Jones, Gous’ spectacular show hands USA opening win

USA 197 for 3 (Jones 94*, Gous 65, Heyliger 1-19) beat Canada 194 for 5 (Dhaliwal 61, Kirton 51, Harmeet 1-27) by seven wickets

Jones went on a six-hitting spree – he cleared the boundary ten times – and celebrated most of those with animated fist-pumps, which had the crowd chanting: “USA! USA! USA!”

Though Gous holed out for 65 off 46, Jones fittingly finished the chase with a pair of sixes, off offspinner Nikhil Dutta, and handed USA their fifth successive win over Canada, having beaten them 4-0 in the lead-up to their first-ever World Cup appearance.

The Jones-Gous show

On the eve of the T20 World Cup opener, Jones was asked to describe USA’s style of cricket. Here’s what he had to say: “To be honest I’ll say fearless cricket, positive cricket, smart cricket. I think that’s what we’re really and truly trying to do. We don’t want to regret anything. We want to leave everything out there on the park.”

When Jones came into bat, USA were 42 for 2 in the seventh over, having lost openers Steven Taylor (0) and Monank Patel (16 off 16). Canada’s seamers got the ball to nip around under lights, but Jones got stuck into the spinners, hitting fingerspinners Saad Bin Zafar and Dutta for 61 off a mere 22 balls. He slog-swept, reverse-swept, and even advanced down the pitch to dominate the spinners.

Jones showed he could cut it against pace too when he launched Dilon Heyliger for a 103-metre six. Gous, becalmed in the early exchanges, caught fire too when he lined up Jeremy Gordon for 6, 4, 6, 4 in the 14th over, which cost Canada 33 runs.

Gous’ experience complemented Jones’ big-hitting. Gous was Washington Freedom’s No.1 pick in the inaugural MLC draft and even trained in New South Wales under Burt Cockley, the former NSW seamer and Freedom’s current strength and conditioning Coach. He has also had some T20 exposure in the UAE, having had stints in the T10 and ILT20 leagues. He put all of that to good use in the opening match of the T20 World Cup.

Canada throw the first punch

Anderson takes pace off

Anderson, the former New Zealand allrounder, became the fifth player to represent two different teams at the T20 World Cup after Roelof van der Merwe (South Africa and Netherlands), Dirk Nannes (Netherlands and Australia), David Wiese (South Africa and Namibia) and Mark Chapman (Hong Kong and New Zealand). He marked the occasion with a clever spell full of cutters into the Dallas pitch.

He was introduced into the attack in the 15th over and struck with his very first ball to dismiss Dhaliwal. He went onto bowl the 17th and 19th overs to come away with 3-0-29-1. Fourteen of his 18 balls were slower, according to ESPNcricinfo’s logs, and those variations helped USA restrict Canada to a sub-200 total.

Anderson later shared the winning moment with Jones and the Dallas crowd.