Build it, and they will come. The great American cricket experiment began on Saturday night, when the USA defeated Canada by seven wickets in the opening match of the T20 World Cup at the little ground in Grand Prairie, Texas. And the bells of hell, if this were not, in its small way, one of the great occasions of the game.
A crowd of about 5,000 people were treated to brilliantly free innings by American Aaron Jones, a batsman born in Queens and raised in Barbados. Jones has clobbered 10 six, one of them clean off the ground, in an unsmacken innings of 94 from just 40 balls.
It was an achievement to get the match at all. A mini-tornado broke out here last Tuesday. He pulled out one of the great screens and tore a part of the heavy metal railings around the floor. Since then, there have been four days of torrential rain and flash Overflows, and many surrounding cities have been deprived of electricity.
The small team of employees has been working 24 hours a day, and the entire site is powered by temporary generators. But in the end, the only real problem was that they could have changed a few more tickets. The high prices meant that there were a little too many empty seats.
The people who showed up enjoyed a real treat. The USA were the big favourites considering they had recently won one series against Canada 4-0 and another against Bangladesh 2-1, but their bowlers seemed to have a few nerves on the first night. Canada produced 40 runs from the first four overs after being smacken. Their opener Aaron Johnson hit Muhammad Ali Khan’s first ball for four. He scored three more in Khan’s four second-placed balls, four more rested on a bouncer that bounced off his helmet.
Johnson got caught in the long run, but his opening partner Navneet Dhaliwhal kept going. He defeated the first six of the tournament against former Indian U19 player Harmeet Singh.
Dhaliwhal was joined by Nicholas Kirton in an entertaining 62-run stand for the fourth wicket. Kirton, who has fast hands and a nice drive, has a couple of crunchy sixes covered. Corey Anderson caught Dhaliwhal long-term with the first ball he threw. Nevertheless, Kirton continued to make 51, and Canada’s total of 194 seemed quite intimidating.
Especially when the USA were 40 to one after the first six overs, with opener Steven Taylor on lbw in the second ball of the innings. But this only brought Jones. He put on 131 for the third wicket with Andries Gous.
