Defending champion England will need its power hitters to do the job against a demoralised yet tricky USA in its final Super Eight match as it eyes a huge win to keep itself in contention for a semifinal spot at the T20 World Cup 2024 here on Sunday.
England’s batters couldn’t produce the big hits while chasing a target of 164 during their last Super Eight match against South Africa, suffering a narrow seven-run loss on Friday.
West Indies’ massive nine-wicket win over the USA has opened up the group, leaving England with the task of notching up a big victory to push its Net Run Rate up as it might come down to it in the end.
While South Africa is currently sitting atop the Group 2 with two wins, both West Indies and England have a win and a loss each with the former having a better NRR.
However, no team is assured of a semifinal berth and England will need to defeat USA by either 10 runs or at least an over to spare to stay in contention for the semifinals.
For South Africa, a loss -- even in a Super Over -- against WI in its final match will knock it out of the race if England can achieve its task.
If South Africa wins and England loses to USA, it will again be a three-way tie between WI, ENG and USA for the second spot and the team with the better Net Run Rate will go through to the knockout stage.
England’s batters produced an authoritative performance against West Indies, but they failed to tame the South African bowlers and faltered in their chase of 164 on Friday.
Phil Salt has been in great form, having blasted two centuries, a fifty, and three thirties in his last 10 T20Is but his early dismissal meant England couldn’t get the explosive start as Jos Buttler and Jonny Bairstow couldn’t quite bring out the big shots.
Harry Brook (53) and Liam Livingstone (33) played sensibly to take the chase deep, but England eventually failed to score 25 runs in the last three overs.
However, despite the loss, England’s batting remains a formidable force, which the likes of Saurabh Netravalkar and Harmeet Singh will find tough to tame.
In the bowling unit, Adil Rashid and Jofra Archer have been its standout bowlers, with 13 and 12 wickets, respectively, but Mark Wood’s form will be a cause of worry as, apart from a three-wicket haul, he couldn’t get any wicket in his lastfive T20Is.
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For co-host USA, it has been a reality check after a stunning show in the group stage. It suffered successive losses and its entry into the semifinal will be a miracle as it is alive in the tournament only mathematically.
USA will need to beat England by 80 runs in its final game and also hope that South Africa outwits WI by more than 67 runs to make the semifinal on the basis of NRR.
For US, Andries Gous and Aaron Jones have done the heavy lifting in the batting department and they will need support from the entire team as it will take more than a few individual performances to get it across the defending champion.
Jones has been leading the side since USA has been without skipper Monank Patel following its game against Pakistan.
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