US confident against perfect South Africa

NORTH SOUND, Antigua (AP):

THE UNITED States open the Super Eight playoffs against South Africa at cricket’s Twenty20 World Cup today with American captain Aaron Jones sounding more confident than ever.

A win over 2022 runners-up Pakistan in the group stage, helping to raise the profile of cricket in the US, might do that to a team skipper.

“To be honest with you, a lot of people don’t really pay much attention to US cricket,” said Jones.

“Probably the whole world don’t already know how much talent we have here . . . but definitely I think that on any given day, once we play proper cricket, we believe that we can beat any team in the world for sure.”

The US qualified for the second round after its Group A wins over Canada and Pakistan, with favourites India also advancing from that group.

The eight teams are divided into two groups with defending champions England and co-hosts West Indies, the other teams bracketed with the US and South Africa. The other group has unbeaten Australia, Afghanistan, Bangladesh and India – those teams either topped their groups or finished as runners-up in the original 20-team tournament.

The US face a tough opponent in South Africa, who won all four of their group games. But the Americans can take heart from the fact that South African batters struggled in their last two low-scoring matches against weaker opponents Bangladesh – when the Proteas won by four runs, and Nepal, who they beat by one run.

Despite all the mystery surrounding low-scoring drop-in pitches in New York and the wet weather in Florida, the US sent shockwaves through the cricketing world with back-to-back wins against Canada and Pakistan in Dallas before losing to India on a tricky wicket in New York.

The rain gods also helped the US – the tournament co-hosts received a crucial one point from their rain-abandoned group game against Ireland that knocked Pakistan out of the tournament. It was the first time that Pakistan, the 2009 champions, had not qualified for the playoffs in eight versions of the tournament.

The other Super Eight match today has co-hosts West Indies playing England at Gros Islet, St. Lucia. Tomorow, Afghanistan play India in Bridgetown, Barbados, and Australia take on Bangladesh at North Sound, Antigua, to complete the first round of playoff matches.

All matches in the Super Eight round are being played in the West Indies, and later the semifinals and final. The championship match in the month-long tournament is set for June 29 at the century-old Kensington Oval in Bridgetown, Barbados.