Kirton effort unable to prevent Canada defeat in opener

Source: Trinidad Guardian

HOUS­TON - Bar­ba­di­an Nicholas Kir­ton weighed in but his ef­fort proved in­suf­fi­cient in pre­vent­ing Cana­da from a six-wick­et de­feat to Unit­ed States in the open­ing Twen­ty20 In­ter­na­tion­al of the five-match se­ries in Texas, USA yes­ter­day.

The 25-year-old, who played the last of his ten first class games for Bar­ba­dos Pride as re­cent­ly as last year, made 27 from 23 balls as Cana­da ral­lied to 132 all out off their 20 overs at Prairie View Crick­et Com­plex.

Cap­tain Saad Bin Za­far struck a 16-ball 29 down the or­der but no oth­er bats­man man­aged to pass 20, left-arm spin­ner Nos­thush Ken­jige claim­ing three for 21 to help lim­it Cana­da.

In re­ply, both cap­tain Mo­nank Pa­tel and An­dries Gous struck ex­act­ly 50 as the USA chased down their tar­get with 15 balls to spare.

Sent in, Cana­da were in trou­ble at 31 for three at the start of the eighth over be­fore Par­gat Singh (19) and Harsh Thak­er (13) put on 31 for the fourth wick­et.

When both fell in suc­ces­sive overs with the score on 62 and Dil­preet Ba­jwa then fol­lowed for four in the 14th, Cana­da were re­vived by a 41-run, sev­enth wick­et part­ner­ship be­tween Jones and Saad.

Unit­ed States were al­ways in con­trol of the chase, Mo­nank clob­ber­ing sev­en fours and a six in 34-ball knock in post­ing 47 for the first wick­et with Steven Tay­lor (22) and a fur­ther 57 in a sec­ond wick­et part­ner­ship with Gous, whose 35-ball stay in­clud­ed five fours and three six­es.

Aaron Jones, 29, who played nine first class match­es for Bar­ba­dos, made three.

Both Cana­da and Unit­ed States are prepar­ing for this June's T20 World Cup where they fea­ture in Group A along­side In­dia, Pak­istan and Ire­land.