US, Canada set to renew rivalry in T20 WC opener today
West Indies aim for solid start against Papua New Guinea today
Sunday, 2 June 2024
BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, June 01 (Agencies)The sport's oldest rivalry between co-hosts United States, and northern neighbours Canada will get the ball rolling in the biggest ICC Men's Twenty20 World Cup on Sunday.
The Americans and Canadians met in the first international cricket match 180 years ago, and it is fitting that they are set to renew that rivalry at the Grand Prairie Stadium in the American city of Dallas in the state of Texas in the first major International Cricket Council (ICC) event to be held in part in the United States.
The month-long global showpiece of the most explosive format of the sport features 20 teams split across four groups, and it offers teams such as the United States and Canada a chance to shine against all the usual contenders.
United States vice-captain Aaron Jones, a former Barbados Pride batsman, said the co-hosts were determined to play a "fearless" brand of the sport in a bid to advance to the Super Eight quarterfinals out of Group "A"
"Fearless cricket, positive cricket, smart cricket," he said. "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. And then, obviously, 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."
Meanwhile, more than eight years after Carlos Brathwaite's four sixes at Eden Gardens gave them their second T20 world title, a wounded West Indies will look to redeem themselves at home when they begin their campaign in the event's ninth edition by taking on Papua New Guinea, in Georgetown on Sunday.
Brathwaite had slammed Ben Stokes for four successive sixes in the final over to pull off one of the most astonishing chases that made the West Indies the first team to win the T20 World Cup twice. Their maiden triumph was in 2012.
But what followed was years of agony as the team found itself lost in transition. In 2021, they endured four defeats in five games to make a Super 12 exit.