One of Rajp’s older sisters says that as far as she can remember, she would always see him walking around with a cricket bat in his hands.

“When he used to go to the cricket camp, the willow bat used to be taller than him,” Milli Rajp said. “He was that tiny when he started.” While Rajp is known for his off-break deliveries now, he claims he began his cricketing career as a seam bowler who also kept wicket, but shifted to bowling spin in a fateful match while representing the Ludhiana Cricket Association in an U-12 tournament.

“We were playing on a pitch where the ball was turning square and our main spinner had finished all his overs,” Rajp said. “We wanted someone to spin the ball and I was keeping at the time. So I said I’ll take off my gloves and give it a try. I ended up being the second highest wicket-taker of that tournament bowling off-spin and that’s where I discovered I can spin the ball and should be a spinner and not a wicketkeeper.”

Rajp continued progressing through Ludhiana’s age group teams as a spinner. While his parents emphasized the importance of schoolwork, especially since his mother worked as an English teacher, both his mom and dad fully supported his cricket ambitions and paid for him to participate in summer cricket camps. Then in 1999, the family’s green card application was approved and in the summer of 2000 Rajp arrived in the USA as a 14-year-old.

But rather than have his cricket dreams dashed, they only seemed to grow stronger. The family settled in California’s San Fernando Valley with the cricket fields at Woodley close by in Van Nuys. Rajp joined Ventura Cricket Club the following spring and began playing with them for the next five seasons in the Southern California Cricket Association.

Image (right) - Abhimanyu Rajp bowls against Scotland at the 2012 ICC World Twenty20 Qualifier. [Courtesy: ICC/Ian Jacobs]

Rajp went to try out for the USA U-19 team in 2003 prior to the squad traveling to the ICC Americas U-19 tournament, but was ineligible for selection because he did not meet the ICC’s four-year residency requirement. In the meantime, Rajp got connected with Ashok Patel’s US Cricket Academy and began going on tours with them to the Caribbean which provided valuable learning experiences for him over the next several years.

“I played a lot on those tours and you learn a lot,” Rajp said. “A cricket player has all this knowledge about what to do and how to do it, but the main thing is when to do it, when to apply that knowledge to the best of your abilities. It was just about when to set what kind of fields, what works for what bowler and for yourself, how can you do better against this batsman, what kind of field you should set for him, basically trying to understand all aspects of the game. You have coaches there but it’s your first time getting exposure to real turf and real stadiums. We had not played in those kind of facilities in the USA. Playing in your age group, the best way you can learn is playing with other players who don’t know anything. For young players, that’s the best experience you can get. You don’t know anything and they don’t know anything so you’re all learning together and trying to understand the game as a unit and that helps a lot.”

Rajp also gives a lot of credit to former USA player Reggie Benjamin for coaching him and other youth players locally in Southern California when there wasn’t a lot of activity going on at the national level for junior cricketers.

“Having Reginald Benjamin on my side over here, who used to be one of the main youth guys when the youth movement started, he was always here and he’s the one who started coaching us with the help of Nazim Shirazi,” Rajp said.

In 2005, Rajp went to another tryout for the USA U-19 team and this time managed to be selected. However, there was a lot of doubt whether or not he would get to play any games for USA since USACA had just been suspended by the ICC and the U-19 team’s participation at the ICC Americas tournament was in doubt.

“The communication was very hazy at that time. Nobody knew whether we were gonna go or not. A week before the tour we found out it was on. We’re going. The tickets are coming. The tickets came a couple days before we had to fly and then we went to Canada.”

Despite the hectic leadup to the tournament, Rajp says the team felt okay about their chances entering the first day of the 2005 ICC Americas U-19 tournament against defending champions Canada because most of the USA players had played with each other on the US Cricket Academy tours.

“The camaraderie had started a lot earlier than the 2003 tour so by 2005 everybody had a good idea of who was capable of what,” Rajp said. “When we landed, we basically had one day of practice and it was basically for the guys people hadn’t seen before and for the coach Larry Gomes to find out who was gonna be the off-spinner, the leg-spinner, the batsmen, the slip fielder.”

USA defeated Canada in the first match by 39 runs and never looked back on an undefeated run to the tournament title, clinching a spot at the 2006 ICC U-19 World Cup in Sri Lanka. Rajp was the standout bowler in Canada, taking a tournament best 11 wickets which included five-wicket hauls against Argentina and Bermuda.

In Sri Lanka, Rajp finished tied for the team lead in wickets with eight, which included 5 for 61 against New Zealand. Among the scalps he claimed in that match was future Test batsman Martin Guptill. USA also faced off against West Indies, Australia and South Africa in the group stage, whose squads contained numerous future senior international representatives including Kieron Pollard, Kemar Roach, Sunil Narine, Craig Kieswetter, Richard Levi, Usman Khawaja, Matthew Wade and David Warner.

“It was a real eye-opener for myself and my ability to bowl against the likes of David Warner and guys who are now at Test level,” Rajp said. “It was a surreal experience for us. By no means could we say we were better than them or as good as them in our ability, but we can say that if the players in the USA play every day like those players play then there is no reason why we can’t beat them. But because we are weekend cricketers, we got beaten at the end.”

“We were playing the West Indies with Kieron Pollard, Kemar Roach, William Perkins and we have them 8 for 2 in the first two overs and a dropped catch off William Perkins and we are feeling on top of the world because we are doing some major damage and after that catch was dropped [Perkins made 133]. Every game, we were in it for a certain amount of time because every team took us lightly. They thought, ‘USA? Who the hell is USA?’ but when we got on the field and started playing and started giving them heart attacks, that’s when they started getting serious that this is a team to be reckoned with and they had to play with more responsibility and not think it’s just an easy 50 or easy 100. That’s when the game got away from us because their talent was better than ours but our determination was probably better than theirs to get them to those points in those games.”

“If you analyze all three of those group games, we had 140 in 25 overs for the loss of two wickets against West Indies. What more do you want from an Associate team chasing 300? That doesn’t happen. South Africa we had them 101 for 5. We needed two more quick wickets and we could’ve had them out for 150. Australia we scored [148] against them and we had them 53 for 4 so a couple more wickets and we might have had them, but almost doesn’t count. That goes to show that we only played weekends. If we played every day, we could have beat some of these guys.”

Rather than be demoralized about losing all but one match in that tournament, Rajp says he came out of it gaining more confidence from the experience because of those moments when USA was able to stand toe-to-toe with the heavyweights.

“The one thing I took away from that tournament was that we belonged. We can do it at that level. Every time I think about that tournament, it’s made me realize that yes I can do it. I can bowl against these guys and get them out. I can get a five-wicket haul at a World Cup stage against a Test nation. I can do good.”

Despite his personal success at the junior level in Sri Lanka, Rajp had to bide his time before breaking into the USA senior side. He stayed on the outside looking in for six years and says he kept his spirits high after receiving encouragement from several national team players.

Aditya Thyagarajan, who has been a teammate with Rajp on South West Region teams and plays against Rajp’s Cosmos CC side regularly in the SCCA Division One competition, says that Rajp has become a more complete bowler in recent years after altering his approach to batsmen at the senior level compared to what he was doing at the Under-19 level.

“Over the last two or three years he has really improved and he’s understood the value as an off-spinner to bowl the ball consistently on one spot,” Thyagarajan said. “Like any talented youngster, he was trying to take a wicket every ball and that just doesn’t work at the senior level, especially when you’re an off-spinner or finger-spinner. So I kept talking to him over the years about how you need to improve your consistency. I think over the last two years I really saw him take that advice really well and the results have been very clear.”

In 2010, Rajp was the leading wicket-taker in USACA national tournaments including 7 for 35 in one match at the USACA Western Conference tournament in September of that year at Woodley as he hovered around the national team selection radar. However, he was passed over for both of USA’s squads at ICC tournaments in 2011. Rajp tried to be philosophical about it and remained patient.

“I am the kind of person who does not keep any expectations. Any time I’m playing cricket, I’m not playing to get selected for another team. I’m playing to do well for my team on that day,” Rajp said. “I never went out and said, ‘Why are they not picking me?’ I always think that when the time is right, it will happen. I didn’t take it in a bad way when they didn’t call me or select me because in the back of my mind I was always thinking this is not my time yet.”

Rajp’s time finally arrived in March when he got selected to go to the UAE for the ICC World Twenty20 Qualifier. He delivered from the moment Nadkarni first tossed the ball his way against Italy right through to the end of the event as he finished tied with Muhammad Ghous for the team lead in wickets as both off-spinners took 10.

Image (left) - Rajp bowls against Italy in his first tournament match in a USA senior uniform this past march. [Courtesy: ICC/Ian Jacobs]

“I think Abhimanyu’s addition to the team has been fantastic,” Nadkarni said at the end of the ICC World Twenty20 Qualifier. “I think for a long time we had Ghous who made an impact as soon as he came into the team. Now I feel like we have another bowler who can support Ghous and who is a wicket-taking option so I think Abhimanyu is a great addition to the team.”

Although he had the experience of playing against future Test players at the ICC U-19 World Cup in 2006, Rajp says playing in the ICC World Twenty20 Qualifier was a completely different experience.

“It was a real eye-opener. The level of competition is so much harder and higher than what we’re accustomed to playing in US club cricket culture,” Rajp said. “You have to be on the ball from ball one. There is no margin for error. You miss and they hit.”

“When you are coming in to bowl you better bet on your eye that the guy who is batting in front of you is ready to launch your first ball for six. If you are coming in to bat, you can bet that the first ball is either coming at your head straight to take your helmet off or to break your toe off. The intensity and focus that’s required is so much higher than you’re used to. You have to be completely focused.”

“I learned a lot from bowling against almost everybody. The quality of opposition that we were playing was obviously great quality. Bowling against them, every game I was learning more and more stuff about my bowling and how to bowl to such batsmen as Ed Joyce and Kevin O’Brien. I’ve never in my whole life bowled around the wicket. It was the first time in my life bowling around the wicket to Kevin O’Brien because I had taken the advice from Robin Singh and Mark Johnson telling me to try to come around the wickets to see if the batsman has a little tough time against you with those angles because I do get a lot of turn. That’s one thing I tried that worked and I never tried that. Small things like that make a huge difference at that level.”

Even though it was a Twenty20 tournament in March, the experience gained from bowling to players like O’Brien and Joyce will serve Rajp well as he gets ready to make his 50-over debut for USA at 2012 ICC World Cricket League Division Four next week in Malaysia. He continued his good overall form by claiming 3 for 33 in 10 overs in USA’s warm-up match against Denmark on August 30 and will look to keep it up in the live matches beginning on Monday against Malaysia.

While Rajp has experienced a tremendous amount of success on the field throughout his cricket career, he says none of it would have been possible without the support of his family. From the time he represented Ludhiana to his exploits for the USA at the junior and senior levels, they have been his biggest fans.

“Whatever I’ve achieved so far has been the blessing of my mom and my family,” Rajp said. “They’ve really supported me and helped me in a way that a family can. My dad, my mom, my sisters have been really influential in my whole life.”

Away from cricket, Rajp graduated from California State University, Northridge in 2010 with a degree in finance and began working for biotech company Amgen that same year at the company’s headquarters in Thousand Oaks. He also has a singing alter ego, recording under the name Musafir Ludhianvi as part of Suvah Entertainment whose other members include Brainstorm and Apartment E. The songs are sung in Punjabi and Hindi.

“Musafir Ludhianvi means a lone traveler from the land of Ludhiana,” Rajp says. “It’s a fun thing. I write my own songs and I sing. I’m not a good singer, I’m ok and the producers help me out a lot. We spend one day a week, we have a dedicated day that we go into the studio and have our sessions, whether it’s studio recording or writing lyrics or working on tracks or perfecting a track. All of us work. All of us have other commitments plus music doesn’t pay. It’s something that we are passionate for. Other than cricket, there’s another passion I have which is singing.”

Rajp became a US citizen in 2007 and while his music is a way for him to maintain a strong connection to his Indian roots, he is proud to be able to represent the USA on the cricket field. He’s still just 26 and if he continues the strong start he had for the senior team earlier this year, he could be representing USA on the cricket field for many years to come.

“Obviously this country has given me a lot so I owe a lot to this country, from cricket to making me as a person who I am today,” Rajp said. “You don’t get some of these opportunities back in your motherland, although I do love my motherland, but there’s pros and cons to everything. I still love India but there’s a lot that I owe to the USA and I’m very grateful that I’ve landed here and gotten through so many different feats in my life in the United States. Being able to represent the United States is also a privilege and an honor and a gesture for me to give something back to this country also by doing good for this sport in this country for this country. It’s my country and that’s what I want to do.”

USA Cricket: USA beats Denmark by 4 wickets in Malaysia warm-up fixture

openingbat — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 17:37:00 GMT

Now, you can get all the USA Cricket updates via Facebook. Also follow us on Twitter via @dreamcricket

By Peter Della Penna in (on Twitter)

USA exercised some mental demons on Thursday in Kuala Lumpur when they defeated Denmark by four wickets in a warm-up fixture at Royal Selangor Club ahead of 2012 ICC WCL Division Four, which starts Monday in Malaysia. In January 2011, USA lost twice to Denmark at ICC WCL Division Three in Hong Kong, failing to chase targets of 194 and 241, but on Thursday they were set 173 to win and managed to get across the line with 15 overs to spare.

USA won the toss at Royal Selangor Club and sent Denmark in to bat. The three players in USA’s squad who didn’t participate in the warm-up are the three players still yet to arrive in Malaysia: Aditya Mishra, Usman Shuja and Steven Taylor. However, USA’s victory without them will give the squad a big confidence boost knowing that they won without three players who will almost certainly be in USA’s first choice starting XI come Monday, September 3 in USA’s first match of the tournament against Malaysia.

Denmark’s highest score off the bat came from opener Shehzad Ahmed, who made 25 off 62 balls, as no one was able to go on to make a significant score after getting a start. The biggest partnership of the innings for Denmark was 47 runs for the second wicket between Ahmed and Anders Lambert, who made 22. It was broken by Muhammad Ghous, who had Ahmed caught behind by Akeem Dodson, one of three dismissals completed by the wicketkeeper.

The second high score in the innings for Denmark came from extras with 24, including eight byes. USA’s bowling attack turned in a solid combined performance. Playing in his first match in a USA uniform since July 2011, Timroy Allen opened the bowling and took 2 for 37 in 10 overs with three maidens. Left-arm seamer Elmore Hutchinson finished with 0 for 18 off six and Orlando Baker took 1 for 26 in seven.

In the spin department, Ghous claimed 1 for 25 in 10 overs while fellow off-spinner Abhimanyu Rajp finished with USA’s best figures on the day, taking 3 for 33 off 10 including the wickets of Lambert and Denmark captain Michael Pedersen. USA captain Steve Massiah took 2 for 15 in six overs while Ryan Corns bowled one over, taking 0 for 7. Denmark was 74 for 1 at one stage but lost wickets at fairly regular intervals from there on out, eventually getting bowled out on the final ball of the innings for 172.

Dodson and Sushil Nadkarni opened the batting for USA. The side stumbled at the start of the chase when Dodson was dismissed for a second-ball duck followed six balls later by the departure of Massiah for 5 to put USA in an early hole at 11 for 2 in the third over.

Aditya Thyagarajan joined Nadkarni and the two veterans steadied the ship for USA by adding 74 for the third wicket. Nadkarni scored at the quicker pace, eventually finishing with 41 off 36 balls, including five fours and three sixes before he was dismissed by Hamid Shah in the 15th over.

Image (right) - Aditya Thyagarajan file photo. [Courtesy: Bryan Vandenburgh/ICC]

Corns came in and scored 12 off 29 at number five before he was bowled by Henrik Hansen to make it 110 for 4 at the start of the 23rd. Thyagarajan, playing in his first match for USA since getting injured against Denmark in Hong Kong last year, fell just short of a half-century when he was caught behind off Hansen for 48 off 78 balls, including seven fours and a six, to make it 133 for 5.

Baker fell LBW for 11 in the 32nd to leave the score at 151 for 6 and give Denmark a sniff at victory but Andy Mohammed and Allen erased any doubts with a 27 run-stand off just 19 balls to seal the match for USA. Mohammed struck four boundaries in his 18 not out off 20 balls while Allen clubbed two sixes, including one maximum that brought up the winning runs, in his short stay to finish 14 not out off 10 balls as USA sealed the win with 90 balls remaining.

DreamCricket.com will have live coverage for all of USA’s matches at ICC WCL Division Four beginning with the team’s first match on Monday against Malaysia from Bayuemas Oval. Each match is scheduled to begin at 10:30 a.m. local time, 10:30 p.m. EST and 7:30 p.m. PST the previous day in America.

USA Cricket: 14-man squad officially announced for 2012 ICC WCL Division Four in Malaysia

openingbat — Sat, 04 Aug 2012 21:05:00 GMT

Now, you can get all the USA Cricket updates via Facebook. Also follow us on Twitter via @dreamcricket

[Source: USACA Press Release]

USACA has announced a 14-man squad to participate in the 2012 ICC Pepsi World Cricket League Division 4 Tournament to be held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia from September 3 to 10, 2012. Along with USA, the other participating associate countries are Denmark, Malaysia, Nepal, Singapore and Tanzania.

The tournament will be round robin with each team playing each other once followed by playoffs and finals to determine rankings from 1-6. The top 2 finishers will be promoted to WCL Division 3 scheduled to be held in Bermuda from April 28 to May 5, 2013.

Looking for consistency and continuity, the selectors opted to retain a core of players that participated in the ICC Twenty20 World Cup Qualifier in the UAE in March and recalled five experienced players including Steve Massiah who has returned as captain.

The team is a good blend of experience and youth. However, undoubtedly, USA will be depending heavily on its younger players who have all come through the various regional youth programs and ICC U19 World Cup participation over the past six years.

USA is expected to arrive in Malaysia on August 28 for practice, training and acclimatization prior to the start of the tournament on September 3.

USA squad: Steve Massiah (captain, New York), Sushil Nadkarni (vice-captain, Central East), Timroy Allen (South East), Orlando Baker (Central East), Ryan Corns (Central East), Akeem Dodson (New York), Muhammad Ghous (Atlantic), Elmore Hutchinson (South West), Rashard Marshall (New York), Aditya Mishra (North West), Abhimanyu Rajp (South West), Usman Shuja (Central West), Steven Taylor (South East), Aditya Thyagarajan (South West).

Coach - Robin Singh

Assistant Coach - Thirunavukkarasu Kumaran

Bowling Coach - Nasir "Charlie" Javed

Physio - Akhtar Masood Syed

Manager - Shoaib Ahmed

Video Analyst - Sriram Somayajula

USA Cricket: Why is USACA paying Robin Singh if he's having a "bad experience" working for USACA?

openingbat — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 08:27:00 GMT

Now, you can get all the USA Cricket updates via Facebook. Also follow us on Twitter via @dreamcricket

By Peter Della Penna (on Twitter)

Friday afternoon at the IPL, the Mumbai Indians team was on its way to defeat at the hands of the Pune Warriors when sideline reporter Shibani Dandekar pulled aside Mumbai Indians head coach Robin Singh, who also sometimes acts as USA’s “coach” and other times their “technical advisor”, for a brief interview in the 10th over of Mumbai’s failed chase.

After Dandekar got a few questions out of the way regarding the state of the match and the quality of Mumbai’s fielding unit, she threw in a question about USA cricket, which may have caught the eyes and ears of viewers in America.

“A little birdie told me that you also coached the US Women’s team for the qualifiers,” said Dandekar, referencing the squad that competed in November at the 2011 ICC Women’s World Cup Qualifier in Bangladesh. “What was that experience like?”

“Well that was pretty bad,” Singh blurted out. He may have been candid but he was also quite ungracious. However, the worst was yet to come.

“I think it was the first time I was doing women’s cricket,” said Singh. “It’s very very different. I mean, you have to drop your mental standards with them. It’s a total change. It’s absolutely different.”

Dandekar then tried to offer a chance for Singh to perhaps take back some of what he just said. “But you enjoyed it…” Dandekar responded back to him.

Singh took a few moments before offering a half-hearted and utterly unconvincing, “Yeah….” mixed in with a shoulder shrug. “I mean it’s different. You have to rethink how you strategize and so forth.”

Maybe it’s time for USACA to have a rethink about how to strategize their use of financial resources towards a “technical advisor” or “coach” who doesn’t sound terribly enthusiastic about being involved with US cricket and is ready to insult the intelligence of female players with what can only be characterized as sexist remarks. Singh saying he had to drop his “mental standards” when dealing with female cricketers implies they are intellectually inferior to male athletes he coaches.

I wonder what the female players and supporters of United States cricket have to say about that. It’s a cheap, pathetic statement one would expect out of someone living in the 1950s. The only amusing part about it is that it’s coming from the guy who sources have indicated was the brains behind sending Abhimanyu Rajp in to bat at number three against Ireland last month at the 2012 ICC World Twenty20 Qualifier in Dubai.

Let’s look at Robin Singh’s track record so far in US cricket:

- 1st place finish (out of six teams) with the USA U-19 team at the 2011 ICC Americas U-19 tournament in Florida. The standard of competition was scraping the bottom of the barrel at that event.
- USA U-19 is swept in a four-match series by West Indies U-19 in Florida last July.
- 7th place finish (out of 10 teams) at the 2011 ICC U-19 World Cup Qualifier in Ireland. USA fails to qualify for 2012 ICC U-19 World Cup.
- 8th place finish (out of 10 teams) at the 2011 ICC Women’s World Cup Qualifier in Bangladesh. USA fails to qualify for 2013 ICC Women’s World Cup.
- 12th place finish (out of 16 teams) at the 2012 ICC World Twenty20 Qualifier in the UAE. USA fails to qualify for 2012 ICC World Twenty20.

Singh claims that he had a “bad experience” with the USA Women’s team, but on the evidence above, it looks like USA Cricket as a whole has had a very bad experience with Robin Singh. Why does USACA continue to let him fleece their tiny bank account if he’s having a “bad experience” with US cricket?

Image (right) - Robin Singh [Courtesy: Peter Della Penna/DreamCricket]

He blames his experience with the US women’s team on having to drop his “mental standards” when coaching them. However, he also said that he had never coached women before. Clearly, this is an admission that he was unqualified and unprepared for the duties he was assigned to carry out in coaching the USA Women’s team in Bangladesh, yet he had no issues swooping into Dhaka like a vulture to snatch a paycheck from USACA. It’s also interesting to note that after Singh’s “bad experience” with the women’s team in November, he didn’t have any issues parachuting himself into the men’s touring party in the UAE last month to collect another easy paycheck as a “technical advisor”.

Let’s look at the results again: one success against substandard competition followed by four overwhelming failures. Each failure was worse than the previous one. Singh has shown no interest in coming to help players with practice and training on US soil prior to entering tournaments. Rather, he conveniently shows up on site as a tournament is about to get underway for a shameless cash grab.

Muhammad Ali once said, “The fight is won or lost far away from the witnesses – behind the lines, in the gym, and out there on the road, long before I dance under those lights.” Conversely, Singh and USACA’s administration feel they can cut corners to achieve success by sending teams to show up at tournaments with little or no preparation beforehand and just expect them to win. What was that again about dropping mental standards?

[Views expressed in this article are those of the author. If you have differing views or opinions, we respect those views and urge you to provide your feedback - both positive and negative - in the comments section.]

USA Cricket: 2012 ICC World Twenty20 Qualifier Report Card Part 3 - Outlook for WCL Division Four

openingbat — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 09:27:00 GMT

Now, you can get all the USA Cricket updates via Facebook. Also follow us on Twitter via @dreamcricket

By Peter Della Penna (on Twitter)

Click here for Part 1: Team Grades and Part 2: Player Grades

What the team needs heading into ICC WCL Division Four

Preparation: The following quote is taken from the report card that was written after the 2011 ICC Americas Division One Twenty20 tournament in July.

“When the team went to Dubai in 2010 for the last World Twenty20 Qualifier, they got to play two warm-up matches against the UAE before the tournament started and wound up finishing fifth after beating Scotland and losing to Ireland and Afghanistan. They’ll need something more significant in terms of preparation prior to leaving for Dubai to have any hope of finishing in the top two in next year’s qualifier. There is currently nothing scheduled for the men’s team between now and March when the Qualifier is due to be held so making plans to fill that gap in the calendar should be a high priority.”

If the USACA administration was able to arrange a four-match 50-over series in Florida for the USA U-19 team against West Indies U-19 before heading off to Ireland for last summer’s ICC U-19 World Cup Qualifier, the administration should have been able to make a few phone calls to organize some unofficial Twenty20 fixtures to be played in late December or early January in Florida against some of the West Indian domestic teams such as Jamaica, Guyana or Trinidad & Tobago for the USA men. West Indies A played a series of unofficial matches against Bangladesh A in November and something similar could have been designed for USA against one of the islands during the gap in the West Indies domestic calendar ahead of the Caribbean T20 tournament in January.

The administration failed to prepare the team for this tournament and as a result the team was prepared to fail. In the seven and a half months that followed USA’s second place finish at the ICC Americas Division One Twenty20 tournament in July, next to nothing was done. USA played three Twenty20s in Canada in August, but because USA was only confirmed to participate a week before the start of the Etihad Summer Cricket Festival, a B squad was sent to play in Toronto.

Of the players who participated for USA in the event against Canada, Afghanistan and Trinidad & Tobago, only two of them were picked in the 14-man squad to go to the UAE – Muhammad Ghous and Andy Mohammed – while Japen Patel joined as an injury replacement. For the other 12 players in the team that went to the UAE this month, the only matches they got to play together in a USA uniform between July and the first match against Uganda were three warm-ups in Sharjah a few days before the qualifier began.

Compare that to Namibia, who like USA is not one of the six ICC High Performance Program teams. Like USA, they played their ICC Regional Qualifier in July and finished second at the ICC Africa Division One Twenty20. However, they had a plan in place that resulted in an undefeated 7-0 record in Group B. When Scotland visited to play an Intercontinental Cup match and two 50-over games in September, Namibia arranged for them to stay an extra week into October so they could play five unofficial Twenty20s against each other. Scotland won four of the five, but the preparation and familiarity with their opposition certainly helped Namibia when they hammered Scotland at the qualifier.

Then, completely independent of any ICC tournament obligations whatsoever, Namibia hosted Kenya for eight unofficial Twenty20 matches in November. They won six matches and lost two, but most importantly got to try out various combinations and roles to see what worked best. Namibia also plays in South Africa’s provincial three-day and 50-over competitions, but they specifically sought out Twenty20 practice matches independent of that to get their players geared up for the qualifier and it paid off.

Conversely, USA’s administration sat on their hands. As a result, the coaching staff was trialing combinations and roles during the tournament rather than ahead of the tournament. It cost the team badly. Previous evidence shows that USA takes a long time to get into a good rhythm when they enter an ICC tournament which takes place in the northern hemisphere winter, outside of USA’s domestic club cricket season. They needed all the help they could get ahead of this tournament to get prepared. Instead, the administration thought that a three-day selection camp in January followed by a series of weekly conference calls before leaving on March 6 for the UAE would bring good results. USA’s 3-6 tournament record demonstrates what a folly that was.

Anyone looking to make excuses for USA’s performance at the qualifier by saying that it’s unfair to compare USA with the upper echelon Associate level teams is doing just that, making excuses. Entering the 2012 ICC World Twenty20 Qualifier, USA had beaten Scotland, Canada, Nepal, Italy and Hong Kong in either 50-over or 20-over matches since the start of 2010. Scotland finished fifth and Canada sixth at the qualifier. Nepal finished seventh, Italy 10th and Hong Kong 11th.

Image (right) - Aditya Mishra hits a six against Scotland in USA's seven-wicket win. If they can finish comfortably on top against Scotland, there's no reason USA can't stand toe-to-toe with any other Associate. [Courtesy: ICC/Ian Jacobs]

USA’s talent matches up well with any of those teams. Scotland played in the Intercontinental Cup final at the end of 2010. USA beat them convincingly at the World Twenty20 Qualifier in 2010 and they beat them convincingly at the World Twenty20 Qualifier in 2012. The fact is that USA’s players are talented enough and capable of competing with any team that was in the tournament, including Ireland and Afghanistan. However, that can’t be done by standing idle for seven and a half months while other countries are playing together regularly.

Selecting players for roles: One of the most amusing things to go back and read on the forums after the end of a match are comments left by fans and supporters that say something along the lines of, “Player X opens for his club/league/region team. Why is he batting at number seven for USA?” One of the only players who bats in the same role for his club/league/region as he does when he has played for the national team is Aditya Thyagarajan. Not surprisingly, Thyagarajan has had success playing in the middle order for USA because he is familiar and comfortable there due to the fact that he fills the same role for his club/region.

Every other player picked for USA opens or bats at number three for their club/league/region. Then they come to play for USA and are asked to bat at 5, 6, 7 or 8 and have no situational experience to draw upon. They are used to starting the innings and dictating the course of play. For the most part, they have no concept of how to respond when they enter at 30 for 4 or 40 for 5 when playing for the national team because they’ve never had to do it at club/league/regional level. They struggle and the team struggles as a result. More attention needs to be placed on picking players for roles. USA is guilty of this at U-19 level as well as senior level in terms of squad selection. It makes no sense picking eight opening batsmen when only two can play in that position for the national team.

Get people playing regularly on turf wickets: The vast majority of USA’s squad had limited international experience prior to this tournament. The vast majority of them also had limited experience playing on turf wickets. Two players who play on turf wickets on a weekly basis at Woodley in Los Angeles – Abhimanyu Rajp and Elmore Hutchinson – were two of USA’s most impressive players on tour despite the fact that they were making their debuts for USA. That’s no coincidence. USA’s batsmen in particular struggled and part of those struggles can be pinned on failing to adjust to turf wickets after playing virtually year round on artificial surfaces. It will continue to be this way until the administration makes infrastructure development a top priority.

Hire a full-time coach/team director: This was discussed in November, but it’s worth revisiting here. Just about every player had positive things to say about Robin Singh and his involvement with the squad. Singh was with the team during the warm-up and group phase, then flew back to India after USA’s final group match against Scotland. Everyone felt they learned something from him over the course of their time with him.

However, USACA is wasting precious funds by just throwing money at him to show up for two weeks and disappear again. USACA must bring him on board full-time and have him work with the various regions on a regular basis by developing programs geared to get everyone on the same page and he has to work with the national team inside the USA ahead of tours as well. It’s no use having him just show up at tournament time. He needs to be on site on a regular basis.

Hire a proper physio: Throwing a first aid kit bag over a USACA board member’s shoulder doesn’t count. The person USACA has been sending on every tour to be the team physio is licensed in the state of Illinois to be a Physical Therapist Assistant (PTA). He is not licensed to be a Physical Therapist (PT). According to the Illinois Physical Therapy Association, there is a very big difference between the two.

Physical Therapist

“Physical therapists must graduate from an accredited educational program with a master's or doctoral degree. After completing your education, you will be required to pass a licensure examination before you can work as a PT. Coursework includes biology, chemistry, and physics, as well as specialized courses such as biomechanics, neuroanatomy, human growth and development, manifestations of disease, examination techniques, and therapeutic procedures.”

Physical Therapist Assistant

“Physical Therapist Assistants graduate from a 2 year program, earning an associates degree from an accredited physical therapist assistant program. PTAs also must pass a licensure examination to work as a PTA. PTAs perform a number of physical therapy treatments and procedures as determined by the supervising physical therapist.”

There are plenty of 27 and 28-year-old newly licensed physical therapists fresh out of completing a master's or doctoral degree at university with the latest training methods in sports medicine who would give their right arm for an opportunity to work for a few weeks on tour for a USA national team in any sport. Many of them would probably do it pro bono as long as their expenses were taken care of. The selectors showed in January that they were keen to find some fresh blood to represent the team. With that spirit in mind, the same should be done for the next tour by bringing along a new fully licensed, freshly trained physical therapist.

A healthy Aditya Thyagarajan: If USA’s middle order man for all crises can return to full fitness after more than a year away from the national team, he would provide priceless stability to the batting. To give fans a reminder of what USA has been missing, here’s a look at some of Thyagarajan’s highlights in a red, white and blue uniform:

November 27, 2008: Enters match at 114 for 4, builds 119-run partnership with Rashard Marshall for the sixth wicket. Finishes second top score behind Marshall with 42 in total of 254 for 7 before eventual 86-run win over Bermuda.

Image (left) - Aditya Thyagarajan in action against Canada in 2008. [Courtesy: ICC]

November 29, 2008: Enters match at 59 for 4, builds 105-run partnership with Orlando Baker for the seventh wicket. Top score of 84 not out in total of 201 for 8 in USA’s eventual 81-run win over Canada.

February 10, 2010: Enters match at 11 for 5 in fourth over, builds 99-run unbeaten partnership with Orlando Baker for the seventh wicket. Top score of 72 not out in 78-run loss to Ireland at ICC World Twenty20 Qualifier.

February 23, 2010: Enters match at 55 for 5 in 23rd over, builds 118-run partnership with Carl Wright for the sixth wicket. Builds 80-run unbeaten partnership with Rashard Marshall for seventh wicket. Top score of 83 not out in USA’s 66-run win over Jersey.

February 26, 2010: With USA needing 163 to win in 50 overs, enters chase at 112 for 5 in 29th over. Builds 47-run unbeaten partnership with Sushil Nadkarni for the sixth wicket. Scores 18 not out in five-wicket win over Nepal amidst crowd rioting.

May 28, 2010: Enters match at 91 for 4, builds 213-run partnership with Orlando Baker for the fifth wicket. Top score of 159 in total of 347 for 6 in USA’s eventual 119-run win over Argentina.

June 6, 2010: With USA needing 101 to win in 20 overs, enters chase at 60 for 4 in 10th over. Builds 37-run unbeaten partnership with Carl Wright for the sixth wicket. Top score of 27 not out as USA wins ICC Americas Division One Twenty20 title over Canada by five wickets with nine balls to spare.

August 20, 2010: Enters match at 17 for 5 in fifth over, builds 84-run partnership with Lennox Cush for the sixth wicket. Builds 205-run unbeaten partnership with Rashard Marshall for the seventh wicket. Scores 102 not out in total of 306 for 6 before eventual 196-run win over Argentina.

Call him the Iceman, the Insurance Policy, the Stick of Glue… call him whatever you want, Thyagarajan was USA’s middle order. USA hasn’t been the same since he went down with a dislocated right knee against Denmark in Hong Kong more than a year ago at ICC WCL Division Three. He’s progressed enough in rehab to be playing club cricket for Hollywood CC in the SCCA, but he needs to get 100% fit and back into a USA uniform for ICC WCL Division Four. USA is a different team with him in the lineup and the younger players can learn a huge amount by observing him and the way he approaches each innings.

The return of Steve Massiah: Massiah has never been a good performer in Twenty20 cricket so it’s doubtful he would have caused a change in fortunes for USA had he been with the squad in the UAE. However, he still offers value to USA in the 50-over format. Now that his legal matter has been resolved, it opens the door for him to come back and bolster USA’s middle order for WCL Division Four.

With Massiah and Thyagarajan in the lineup, USA should feel more confident about its chances of progressing from Division Four - where they'll be up against Denmark, Malaysia, Nepal, Singapore and Tanzania - back into Division Three. The four teams in Division Three awaiting the two sides to get promoted from Division Four are Bermuda, Italy, Oman and Uganda. On paper, Division Four is going to be more difficult than Division Three. USA will need all hands on deck to progress out of Division Four and Massiah will be one of the players who has to step up.

Finding a wicketkeeper: Since 2010, USA has used Carl Wright, Orlando Baker, Ashhar Mehdi, Steven Taylor, Ritesh Kadu, Akeem Dodson and Nauman Mustafa in the specialist position. Taylor was forced into the role on this tour when it wasn’t the original plan, but he is not a long term solution and should only be used to keep wicket in emergency situations. Otherwise, Taylor should be playing as a specialist batsman.

USA’s handling of Mustafa on this tour was reminiscent of their handling of Durale Forrest in Hong Kong. The coaching staff killed Mustafa’s confidence by dropping him and handing the gloves over to Taylor rather than show faith in Mustafa after a rough first game behind the stumps against Uganda. Forrest didn’t even get the benefit of a game before his confidence was shattered. He had to watch as a 46-year-old assistant coach was added to the roster and walked right into the starting XI before he could even make his debut.

USACA has also done wonders to put a major dent in Akeem Dodson’s development. The 24-year-old won the Best Wicketkeeper Award at the ICC Americas tournament in July, but USACA sent invitations out to a half-dozen other wicketkeepers for January’s selection camp. Mustafa succeeded in knocking the incumbent out, but couldn’t cement his position once on tour and that caused a major headache for the squad during and after the tournament. It's highly likely that USA will be going back to the drawing board once again for a different wicketkeeper when WCL Division Four comes around after Mustafa's underwhelming performance in the UAE.

The bottom line is someone needs to step up to fill the role ahead of WCL Division Four. The wicketkeeper position figures to be one of at least two roster spots in the team up for grabs heading into the senior team’s next international commitment. Adil Bhatti might be able to fight off a few challengers to remain in the squad, but if Timroy Allen or Rashard Marshall show interest in recommitting themselves to the national team, they would be too difficult to pass up. Here’s a projected lineup for USA at Division Four with two roster spots left unnamed.

1. Steven Taylor
2. Aditya Mishra (vice-captain)
3. Sushil Nadkarni (captain)
4. Steve Massiah
5. Aditya Thyagarajan
6. Orlando Baker
7. Wicketkeeper - Up for grabs
8. Elmore Hutchinson
9. Usman Shuja
10. Abhimanyu Rajp
11. Muhammad Ghous

12th man: Ryan Corns
13th man: Asif Khan
14th man: Up for grabs

USA Cricket: 2012 ICC World Twenty20 Qualifier Report Card Part II - Player Grades

openingbat — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 22:47:00 GMT

Now, you can get all the USA Cricket updates via Facebook. Also follow us on Twitter via @dreamcricket

By Peter Della Penna (on Twitter)

Player Grades

Sushil Nadkarni – C: The captain was USA’s leading run getter in the tournament with 187 runs and had a high score of 59 against Oman. He was USA’s top scorer in four games (Uganda, Oman, Kenya, Bermuda). However, his string of three consecutive ducks against Italy, Namibia and Ireland crippled the team’s chances in those games. He got a good ball against Italy, but hooking to deep square leg on his second ball against Namibia was not something you’d expect out of a senior player and neither was the way he ran himself out against Ireland.

As a captain, he was hamstrung because the team didn’t have enough preparation ahead of the tournament to figure out which bowlers would be best suited for certain roles such as bowling at the death. There’s nothing wrong with trying to think outside the box but some of the batting lineups were bizarre. Having Abhimanyu Rajp coming in at number three against Ireland was something straight out of Ripley’s, but one suspects the coaching staff had more to do with that than Nadkarni.

Image (right) - Sushil Nadkarni in action against Kenya. [Courtesy: ICC/Thusith Wijedoru]

Steven Taylor – B-: The youngest player on the team was quiet in the first three games in the tournament, but started to click against Ireland and from then on was one of USA’s best batsmen. He finished second on the team in runs with 179 at a strike rate of 117.76. He had plenty of good starts, but never reached 50. However, his top score of 40 came in USA’s win over Scotland, the biggest upset of the tournament.

He was also involved in USA’s best two partnerships of the tournament, teaming with Aditya Mishra on each occasion to score 78 for the first wicket against Scotland and 64 for the third wicket against Namibia. He used to struggle at junior level with carrying on after making a start but erased those issues at the ICC U-19 World Cup Qualifier in Ireland with a pair of centuries. He needs to focus on doing the same thing at the senior level. He also could have probably had a better time with the bat had he not been thrust into the wicketkeeper role by the second match. Taylor played six matches behind the stumps, taking four catches and completing two stumpings during the tournament but unless he shows significant improvement with the gloves he should really be playing as a specialist batsman.

Aditya Mishra – B: The vice-captain led the team in the group stage with 155 runs and finished third overall on the team at the qualifier with 169 runs, including two half-centuries. In the field, he dropped a sharp chance offered by Davis Arinaitwe of Uganda on the first day that had a major impact on the game and sometimes took poor routes to the ball trying to cut off runs, but took three catches overall in the tournament.

In some matches, he looked imperious and brimming with confidence at the crease. In others, he looked tentative and fidgety, which unsurprisingly led to two runouts, not to mention two more he had in the warm-up games ahead of the tournament. There was no middle ground. It usually only took one over to gauge which Mishra was at the crease in a given match.

Image (left) - Aditya Mishra during his match-winning 62 against Scotland. [Courtesy: Peter Della Penna/DreamCricket]

In the matches against Italy, Namibia and Scotland, the first Mishra appeared and carried the team just short of victory on two occasions. On the third, he scored 62 to lead USA to their best win of the tournament. It is worth noting though that he was the beneficiary of drops in the field in all three of those matches, but managed to make the most of the second chances. Nerves mysteriously seemed to get the better of him in the other five games. For that reason he was arguably USA’s most compelling and confounding player on tour.

Orlando Baker – C+: Given more responsibility with the bat than he had under Steve Massiah’s captaincy in July at the 2011 ICC Americas Division One Twenty20, Baker contributed a few good knocks against Italy and Namibia before playing a crucial support role to Mishra in the late stage of the chase against Scotland. His best score though was 39 against Bermuda, a disappointing stat considering the starts he got in several games. He finished with 130 runs in nine innings, one of only four USA batsmen to break past 100 at the qualifier.

With the ball, Baker took five wickets at an average of 20, which was the second best average on the team behind Ghous. His bowling was only used in four matches though. His strike rate of 15.6 was the best on the team for any bowler with a minimum of one over per team match. It could have been better had three catches not been dropped off his bowling, but he also dropped two chances and took no catches at the tourney. He has a knack for taking wickets and his bowling could have come in handy in some other games but it appeared Nadkarni wanted to keep him fresh for when it came time to bat.

Nauman Mustafa – F: For several years, Mustafa has been one of the best batsmen on the domestic scene, but he failed when it came time to transition his game to the international stage. Had there been a USACA Twenty20 National Tournament in January as originally scheduled, the North West Region had selected a squad in which they dropped Mustafa yet he was brought into the USACA selection camp that took place in Florida instead of the tournament. While it was felt there wasn’t much difference between the standard of keeping between him and incumbent Akeem Dodson, Mustafa’s batting is held in higher esteem than Dodson’s and that helped Mustafa earn selection as USA’s first-choice wicketkeeper heading into the tour.

This proved to be a major error in judgment by the selectors, especially since Dodson had won the Best Wicketkeeper Award at the 2011 ICC Americas Twenty20 Division One tournament in July. Mustafa was making his debut at 37, not exactly ripe for a wicketkeeper and it showed on the first day against Uganda. With just 123 runs to defend, every run mattered in the field but Mustafa gave away at least 10 behind the stumps through byes and other misfields.

He was promptly dropped for the next game against Italy, then recalled for the Namibia match where he was selected as a specialist batsman at number three and scored 0 off 4 balls driving loosely in the air to cover, the same way he got out against Uganda for 13 off 19 balls coming in at number five. When he was a fielder not behind the stumps, he wasn’t exactly fleet of foot. He scored 6 off 15 at number six playing as a specialist batsman against Ireland, then had another two matches on the bench before wearing the gloves against Scotland. He did an adequate job, taking three catches. Two days later against Bermuda, Mustafa scored 9 not out from 3 deliveries at number seven but had a sloppy performance behind the stumps in the first few overs in the field, an easy reminder as to why Taylor had taken over the gloves for most of the tournament. Mustafa was then dropped again for the final day against Hong Kong.

Before the tour began, USACA Cricket Committee chairman Ahmed Jeddy told DreamCricket.com, “We expect a good result,” when asked what he thought of the team’s chances in the qualifier. “Winning it and qualifying for the World Cup is a good result for us.” If the mindset was to try and win now, then perhaps selecting Mustafa for the tournament was worth a gamble.

Image (right) - Nauman Mustafa, seen here against Scotland, entered the tour as USA's first choice wicketkeeper, but only wore the gloves in three of USA's nine matches at the qualifier. [Courtesy: ICC/Ian Jacobs]

However, halfway through the tournament after the team had lost its first four games in Group B, Jeddy told the Associated Press, “I really don’t care what the results of this tournament will be. I want people to look at this team in two years.” If this team was being selected with the future in mind, to groom players and get them experience to set them up for the next few years, 24-year-old Dodson should have been in the team and not been dropped in favor of Mustafa. Dodson didn’t set the world on fire with the bat playing for USA last July in Florida, but he couldn’t have done much worse than Mustafa did with the bat or gloves in the UAE.

Going back to the ICC Americas tournament in July, Mustafa was selected in the original 14-man squad before the administration intervened to remove him in favor of Nadkarni. The coaching staff in the UAE showed little faith in his wicketkeeping after the first match and he never had a clearly defined role afterward, batting in four different positions in his four innings at the tournament. Those things weren’t his fault. USA’s wicketkeeper position has been poorly handled over the last two years and the indecisiveness over who should be in the role both before and during the tour cost the team badly in the UAE.

Ryan Corns – C-: Corns scored 10 off 12 balls and took 1 for 27 in the field against Uganda before sitting out the next three matches with a groin injury. He had initially been ruled out for the rest of the tournament, but came back to play against Oman and played every match the rest of the way. However, he was clearly not 100%. He only came to the crease three more times after the first game but was a disappointment overall with the bat, scoring 27 runs at an average of 9.00.

Despite his problems with the bat, he showed great promise with the ball, taking four wickets in 13 overs at an average of 25.25 and an economy rate of 7.76. That might not sound special, but Corns was one of the bowlers who suffered through a series of drops, with three catches put down off his bowling including a key chance against Uganda that Taylor misjudged coming in from the long on boundary.

Corns took a step back with the bat in the UAE, but a step forward with the ball. Once he gets the balancing act right, he will be a very handy all-rounder for USA at the senior level just as he was at the Under-19 level.

Adil Bhatti – D: Bhatti scored 34 not out off 11 balls in the final warm-up game against Denmark and also took five wickets in three warm-up games, including 4 for 38 against Namibia. But when the live matches got underway he only bowled five overs and took just one wicket which came in his first over of the first game against Uganda. His 21 in that match was also his top score for the tournament. He added just 54 runs in seven innings after that. Five of his eight innings came at number seven but he struggled in the position, whether he was tasked with trying to give USA a late innings surge or helping rebuild when the team was in trouble.

On most days, his fielding was good, not great, as he typically patrolled either the midwicket or cover boundary. He finished with three catches, but also had three drops although one of them was a tough chance against Namibia where he did well just to get to the ball. Bhatti typically demonstrated a positive attitude in everything he did. His effort never seemed to waver and he consistently tried his best. At this level though, trying isn’t good enough. His number one priority should be to sharpen his batting.

Elmore Hutchinson – C+: Team management seemed confused how best to utilize Hutchinson throughout the tournament. He batted at four different positions (three, six, eight and nine). On the bowling side, he opened, came on at first change, but was also the fifth, sixth and seventh bowling option used depending on the match.

Image (left) - Elmore Hutchinson celebrates the dismissal of Ireland's Paul Stirling, who was the number one scorer at the ICC World Twenty20 Qualifier. [Courtesy: ICC/Barry Chambers]

Despite all the shuffling around, he finished with six wickets, tied for third on the team with Usman Shuja. His best performance came against Ireland when he took 3 for 22, including the wickets of Paul Stirling and Gary Wilson, for the best figures of a USA bowler in any match at the qualifier. He then top scored in the second innings with 29 at number nine. He was also a crucial player in the match against Scotland, taking 1 for 10 in two overs before scoring 19 off 20 balls at number three in USA’s successful chase. Hutchinson was adequate in the field, but did have two drops. He’s still a bit unpolished, but showed signs that he could be a solid contributor in future tournaments both for his bowling and batting.

Asif Khan – D: He was supposed to be USA’s frontline spinner, but only managed to take one wicket in 17 overs during the qualifier. That sole wicket came in his very first over of the event against Uganda. His main problem on tour was trying to find consistency. He only bowled one over against Italy in which two boundaries were hit off him. Against Namibia, he was hit for four boundaries in his first over, but then came back and bowled a maiden in his second spell. Against Ireland he went for 10 runs in his first two overs, then 25 in his next two.

In his last match of the tournament, he took 0 for 24 against Scotland and had Scotland’s top scorer, Jan Stander, dropped off his bowling. After the chance was put down, Khan applauded Muhammad Ghous for putting in a sliding effort. Khan then grinned and shook his head as if to say, “Nothing’s going my way.” He still managed to finish second in economy rate for USA with 7.23 runs per over, but his inability to take wickets resulted in him being dropped for the final two games.

With the bat, Khan topped USA’s averages on tour with 42 runs at 42.00. This came primarily from his 35 not out off 29 balls at number six against Italy when he nearly took the team across the line. He top scored for USA that day, but struggled to get the ball away in the last two overs and the team eventually lost by eight runs. Curiously though, Khan was not one of the nine batsmen used the next day against Namibia at a time when USA could have definitely used him in their chase. He came in at number five against Scotland and was in the middle when the winning runs were scored. Overall, it was a disappointing tour for Khan, but hopefully he will bounce back for USA at ICC WCL Division Four.

Abhimanyu Rajp – B+: Rajp entered the tour behind Khan and Ghous in the spin bowling pecking order and sat on the bench for day one against Uganda. After a reshuffle for day two against Italy, he made his debut and took a wicket on his very first delivery, setting the tone for the rest of his time in the tournament. While he never had a big haul, Rajp was USA’s most consistent performer with the ball and finished tied for the team lead with 10 wickets at an average of 21.90.

Image (right) - Abhimanyu Rajp bowling against Scotland. Rajp tied for the team lead with 10 wickets at the ICC World Twenty20 Qualifier. [Courtesy: ICC/Ian Jacobs]

His fielding was usually sharp. He took six catches, the most of any player on the team at the tournament including wicketkeepers. Three of them were off his own bowling. Rajp was also decent with the bat. His 59 runs were the seventh most on the team and came at an average of 11.80. He nearly pulled off a stunning win against Italy after hitting a four and six off the first two balls of the final over before USA fell short by eight runs.

The only noticeable drawback in his game was a tendency to try to buy wickets. He averaged 1.00 boundary or six conceded per over, the highest rate on the team for bowlers with a minimum of nine overs (one over per team game) at the qualifier compared to 2.31 dot balls per over, which was fifth on the team for bowlers with a minimum of nine overs. These are minor adjustments he can make but he should be an even bigger contributor for USA in 50-over cricket when ICC WCL Division Four comes around.

Usman Shuja – C+: Stood out as being USA’s fittest player on tour, Shuja has perhaps the most professional approach to the game of any player on the team and as a result is also one of the most durable players USA has had for the last several years. He was one of only four players on the team to play all nine matches at the qualifier, which is even more remarkable because he’s an opening pace bowler.

He was wicketless in the first three games, but started to hit his stride against Ireland, taking 1 for 16 in three overs. He was named Man of the Match for his spell of 4-1-9-1 against Oman, even though Nadkarni scored a half-century in the first innings. His best figures came against Scotland, with 3 for 39 in the team’s upset win although it could have been 4 for 35 if not for a drop on the last ball of the innings. Shuja also had another chance put down off his bowling on the last day against Hong Kong.

Image (left) - Usman Shuja in his delivery stride vs. Ireland. [Courtesy: ICC/Barry Chambers]

Overall he took six wickets, tied with Hutchinson for third on the team but his average of 33.16 and strike rate of 27.30 were ahead of only Bhatti and Khan. He bowled two of USA’s four maidens and his 2.78 dot balls per over was the best rate of any bowler for USA at the qualifier, but he also conceded 0.99 boundaries or sixes per over, the second highest rate behind Rajp for bowlers with a minimum of one over per team game.

Shuja should have been batting at number eight and definitely not lower than nine. After scoring 8 not out and 8 in the first two matches coming in at nine and eight, Shuja was hardly seen again on the batting side until he scored 14 at number nine on the final day against Hong Kong. He was underutilized in this regard, but the coaching staff was keen to try out different combinations. Shuja will continue to be a key player in the next few years as USA rebuilds in an attempt to climb back up the Associate ladder.

Muhammad Ghous – B+: After two subpar tournaments in 2011, Ghous bounced back in a big way in the UAE and was arguably USA’s standout bowler on tour. He tied for the team lead in wickets with 10 and had USA’s best economy rate of 6.00 runs per over. He bowled the most dot balls at the tournament for USA with 83 and had the second most dot balls per over for bowlers with a minimum of one over per team game with 2.59 behind Shuja’s 2.78. He also had the team’s lowest rate of boundaries or sixes allowed per over with 0.63, well below just about everyone else, a sign that he bowled very few loose deliveries and that teams struggled to get him away all tournament.

Ghous’ fielding was hit or miss. He was given more opportunities to field inside the circle on this tour especially after Corns was injured in the first game. When he was at point, Ghous was very active and did well to save runs by diving and throwing his body around. He was even involved in a run out while fielding at point in the Scotland game. Curiously though, he doesn’t always show the same desperation to save runs while fielding on the boundary. He looks particularly disinterested when fielding at third man or long leg on the boundary and in general is slow to react to the ball off the bat when fielding anywhere along the rope. That seems to be the only flaw in his game, but one that can be corrected with better habits developed at club level.

Japen Patel – Incomplete: Patel joined the tour as an injury replacement for Gowkaran Roopnarine and wound up playing four games. He took 3 for 29 against Oman, the worst batting side at the tournament and the only team to go winless in the group stage. He was rocked for 19 runs in his only over against Kenya and 17 runs in his only over against Hong Kong, a more accurate reflection of his bowling abilities. He bowled 36 legal deliveries in the tournament and 33% of them were hit to or over the boundary.

He also looked out of his depth on the batting side, scoring 11 runs in three innings. He had two drops in the field against one catch. If he is going to make it in the side in the future, it has to be with his batting but he needs a ton of work to improve.

Andy Mohammed – Incomplete: Was the reserve batsman on tour. Despite early injuries to Corns and Roopnarine, Mohammed wound up playing only two games at the qualifier. He scored 18 not out off 18 balls at number six against Namibia. He entered in the 15th over at a time when the team needed at least one boundary per over to stay in the chase, but Mohammed struggled badly to get underneath the ball or get in a position at the crease to try to clear the ropes and that seemed to doom his chances of selection for the rest of the qualifier.

His only other game was against Kenya, where he came in at number three and again struggled against their pace attack, scratching together 3 off 12 balls before getting out. He also had a drop in the field later in that game. Mohammed’s frustrations probably grew when Patel, who was not in the original squad, played ahead of him in the games against Oman, Scotland and Hong Kong. It meant that USA was playing three all-rounders (Baker, Bhatti, Patel), two of which were barely used for their bowling. However, based on his two performances, Mohammed is another who needs to work very hard to improve his batting.

Gowkaran Roopnarine – Incomplete: Juicy was edged out in the starting XI for the opening match by Steven Taylor. When he got his first chance in the game against Italy, he promptly injured a hamstring in the third over fielding on the boundary at third man. He scored 2 off five balls coming in at number nine later in the loss before being declared out of the tournament and replaced by Patel. It was an unfortunate experience for a player who worked hard in the last year to get back into the team.

Coming up in Part III - Looking ahead to ICC WCL Division Four

Click here to read Part I - Team Grades

USA Cricket: Aizaz blazes through USA order in 77-run loss to Hong Kong at 2012 ICC World Twenty20 Qualifier

openingbat — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 18:44:00 GMT

Now, you can get all the USA Cricket updates via Facebook. Also follow us on Twitter via @dreamcricket

By Peter Della Penna in Dubai (on Twitter)

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Hong Kong fast bowler Aizaz Khan nipped USA’s chase in the bud with a fiery spell of fast bowling to take 5 for 25 as Hong Kong defeated USA by 77 runs in the 11th place match at the 2012 ICC World Twenty20 Qualifier in the UAE. Aizaz was named Man of the Match after helping his side bowl out USA for 100, completing just the third five-wicket haul of the tournament. USA finishes the tournament in 12th place with three wins in nine games while Hong Kong ends it in 11th place with four wins from nine matches.

“Coming into this game, I realized the toss would be a real important factor,” said USA captain Sushil Nadkarni after the loss. “I lost the toss today… and we were looking to bat first. Unfortunately we were put into the field. I thought that that played into our weakness for this game a little bit because the guys were really feeling tired right now and we had to get into the field and field 20 overs before coming to chase a big total. We really wanted to win but the best team came out on top today.”

Hong Kong won the toss and batted first. USA made one change to the starting XI from the previous match against Bermuda. Japen Patel returned to the lineup in favor of Nauman Mustafa, which meant Steven Taylor kept wicket for the sixth time in the tournament.

Irfan Ahmed and Waqas Barkat opened the batting for Hong Kong, putting on just 10 for the first wicket before Barkat was bowled by Muhammad Ghous for 8. Barkat was trying to hit Ghous for his third consecutive boundary by shuffling across his stumps to play a sweep but was bowled behind his legs.

Ahmed was joined by Hong Kong captain Jamie Atkinson and the pair put on 46 for the second wicket. Ahmed was dropped on 18 by Patel at long on off the bowling of Ryan Corns on the first ball of the seventh over, but Corns got Ahmed four balls later for 23 when he beat the batsman in flight to have him stumped.

Meanwhile, Atkinson was enjoying his time at the opposite end as USA’s spinners watched him sweep full deliveries off his pads all day long without much fuss. Against pace, Atkinson received a steady diet of short-pitched bowling that he also cross-batted to the leg side.

Atkinson received good support from Nizakat Khan and the two added 64 for the third wicket. Nizakat should have been caught for 9 by Nadkarni at point in the 12th over, but survived to add another 23 runs. Atkinson brought up his 50 in the 13th over, by which point he had hit 10 boundaries among his 30 deliveries faced. Only two of the 10 went through the off side, with both of those going behind point.

Nizakat was finally caught on the cover boundary for 32 off the first ball of the 15th over to make it 120 for 3. Roy Lamsam came in and took only singles to try to give Atkinson as much strike as possible. The captain hit two more boundaries, both through the leg side, before he was finally bowled by Orlando Baker to give him his second wicket and send Atkinson on his way for 63 to make it 135 for 4 on the first ball of the 17th. Atkinson now leads the tournament in runs with 345, including four half-centuries.

With Atkinson gone it appeared USA might be able to hold Hong Kong under 160, but the fielding let them down yet again when the new man Babar Hayat was dropped on 9 on a straightforward skied chance to Adil Bhatti on the cover boundary off the bowling of Usman Shuja. Hayat capitalized to help Hong Kong score 30 off the final 11 deliveries, with 23 of those runs coming off his own bat including two fours and two sixes as Hong Kong finished on 177 for 4. Baker finished with 2 for 24 while Ghous took 1 for 12 in two to finish tied for the team lead in wickets with Abhimanyu Rajp. Both players ended with 10 wickets although Ghous played one more match than Rajp.

Taylor provided fireworks at the start of USA’s innings, tearing medium pacer Max Tucker apart for four boundaries in the first over. Aditya Mishra opened with him but succumbed to the second ball bowled by Aizaz, a bouncer top-edged to the wicketkeeper Barkat, to make it 17 for 1 in the second over. Taylor tried to take back control for USA in the third, launching Nizakat’s second ball over long on for a massive six. Once a replacement ball was brought out, Nizakat changed angles to come around the wicket and dismissed Taylor with his very next delivery, getting the left-hander to come prodding forward and a simple catch was taken behind the stumps by Barkat to dismiss Taylor for 26 in 12 balls making it 28 for 2.

Once Taylor was gone, Aizaz set about ripping up the stumps from the opposite end. Nadkarni tried to flick him through midwicket and was bowled for 1. Three balls later, Patel went for a heave and was cleaned up for 4 to finish the fourth over at 35 for 4.

Image (right) - ICC Match Referee David Jukes presents Aizaz Khan with his Man of the Match award. [Courtesy: Peter Della Penna/DreamCricket]

Two overs later, Baker played across the line and was bowled by Aizaz for 9 to make it 42 for 5. Nizakat took his second in the seventh, trapping Bhatti in front for a second-ball duck to make it 43 for 6. Aizaz came back to finish his opening spell in the eighth and completed his five-for with a picture perfect yorker to send Elmore Hutchinson back to the pavilion without scoring and USA was 45 for 7.

“I think it goes back to just having proper programs,” said Nadkarni. “There are lots of ways to prepare for fast bowling. You can use bowling machines to prepare for that. You can actually get into the nets and have guys bowling from 18 yards instead of 22 yards. There are different ways to prepare for fast bowling but I don’t think we have programs in place, neither do we have turf wickets, the kind of wickets we’re playing over here, all across the US. So the guys, it’s a new experience playing really quick bowling backed up by really good fielding. So overall I’m not too disappointed.”

Corns got a genuine opportunity to spend some time in the middle for the first time since the opening match against Uganda but failed to capitalize. He entered to start the fifth over at the fall of the fourth wicket, but got into a dreadful mixup with Shuja and wound up being run out for 9. Corns attempted to take a leg bye off the bowling of Ahmed and both batsmen wound up halfway down the track before freezing. Ahmed fielded off his own bowling and tossed the ball underhanded into the stumps at the striker’s end to get rid of Corns for 9 and it was 58 for 8 in the 10th.

USA’s best two partnerships of the match were then produced for the ninth and 10th wickets. Shuja and Rajp put on 20 before Shuja was caught slogging leg-spinner Kai Ming Li to deep midwicket for 14. Rajp and Ghous put on 22 before Nizakat had Rajp stumped for 19, USA’s second best score of the innings as USA was bundled out for 100 in 16.2 overs. While Aizaz stole the show with the ball, Nizakat also ended with solid figures of 3 for 11 in 3.2 overs.

USA’s next scheduled tournament action is ICC World Cricket League Division Four, which was originally due to be held in Florida this May but has now been pushed back to sometime later in the year at a site to be determined. Nadkarni says he hopes the players will have gained some valuable experience from their time in the UAE that they can put to good use at Division Four.

“We feel like we have a bunch of guys in this team that are young, that have gained this experience, and having Robin Singh working with us was invaluable,” said Nadkarni. “The stuff he taught us or wanted us to execute on the ground, that’s something all of us really didn’t know how to play Twenty20 cricket and the things he taught us have helped us kind of understand how the game is progressing and where we need to execute what strategies. All these things, it’s a great thing for the future because now we take the same team and we build it for Division Four.”

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USA Cricket: Top order assault leads USA to 34-run win over Bermuda at 2012 ICC World Twenty20 Qualifier

openingbat — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 19:40:00 GMT

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By Peter Della Penna in Sharjah (on Twitter)

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USA’s top four contributed 139 of the team’s 193 runs to bat Bermuda out of the game in a 34-run win on Thursday at the 2012 ICC World Twenty20 Qualifier in the UAE. USA captain Sushil Nadkarni was named Man of the Match after top scoring at number three with 48 off 30 balls including two fours and four sixes. USA now plays Hong Kong in the 11th place playoff match on Friday after Hong Kong defeated Uganda by five wickets. Bermuda and Uganda will meet in the 13th place playoff on Friday.

“Today we wanted to come in and bat the opposition out of the game,” said Nadkarni after the win. “Yesterday we were talking as a team and we wanted in the next two games to do two things. One is try to score 200 runs or get the opposition out under 100 runs. We challenged the team to see if we could do it and luckily the wicket today was a fantastic batting wicket.”

USA won the toss and elected to bat first with Nadkarni and Adil Bhatti returning to the starting XI in place of Japen Patel and Asif Khan. On a pristine batting track in Sharjah, USA put their foot on the accelerator from the first over and never let up.

Rather than pencil himself in as an opener once again after returning to the lineup following a match off, Nadkarni chose to leave USA’s successful opening partnership from the Scotland match of Steven Taylor and Aditya Mishra match intact. Taylor hit four sixes in five deliveries between the second and third overs bowled by off-spinners Curt Stovell and Rodney Trott and at the end of three overs USA had 36 on the board. Taylor scored 38 out of a 49-run partnership with Mishra before slicing an edge against off-spinner Joshua Gilbert to Stovell at short third man to end the fifth over.

Nadkarni came in and took over the big-hitting reins from Taylor, giving no respite to Bermuda when he carted Gilbert for his first six in the seventh over. Mishra got out in the eighth for 15, chipping a catch to Bermuda captain David Hemp at midwicket off the bowling of another off-spinner, Sam Robinson, to make it 67 for 2.

Image (right) - USA captain Sushil Nadkarni receives his Man of the Match award from ICC match referee Adrian Griffith. [Courtesy: Peter Della Penna/DreamCricket]

Orlando Baker came to the crease with Nadkarni and they continued to plunder Bermuda’s spinners in a 62-run stand. When medium pace was introduced in the 11th over, USA continued to show no mercy and two overs later Nadkarni blasted Janeiro Tucker for back-to-back sixes in a 17-run over. Nadkarni top-edged the first ball he faced from medium-pacer Kamau Leverock but the ball sailed over the wicketkeeper for Nadkarni’s fourth six. The teenager got revenge two balls later when Nadkarni chopped onto his stumps to make it 128 for 3 in the 14th.

Adil Bhatti scored 14 off nine balls before he was caught at deep midwicket to give Trott his only scalp, making it 153 for 4 in the 17th. Baker got out for 39 two overs later when he skied Robinson to long on, turning the score to 175 for 5 with eight balls remaining.

Elmore Hutchinson and Nauman Mustafa struck three sixes between them in their brief time in the middle to boost USA to 193 for 5. Robinson finished with 2 for 41 to lead Bermuda in the wickets column, but everyone in the attack was hit hard and no one conceded less than eight runs per over.

Bermuda got off to a steady start with 42 runs in the first six overs but lost both openers along the way. Stovell and Fiqre Crockwell were dismissed by Muhammad Ghous and Abhimanyu Rajp for 4 and 23 respectively. Instead of the chase slowing down with the fall of two early wickets, it gained momentum with Hemp and Lionel Cann at the crease.

Cann was dropped in the fifth over on 5 at mid off by Baker and the batsman didn’t let USA forget it for the rest of the innings. He opened up a 12-run 10th over by slogging Rajp over long on, then started a 19-run 11th by launching Hutchinson down the ground and over the ropes on back-to-back deliveries to take Bermuda to 93 for 1. Hemp joined the fun in the 13th, hitting Mishra’s off-spin over extra cover and long off for six on consecutive balls during a 16-run over to make it 117 for 2. All of a sudden, 77 in seven overs looked very gettable on a flat deck with two men set.

“Frankly speaking I was a little concerned at that point because I thought the game was slipping away from us,” said Nadkarni. “The guys could do much better in the field really. I thought when we came out to defend a 190-total, it almost seemed like the guys had won the game in their heads in the first few overs. We started making silly mistakes, caught behinds and dropping easy catches and that allowed them to settle in and like I said the wicket was a good batting wicket.”

Nadkarni tossed the ball to Rajp again in the 14th and the off-spinner came through with his team-leading 10th wicket at the tournament to end the partnership at 82. Hemp got a knee-high full toss outside off that he tried to muscle over Taylor at long off but he didn’t middle the ball and Taylor took a safe catch to get rid of Hemp for 27, making the score 124 for 3 after 14.

Cann struggled to find support after Hemp got out and wickets continued to fall regularly. Tucker lasted seven balls for his 5 before he was bowled by Ryan Corns. Stephen Outerbridge was gone for 1, done in by a slower ball from Usman Shuja, to make it 133 for 5 one ball into the 17th. Trott ended the 18th by slogging Ghous to Mishra at cow corner to depart for 6 and with two overs to go, Bermuda needed 52 to win.

Leverock came in and hit Shuja’s first ball in the 19th for six, but a dot ball on the final delivery of the over ensured the match belonged to USA. Leverock was eventually caught for 7 at deep midwicket by Rajp off Hutchinson two balls into the final over before Cann was caught for 73 at long on by Taylor on the last ball of the innings as Bermuda finished at 159 for 8.

Live coverage of USA’s 11th place match against Hong Kong from the ICC Global Cricket Academy in Dubai will begin Friday at 5:45 a.m. EST. DreamCricket.com’s tournament coverage is made possible in part by the New Inning Foundation.

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USA Cricket: Nadkarni & Shuja lead the way in 30-run win over Oman at 2012 ICC World Twenty20 Qualifier

openingbat — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 18:39:00 GMT

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By Peter Della Penna in Dubai (on Twitter)

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Senior players Sushil Nadkarni and Usman Shuja turned in their best batting and bowling performances of the tournament respectively to lead USA to a 30-run win over Oman on Sunday at the 2012 ICC World Twenty20 Qualifier in Dubai. Nadkarni scored 59 off 47 balls to open up the match and Shuja stifled Oman to start the second innings with a four over spell of 1 for 9 to claim Man of the Match honors. USA comes away with their first win of the tournament to go to 0-4 while Oman remains winless at 0-5.

“We’ve been under pressure this tournament because it’s never easy to go with losses in the tournament knowing full well there are a lot of people back home who have some high expectations for the team,” said Nadkarni after the win. “Coming into this game, We were pretty pumped up because we knew Oman was in the same boat as us and I really didn’t want to be the 15th or 16th spot in this tournament. Now we’ve given ourselves a chance because moving forward we still have Kenya and Scotland and if we can win those games we can at least be looking for a higher ranking in this tournament.”

USA won the toss and elected to bat first with Asif Khan and Nauman Mustafa coming out of the XI from the previous match in favor of Ryan Corns, whose groin injury rapidly improved to the point where he was cleared to play after initially being ruled out of the tournament, and Japen Patel who flew in on Friday night from Atlanta after being approved by the ICC Technical Committee as an injury replacement for Gowkaran Roopnarine.

Nadkarni opened with Steven Taylor and it was the teenager who was the aggressor in their opening stand while Nadkarni eased his way back into form after three consecutive ducks. Taylor smacked three fours – over cover, over midwicket and through point – before top-edging a pull to deep midwicket for 15 to give Awal Khan his first wicket and make the score 20 for 1 in the fifth over.

Image (right) - Usman Shuja receives his Man of the Match award for his performance in a win over Oman. [Courtesy: ICC/Ian Jacobs]

Aditya Mishra came out and struggled to turn over the strike but Nadkarni did the heavy lifting whenever he did take guard, dominating a 49-run stand between the two. Nadkarni hit a six over midwicket to end the ninth over then struck another over long off as part of a 12-run 10th to get the scoring rate moving.

Mishra was finally run out for 8 when a direct hit from midwicket to the keeper’s end found him short responding to Nadkarni’s call for a single. Orlando Baker was out first ball in the next over playing across to a full length delivery from Amir Ali and was trapped in front to make it 76 for 3 in the 13th.

Nadkarni brought up his 50 in 41 balls with a six over square leg, then followed it up in the 14th over with another big hit over the midwicket rope. He tried to repeat the shot against the left-arm spin of Hemal Mehta but mistimed a full delivery toward long on and was caught just inside the rope for USA’s highest individual score on the week to make it 86 for 4 in the 14th.

Wickets continued to tumble as Oman clawed their way back. Elmore Hutchinson was caught at long on for 4 trying to muscle leg-spinner Zeeshan Siddiqui over the ropes. Adil Bhatti was stumped for 19 overbalancing after missing a slog against Siddiqui as USA looked like they would struggle to post a defendable total at 109 for 6 with 15 balls to go in the innings.

It was left to Abhimanyu Rajp to boost USA with some lusty hitting at number eight. He got off the mark first ball with a six back over Siddiqi’s head, then followed it up with another straight drive for four. In the 19th he benefitted from a misjudged chance on the long on rope to get another six before getting out for 20 with two balls to go in the innings, but not before taking USA to 138. Three runs were taken off the last two balls faced by Patel and USA ended much more comfortably on 141 for 7.

Rajeshkumar Ranpura bowled a solid spell to take 1 for 21 with a maiden in four overs while Awal Khan took 1 for 11 in three with 13 dot balls in his 18 deliveries. Siddiqi finished with Oman’s best figures of 2 for 19 in two.

Oman’s chase never gained any traction after Shuja put the clamps on their top order. In the first over he bowled a wicket maiden, claiming Siddiqui via Corns at point. In his next over, he conceded a wide, but nothing off the bat. Eight singles came off his final two overs, but Adnan Ilyas and Vaibhav Watagaonkar struggled to get him away as Oman ended the seventh over at 25 for 1, with 116 needed to win in 13 overs, an asking rate that was too difficult in the end.

The partnership between Ilyas and Watagaonkar was good for 54, but it took 10.2 overs to accomplish. It finally ended when Patel beat Ilyas for pace and the batsman top-edged a pull to Mishra at cover to go for 24. Four balls later, Watagaonkar was stumped for 30 by Taylor off Rajp. With both set batsmen out, the chase meandered along to an inevitable conclusion.

Patel struck twice more in the 15th when Farhan Khan was caught inside the cover boundary by Bhatti for 8. Three balls later, Ali got out for 4 when Nadkarni took a swirling top edge at midwicket to make it 78 for 5. Awal Khan was the second victim of the day and team high seventh in the tournament for Rajp when he top edged a slog to Ghous at mid on for 13. The last wicket to fall happened in the 19th when Sultan Ahmed top edged a pull to Patel at cover to give Ghous his only wicket, making the score 105 for 7. Oman eventually ended their innings on 111 for 7.

While Shuja was named Man of the Match for his tone-setting spell, Patel took the best figures in the innings with 3 for 29 in four overs of medium pace. Rajp finished with 2 for 23 in three.

USA’s next match is against Kenya, who lost to Namibia by seven wickets after being bowled out for 108. Kenya is 2-3 in the tournament and a win for USA, combined with a Uganda loss to Ireland, could see USA move into a tie for fifth place. USA’s net run rate is good enough that they’d probably be placed above either of the other two sides if they wind up with the same record.. Live coverage of USA’s match vs. Kenya in Abu Dhabi begins Monday at 1:45 a.m. EST on DreamCricket. DreamCricket.com’s tournament coverage is made possible in part by the New Inning Foundation.

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