After the brilliant performance of fast bowler Chris Jordan, the opening pair of captain Jos Buttler and Phil Salt played brilliantly, due to which England defeated America by 10 wickets. With this win, defending champion England became the first team to reach the semi-finals of the current T20 World Cup. This is the second time in the tournament that England has won without losing any wicket. Before America, England had also defeated India by the same margin in 2022.
On the strength of Chris Jordan’s hat-trick, England bundled out America’s innings for 115 runs in 18.5 overs in the Super Eight stage match. In response, England won the match by scoring 117 runs without any loss in just 9.4 overs. For England, Buttler scored an unbeaten 83 off 38 balls with the help of six fours and seven sixes and Phil Salt scored 25 runs off 21 balls with the help of two fours. The performance of the US team, which performed brilliantly in the group stage, was disappointing in the Super Eight and the team lost all its three matches and was eliminated from the tournament. With this spectacular victory, the England team has reached the top of Group 2 of the Super Eight stage with four points with two wins and one loss in three matches. England’s net run rate became +1.992 which is better than South Africa and West Indies.
Butler-Salt’s century partnership
Butler and Salt gave a strong start to the England team chasing the target. England batted slowly in the first two overs, but Butler and Salt attacked Saurabh Netrawalkar who came to bowl the third over. England scored 19 runs from this over. After this, both the batsmen continued their explosive batting and added 60 runs to the board without any loss till the end of the powerplay. Butler completed his half-century in 32 balls with a six. After completing his fifty, Butler batted explosively. He scored 32 runs in the over of Harmeet Singh who came to bowl the ninth over and hit five consecutive sixes and then hit a four in the next over to give the team victory.
Harmeet bowled the fifth expensive over of the T20 World Cup
An unwanted record was registered in the name of America’s left-arm spinner Harmeet Singh. Harmeet conceded 32 runs in an over against England and became the fifth bowler to concede the most runs in an over in the T20 World Cup. England’s fast bowler Stuart Broad and Afghanistan’s Azmatullah Omarzai hold the unwanted record of bowling the most expensive over in the T20 World Cup. Broad conceded 36 runs in an over against India in 2007 and Omarzai in 2024 against West Indies.
America’s poor batting
Earlier, England won the toss and invited America to bat first, but America’s batting was very poor. America lost its five wickets for just 88 runs. Andris Gaus hit Reece Topley’s ball for a six at fine leg in the very first over, but two balls later, while trying to play the same shot, he was caught by Phil Salt at deep square leg. Sam Curran took his 50th wicket in T20 International by getting Stephen Taylor caught by Moeen Ali at backward point, with this the score of America was 48 runs for two wickets in the power play. Jos Buttler handed the ball to leg spinner Adil Rashid, who bowled captain Aaron Jones with a beautiful googly in his second over. Then Rashid also ended Nitish’s innings with a googly. Liam Livingstone then dismissed Milind Kumar at the end of the 14th over, with which the score was 88 runs for five wickets. America completed 100 runs in the 17th over.
Jordan took a hat-trick
Captain Jos Buttler sent Jordan to bowl the 19th over. Interestingly, Jordan was given a place in the playing-11 in place of Mark Wood for this match and he took full advantage of it. Jordan got Corey Anderson caught by Harry Brook on the first ball. The next ball was a dot, while on the third ball Jordan bowled Ali Khan. On the fourth ball, he got Nosathush Kenjige, who came in as a new batsman, out LBW and then on the next ball he bowled Saurabh Netravalkar and completed his hat-trick. With this, Jordan became the first England bowler to complete a hat-trick in the T20 format. This is the third time in this World Cup that a bowler has taken a hat-trick. Before Jordan, Australia’s fast bowler Pat Cummins was the only bowler to take a hat-trick in this World Cup.
Jordan not only completed a hat-trick in this match, but he also took four wickets in five balls in his over. Jordan has become the second bowler in the world to take four wickets in an over in a T20 World Cup after Ireland’s Curtis Campher. Campher took four wickets in an over against the Netherlands in 2021 and now Jordan also did this feat. For America, Nitish Kumar scored the highest 30 runs and Corey Anderson scored 29 runs, while Harmeet contributed 21 runs. For England, Jordan took four wickets, while Sam Curran and Adil Rashid got two wickets each.
