England secures semi-final spot
Defending champion England crushed United States by 10 wickets with 62 balls remaining in their last Super Eight game securing their spot in the semifinals of the Twenty20 World Cup at the Kensington Oval in Bridgetown, Barbados.
Fast bowler Chris Jordan, who replaced pacer Mark Wood, got a hat trick and grabbed four wickets off five balls in his last over to dismantle the U.S. for 115 runs in 18.5 overs. Jordan become the first Englishman to claim a hat trick in T20 internationals finishing with 4-10 in 2.5 overs.
Captain Jos Buttler then smacked 83 not out off 38 balls, belting five sixes in one over against leftarm spinner Harmeet Singh as England raced to 117-0 in 9.4 overs.
Buttler smashed seven sixes and six boundaries in total while Phil Salt was on 25 not out.
“We’ve got great options. We wanted to bring Chris Jordan back, adds a bit of depth with his batting capabilities as well,” Buttler said.
After Buttler winning the toss and elected to field, impeccable leg spin from man-of-the-match Adil Rashid with 2-13 in four overs not conceding a boundary, took the wickets of captain Aaron Jones on 10 and top-scorer Nitish Kumar on 30. Liam Livingstone also bowled well with 1-24.
The sensational collapse began at the end of the 18th over when Jordan caught Harmeet Singh at long-off, off Sam Curran’s full toss and then bowled a pulsating 19th over.
Corey Anderson (29) holed out a pacey full toss from Jordan at the start of the over. Ali Khan’s stump went cartwheeling off Jordan’s third ball. He then had Nosthush Kenjige lbw and got his hat trick by uprooting Saurabh Netravalkar’s middle stump to end the match.
Jordan is the second bowler at this World Cup after Pat Cummins to record a hat trick.
The Americans’ World Cup debut ended with three straight Super Eight losses.
“We’ve not had a good last two games,” Jones said, but added “we’ve really enjoyed this tournament.”
Jones said his team had defied expectations.
“This is our first World Cup and I don’t think people would have thought we’d be playing here against the big boys,” Jones said.
“Hopefully this will open the eyes of the American public.”
