The West Indies have stayed in the race for a semi-final berth at the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup with an impressive nine-wicket victory over USA in Barbados on Friday.
Roston Chase (3/19) and Andre Russell (3/31) were in good touch with the ball as the USA were dismissed for just 128 and an unbeaten 82 from Shai Hope ensured the victory target was achieved within 11 overs at Kensington Oval.
The triumph was the West Indies first of the Super Eights phase of the tournament and leaves them in contention for a place in the final four should they be able to defeat South Africa in their last game of the stage.
It leaves USA without a win from two Super Eight contests and means the tournament co-hosts will need everything to go their way in their match against England on Sunday if they are to sneak into the semi-final spots.
USA’s innings never reached great heights after they were sent into bat first by West Indies captain Rovman Powell.
Andries Gous top-scored for the USA with 29, while Nitish Kumar (20), Milind Kumar (19) and Shadley van Schalkwyk (18) also chimed in as the West Indies took wickets at regular intervals to stay in control of the contest.
Hope was in devastating touch with the bat as he cleared the rope on eight occasions to help guide West Indies home and give them a valuable boost to their net run rate ahead of a cut-throat clash with South Africa on Sunday.
USA made two changes to their XI, with Milind Kumar and van Schalkwyk included in their team to replace Shayan Jahangir and Jessy Singh.
The West Indies also made two changes – one of them forced – with Hope replacing the injured Brandon King and Obed McCoy coming in for Romario Shepherd.
USA: Steven Taylor, Andries Gous (wk), Nitish Kumar, Aaron Jones (c), Corey Anderson, Milind Kumar, Harmeet Singh, Shadley van Schalkwyk, Nosthush Kenjige, Ali Khan, Saurabh Netravalkar.
West Indies: Johnson Charles, Shai Hope, Nicholas Pooran (wk), Roston Chase, Rovman Powell (c), Sherfane Rutherford, Andre Russell, Akeal Hosein, Alzarri Joseph, Gudakesh Motie, Obed McCoy.
SOURCE: ICC-cricket.com/SLT
