It was a contest that India were expected to sail through and in the end, it was indeed the case but not before USA put up a strong fight in defense of a low total at the Nassau County Cricket Stadium on Wednesday. Chasing 111, India lost their top-three batters – Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Rishabh Pant – cheaply on a tricky pitch but Suryakumar Yadav scored an unbeaten half-century to steer them over the line.
India chased down the target in 18.2 overs for their third win of Group A and with that, qualified for the Super 8 stage.
Also Read: India vs USA Match Highlights
Suryakumar scored an unbeaten 50 off 49 with the help of two fours and as many sixes and stitched an unbroken partnership of 72 runs for the fourth wicket with Shivam Dube (31*).
This was after Saurabh Netravalkar continued his dream run in the world cup as he got rid of Kohli for a golden duck by having him caught behind before accounting for Rohit in his next over to leave India wobbling at 10/2 in 2.2 overs.
Ali Khan then cleaned up Pant (18) in the eighth over to leave the match in the balance.
Suryakumar and Dube joined forces to first stabilise the chase with a steady progress.
Besides the solid partnership between Suryakumar and Dube, there was another turning point in the contest when USA were deemed to have exceeded the allotted time of 60 seconds to start a fresh over for the third time in the match.
India were 76/3 in 15 overs when the umpires awarded them five penalty runs as a result of USA exceeding the time limit. It proved to be another pivotal moment with India taking firm control of the chase and sailing to the target to enter the next round.
Earlier, Arshdeep hardly took his foot off the pedal enjoying career-best figures of 4/9 as India restricted co-hosts United States of America to a manageable 110/8 in 20 overs.
After a couple of gallant batting performances in their back-to-back victories, the USA batters found Indian pace attack a few notches above in terms of class and quality.
There was hardly a phase of play when the hosts would have felt the noose being loosened around their necks.
However, after scoring 42 in the first 10, USA with useful contributions from Nitish Kumar (27), Steven Taylor (24) and former New Zealand international Corey Anderson (15) added another 68 in the back-10.
Once Arshdeep got a couple of breakthroughs in the opening over including a first-ball wicket of Shayan Jahangir, there was no looking back for the Indians.
They never had a slip up in terms of intensity, mixing up fuller deliveries with ones that were pitched on back of length.
The left-arm pacer was fantastic both at the start and at the death bowling an incredible 17 dot balls.
Arshdeep had a dream first delivery of the game as he got one that was pitched on a length and darted back enough to catch Jahangir (0) plumb in-front.
The last delivery of the same over accounted for Andries Gous (2), who was late on a pull-shot off a delivery that was dug in short.
The Powerplay yielded only 18 runs and skipper on the day Aaron Jones (11) could hit one six off Mohammed Siraj as he was forced to block most deliveries before
Hardik Pandya (2/14 in 4 overs) ended his misery with a short delivery which he top-edged to Siraj at deep fine leg.
The quality of opposition also gave skipper Rohit Sharma a chance to check out Shivam Dube (0/11 in 1 overs), the weakest link in both batting and bowling department.
Opener Taylor, who survived the Powerplay, hit a big six off Axar Patel only to drag the next one back to the stumps.
However, Nitish (27 off 23 balls) proved to be a thorn in India’s flesh with some lusty hits including a picturesque straight drive after a maximum off Pandya while his able ally Anderson slog swept Axar for a maximum in the cow corner region.
But a superb catch by Siraj at the mid-wicket boundary brought Nitish’s downfall as half of the side was back in pavilion for 81.
Once Nitish was gone, USA’s dreams of scoring 120 were also dashed.
With PTI Inputs
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