The United States won the toss and elected to field against Canada in the opening match of the T20 World Cup 2024 at the Grand Prairie Stadium in Dallas today.
The two teams will continue cricket’s oldest rivalry, dating back to their first international game in 1844 at St George’s Cricket Club in New York.
Monank Patel will captain the USA, while Saad Bin Zafar will lead Canada.
The two teams have played each other seven times in T20I matches, with the USA winning five and Canada winning two.
USA and Canada are in Group A, along with India, Pakistan, and Ireland.
The USA have come into the tournament with good form, having recently won a series against Canada 4-0 (with one no-result) and a historic 2-1 series victory over Bangladesh.
Canada have a confidence boost by winning a T20 World Cup warm-up match against Nepal.
American batter Aaron Jones appears confident to be playing fearless cricket during the tournament.
“We don’t want to regret anything,” Jones said in a media talk before the match. “We want to leave everything out there on the park.”
“If we come out on top, it’s great. If we don’t come out on top, that’s how cricket goes sometimes. But we don’t want to regret anything.”
Canada’s skipper Saad also expressed confidence. “We have finally made it. We’re finally here,” Saad said.
“Everybody’s excited. Everybody’s itching to go. Everybody’s in the performance mood. I think we are ready to go and play some quality cricket in the next few weeks.
“We don’t have a lot of pressure on our shoulders. I think we just want to go and express ourselves and play to our potential. That’s the brand of cricket that we’re looking to play.”
Squads
United States: Monank Patel (c), Aaron Jones, Andries Gous, Corey Anderson, Ali Khan, Harmeet Singh, Jessy Singh, Milind Kumar, Nisarg Patel, Nitish Kumar, Noshtush Kenjige, Saurabh Nethralvakar, Shadley Van Schalkwyk, Steven Taylor, Shayan Jahangir. Reserve Players: Gajanand Singh, Juanoy Drysdale, Yasir Mohammad
Canada: Saad Bin Zafar (c), Aaron Johnson, Dilon Heyliger, Dilpreet Bajwa, Harsh Thaker, Jeremy Gordon, Junaid Siddiqui, Kaleem Sana, Kanwarpal Tathgur, Navneet Dhaliwal, Nicholas Kirton, Pargat Singh, Ravinderpal Singh, Rayyankhan Pathan, Shreyas Movva. Reserves: Tajinder Singh, Aaditya Varadharajan, Ammar Khalid, Jatinder Matharu, Parveen Kumar.
