United States vs Ireland Highlights, T20 World Cup 2024: USA qualify for Super Eight and PAK out of competition

The last 16 months have been a journey to remember for a lifetime for Nepal cricket. So much so that in Nepal’s pop culture, their cricket team has become hot property with a couple of leading artists from the Himalayan country, releasing albums for them. To put things in perspective, just like how ‘Rally Round the West Indies’ and ‘Dil, Dil, Pakistan’ would be blaring out of the speakers when the former champions walk on to the field, Nepal will have its own “Hami Nepali” sung by Tanka Timilsina and Anita Chalaune.

At home, the Rhinos (the nickname of the team) are treated like superheroes that their coach Monty Desai has to keep reminding them every day that it isn’t strictly the reality. Growing up in India, Desai has seen masses being totally consumed by cricket in the 80s and 90s. But the scenes in Nepal are a lot different. “It is just unbelievable,” he says. (Read more from Venkata Krishna B)

When I left Chennai for good in 2011, I never thought my love affair with cricket would continue of all places in the United States of America. Once I quit playing the game professionally in Chennai, I came to Dallas in Texas in 2011 as my wife was already working here.

A can of worms were opened after Pakistan’s loss to India on Thursday with former captain Wasim Akram also indicating that things were not well behind the scenes between captain Babar Azam and pacer Shaheen Shah Afridi, with the two apparently not even in talking terms.

Pakistan assistant coach Azhar Mahmood, however, has denied any rift between the two players. (Read more)

USA’s Saurabh Netravalkar was the key man behind the United States win over Pakistan in the ongoing T20 World Cup 2024. The left-arm seamer not only bowled a composed super over defending just 18 runs but also picked up crucial wickets during the game of Mohammad Rizwan and Iftikhar Ahmed.

Ahead of the United States clash against India The 32-year-old recalled his playing days for Mumbai State side and revealed Suryakumar Yadav and him were close friends. “Suryakumar has been a close friend, actually. I’ve seen him since our under-15 days; we kind of grew up playing for Mumbai together. He was always special, scoring double hundreds and stuff in under-15 and under-17 matches,” Netravalkar said speaking on Star Sports. (Read more)

After chasing down the paltry target of 73 runs posted by Namibia inside the first six overs on Wednesday, the Australian cricket team could possibly yield to temptation and take it easy against Scotland in their next group game. The reason? It could make life difficult for the England cricket team, who are currently in a scramble to make the cut for the Super 8 at the ongoing T20 World Cup.

At least that’s what Australia’s Josh Hazlewood has implied in a press conference on Wednesday. However, he stopped short of saying that Australia would actually try to beat Scotland in a slower-than-needed fashion. (Read more)

Frank Nsubuga says he and his teammates couldn’t sleep. “When we returned home, it was like we were dreaming with open eyes,” he tells The Indian Express.

The throwback is to November 2023. Such was the occasion for the Uganda cricket team, who had managed to qualify for their first-ever ICC World Cup, pipping the likes of Zimbabwe and Kenya – known power centres in African cricket. On Thursday, Uganda made history when they registered their first win in the World Cup as they beat Papua New Guinea in a low-scoring thriller. (Read more)

The Cricket World Cup is nothing without Pakistan. Whether they win or lose, the Pakistan cricket team adds spice to the tournament.

The Babar Azam-led outfit started their 2024 T20 World Cup campaign with a shock defeat against the USA in a Super Over in Dallas. It puts the former champions in familiar territory. Due to meet India in New York on Sunday, all their remaining group fixtures have now become must-win encounters if Pakistan are to advance to the Super Eights. (Read more from Pratyush Raj)

Four overs, two maidens, four runs conceded, and two wickets. Franco Nsubuga was only playing in his first World Cup game when he eked out the most economical bowling figures in T20 World Cup history. This, to inspire a historic first win for Uganda on Thursday. But at the age of 43, the road to a World Cup debut for the second oldest player in the tournament’s history has taken much longer.

Nsubuga may have been new to the World Cups but he’s been a constant name in Ugandan cricket over the past four decades. He made his professional debut in 1996. Or rather, here’s a more revelatory picture of the sport from back then: when Nsubuga went on his first tour, the term T20 was still half-a-decade away from being thrown in the ECB boardrooms. Uganda wasn’t even an ICC-recognized team back then. In the 1999 ODI World Cup qualifiers, Nsubuga had represented East Africa. His is a story that runs parallel with the rise of cricket in Uganda. (Read more from Rahul Pandey)

Virat Kohli is yet to play a single game in Pakistan. The only time he played there was in 2006 with India’s U-19 side. India stopped its cricketing ties with Pakistan after the 2008 Mumbai attacks and Kohli has featured in just a handful of internationals against them — 16 ODIs and 10 T20Is. Despite that, Virat Kohli has a massive fan following in Pakistan. (Read more from Pratyush Raj)

As matches at the ongoing T20 World Cup — co-hosted by USA and West Indies — take place at different times of the day, the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) CEO Johnny Grave, in an interview with The Indian Express, admitted that given a ‘majority of the revenue from ICC event comes from one market’, the schedule has been made keeping the Indian time zone in mind.

He also spoke about the multifold benefits for West Indies, as well as associate nations, of hosting major ICC events and the guarantees given to Windies players that no international cricket will be played during their major franchise tournament commitments – the IPL and CPL. (Read more from Tanishq Vaddi)

Shardul Thakur underwent a successful foot surgery for a recurring injury in London, the Indian pacer updating about the same on his social media on Wednesday.

The 32-year-old shared a post-surgery photo on his instagram page captioned: “Operated successfully”. (Read more)

Suddenly, even as he was expressing his anger-tinged disappointment at how Pakistani batsmen imploded on his YouTube channel, Inzamam-ul-Haq turned to his avuncular persona again as he began to talk about Indian bowlers. He made a very pithy statement about Hardik Pandya: “The way he got the wickets. His usage of short balls. He knew where to bowl.” Awareness. Skill. Execution.

It’s Inzy’s Pandya version that India would hope turns up in Super 8s if India are to beat the tougher teams. For a team that’s still hesitant to use their best spinner in Kuldeep Yadav, they would need Pandya, the intelligent seamer to come through time and again. (Read more from Sriram Veera)

For a brief while, the US team made up of Indian, Pakistan and Caribbean expats, lit up hopes of pulling off the unthinkable. Only a week ago, USA had shocked Pakistan.

On Wednesday, with the Indian diaspora filling the stands at Nassau County Stadium, and torn between their allegiances, the hosts had India in a spot of bother on more than three occasions. The noise levels when Rishabh Pant fell with India still 66 runs away showed how badly they wished their fellow expats to win the tie. But Suryakumar Yadav’s composure — after being handed a life by Saurabh Netravalkar, who works in California as a technical staff in Oracle after failing to nail a spot in Mumbai Ranji team – meant India remained unbeaten. (Read more from Venkata Krishna B)

Pakistan’s chances of qualifying for the Super 8 stage at the ongoing T20 World Cup were always going to be on tricky terrain after they were shocked by the host nation USA in their opening encounter.

Pakistan’s defeat to India in the second game — where they could have easily won after restricting India to 119 runs in the first innings — was also particularly hard to take. But Pakistan managed to stead their sinking ship, bouncing back from two consecutive defeats by beating Canada. (Read more)

The Nassau County stadium which hosted the India vs Pakistan match on June 9 is all set to be demolished after the New York leg of the T20 World Cup ended with India’s win over USA on Wednesday.

The stadium which was built in under 100 days has been the criticized for the nature of its drop in pitches due to its penchant for unpredictability. (Read more)

New Zealand reached 100/6 at the end of 17 overs in their run-chase. West Indies were 112/9 at the end of 18 overs. In an ideal world, New Zealand would have been needing somewhere like 25 to 30 off the last 3 overs, a very doable task. But instead, they needed 50 more runs off the last 18 balls.

The reason? Sherfane Rutherford. (Read more from Vinayakk Mohanrangan)

The T20 World Cup 2024 is heading towards the Super 8 stage after a series of upsets and nailbiting results in the first-ever 20-team group stage tournament held in the West Indies and the United States.

Four teams – India, Australia, South Africa and West Indies – have ensured qualification to the round-robin Super 8 stage while nine teams remain in the race for three spots across as many groups. On Friday, Afghanistan became the fifth team to secure their berth in the last-eight after beating Papua New Guinea by seven wickets. Afghanistan joined India and Australia in Group 1 of the Super 8s (Read more)

Bangladesh veteran Shakib Al Hasan responded to former India batter Virender Sehwag’s comments criticising the all-rounder’s form after shining in a 25-run win over Netherlands on Thursday.

The 37-year-old had underwhelming returns in his side’s previous two Group D encounters, failing to pick up a wicket while scoring eight and three against Sri Lanka and South Africa respectively. However, the southpaw made a crucial turnaround with a 46-ball 64 as Bangladesh made 159 against the Dutch, paving way for a win that has bolstered their Super 8 chances. (Read more)

The doors of Barbados cricket slammed on Aaron Jones because, as the story goes, he batted too slow and didn’t fit the new-age white-ball hitter mould. Half a decade later, turning up for the USA, he helms the six-hitting charts of the World Cup, with 13 blows over the ropes, in three games. The fellow residents of the top-five six-hitters club are identical to him—none belong to the elite six-hitting league; all are distant from the T20 batting cream, all are mavericks with wildly fluctuating form. But one uniform and often devalued gift unites them all—the ability to generate muscle-bursting power into the shots, and clear the ropes. (Read more from Sandip G)

Ace commentator Ian Bishop best summed up the batting’ pandemonium in the T20 World Cup.

“People were talking about, ‘make bigger grounds,’ ‘put something on the ball for it to swing.’ Put something in the pitch, and you’ll see a different side of batters. That is my point,” Bishop said during New Zealand’s capitulation against the West Indies on Thursday. (Read more from Lalith Kalidas)

In the backdrop of the Florida leg of the T20 World Cup in great danger of being a total washout due to thunderstorms over the last few days, the Indian team landed at Fort Lauderdale for their last Group A match against Canada on Saturday. In a slightly positive development, it wasn’t raining when Rohit Sharma & Co arrived there.

The sun had come out and it was dry, for the moment. Sources in the Indian team management told The Indian Express that, according to local officials, there was a chance of clear skies for the India game. (Read more from Tushar Bhaduri)

Pictures of flooded roads were seen on social media over the last few days. Fort Lauderdale received up to 9 inches of rain in some areas on Wednesday, in addition to the 3 inches on Tuesday between 2 and 10 inches of rain had been predicted for Thursday. Wet weather is likely to continue in parts of Florida through the weekend.

The Super Over hero, Saurabh Netravalkar, had packed his bags from Mumbai to San Francisco for higher studies. Player of the Match and batting hero Monank Patel (50 off 38 balls) had left Anand in 2016 for New Jersey to start a restaurant after he realised his cricket career was going nowhere. Three-wicket hero Nosthush Kenjige, born in Alabama but raised in Nilgiris and Bengaluru, returned to the US to work as a biological technician. Milind Kumar, who took a blinding catch in the Super Over, had represented a clutch of domestic sides before quitting his job in ONGC and flying to Houston, where he had been playing league cricket. Nitish Kumar, whose last-ball four tied the game, was born in Ontario, Canada, but shifted to the US during a torrid phase during the pandemic. Left-arm spinner Harmeet Singh, whose action was likened to Bishan Singh Bedi, left India as a shattered man after setbacks and rejection, including an alleged match-fixing scandal although the board eventually cleared him. Jasdeep Singh spent most of his life shuttling between New Jersey and Chandigarh, before settling down in the US.

According to the US National Weather Service (NWS), a “flood watch” remains in effect for all of southern Florida through Friday evening. That makes the USA-Ireland game highly improbable, as all remaining matches at the venue are day games, scheduled to start at 10.30 am local time.

“Heavy to excessive rainfall over southern Florida may continue to bring areas of flash and urban flooding, with locally considerable urban flooding possible, at times into this weekend,” the NWS posted on X.

Netravalkar used to play for Mumbai Ranji team till 2014 when dark thoughts about future hit him. “How much cricket can I play? Till 35, maybe… but there is no guarantee. There is no growth too.” A software engineer who even designed his own cricket app, he decided at age of 22 to take up the scholarship from a US university. The move, he thought, would be the end of his cricket career.

It was a West Indian, Lloyd Jodah, who rekindled the cricket dream in Netravalkar. “I never thought I will play cricket again but after coming to US, I got to know there was cricket in my college. There was a coach named Lloyd Jodah who saw me bowl and asked whether I played decent cricket. Then he recommended me to different clubs here,” Netravalkar said.

According to the National Weather Service, all of South Florida is under a Flood Watch through Friday evening.

On Wednesday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis also declared a state of emergency for five counties, including Broward, where the city of Lauderhill is based.

“A weather system has brought South Florida excessive rain yesterday (Tuesday) and today. It is likely to continue through Friday. The City Of Lauderhill has crews working in areas of concern to help minimize ponding,” a press note on the official website of the city of Lauderhill states.

Lauderhill is right next to Fort Lauderdale in Florida. According to media reports from USA, the southern part of Florida is witnessing rare flash flood emergency.

According to a report on The Associated Press, “Wednesday’s downpours and subsequent flooding blocked roads, floated vehicles and delayed the Florida Panthers on their way to Stanley Cup games in Canada against the Edmonton Oilers… Numerous roads were flooded and impassable for vehicles. On major artery Interstate 95 in Broward County, southbound traffic was being diverted around a flooded section and contractors were on their way to pump the drainage system.”

After USA lost to India with 10 balls to spare, net run rates will not come into play to decide the fate of the second placed team in Group A (where India have already assured themselves top spot). Pakistan are ahead of USA on NRR — Pakistan have 0.191 while USA have 0.127). Pakistan can qualify simply by beating Ireland and watching USA lose to them.

But, Team USA can still qualify if they get even a single point. Which means that if their game versus Ireland gets washed out, they will seal qualification. Similarly, if the Pakistan game gets washed out and Pakistan gain just one point, USA will qualify.

India vs Canada: June 15 (Saturday)

Pakistan vs Ireland: June 16 (Sunday)

For a brief while, the US team made up of Indian, Pakistan and Caribbean expats, lit up hopes of pulling off the unthinkable. Only a week ago, they had shocked Pakistan. 

On Wednesday, with the Indian diaspora filling the stands at Nassau County stadium, and torn between their allegiances, the hosts had India in a spot of bother on more than three occasions. The noise levels when Rishabh Pant fell with India still 66 runs away showed how badly they wished their fellow expats to win the tie. But Suryakumar Yadav’s composure -- after being handed a life by Saurabh Netravalkar, who works in California as a technical staff in Oracle after failing to nail a spot in Mumbai Ranji team – meant India remained unbeaten.

Pakistan’s chances of qualifying for the Super 8 stage at the ongoing T20 World Cup were always going to be on tricky terrain after they were shocked by the host nation USA in their opening encounter.

Pakistan’s defeat to India in the second game — where they could have easily won after restricting India to 119 runs in the first innings — was also particularly hard to take. But Pakistan managed to stead their sinking ship, bouncing back from two consecutive defeats by beating Canada.

The only game of the tournament that was supposed to be held at Central Broward Regional Park Stadium Turf Ground – between Sri Lanka and Nepal – was abandoned on Tuesday evening without a ball being bowled. That contributed to the islanders’ ouster from Super Eight contention.

The organisers of the Florida leg of the T20 World Cup say that even if the rain isn’t torrential, the biggest problem for cricket in the region are the strong winds that often blow away the covers. For this reason, more covers to protect the ground from the elements are in place. But cricket can be possible only if the rain relents. Adding to the pessimistic outlook is the poor drainage facility at the ground.

India have won their first three pool games and are already through to the Super Eight, but the games at Fort Lauderhill are crucial for the identification of the second team in the group to go through. The other games scheduled in Florida are Pakistan vs Ireland and USA vs Ireland. Pakistan cannot afford either of those to matches to be abandoned as it would take the co-hosts to the next stage at their expense. Pakistan need to beat Ireland and for the Americans to lose to the Irish to make it. But the prospect of either game – before and after the India match – going ahead is bleak at the moment.

'It's something that we've all been thinking about after beating Pakistan. It'll be a dream come true to go to the next round. Especially the Super Eight would be the first time it's happened as well. But at the end of the day, it's close. Until the next World Cup event is, we're [going] all out.'

"I think for us our objective is still to qualify for the next round. However [if] we need to do that, I'm sure we'll be pretty clear leading into tomorrow how we need to do that. I think it's a fair point about objective A being winning the match but at the end of the day we're not here to try and scrape by teams, we're here to try and qualify for the next round. If that means that we have to go out there and put in a big performance with bat and ball, then so be it. I think that'll definitely be our mindset."

Paul Stirling (captain), Andrew Balbirnie, Lorcan Tucker (wk), Harry Tector, Curtis Campher, George Dockrell, Benjamin White, Josh Little, Mark Adair, Gareth Delany, Barry McCarthy

Monank Patel (captain) (wk), Steven Taylor, Andries Gous, Aaron Jones (vice captain), Corey Anderson, Nitish Kumar, Jasdeep Singh, Harmeet Singh, Shadley Van Schalkwyk, Saurabh Netravalkar, Ali Khan

Hello and welcome to the live blog between the United States and Ireland. Plenty is riding on the game especially given where Pakistan has got themselves. The weather in Florida for the entire week has not looked promising. Hence a wash out is all the USA needs to qualify for. If the game where to happen USA winning will end Pakistan's campaign as well.