USA on brink of history

USA have a golden opportunity to make history when they take on Ireland in Florida today in their final T20 World Cup group-stage fixture. 

With four points in the bag, courtesy of wins against Pakistan and Canada, USA, playing their first T20 World Cup, can seal a Super 8 spot -- alongside India -- with a win against Ireland who are yet to register a point in the tournament.

The win will end qualification hopes for Pakistan, Canada, and Ireland as it will take Monank Patel's side to six points, two more than what the aforementioned sides can hope to get.

After producing one of the best batting displays of the tournament so far to clinch their opening fixture against Canada, USA stunned Pakistan in a Super Over thriller and pushed India deep in their seven-wicket defeat. The co-hosts will undoubtedly fancy themselves against Ireland who have languished at the bottom of the table following losses against India and Canada.

Ireland have won only one of their last six T20 World Cup matches -- a five-run win against England in the 2022 edition. Since then they lost five on the trot.

The two sides have met twice in the T20I format, with each team winning once. USA also won their first match in the format against Ireland in 2021.

USA will take a lot of positives from the way they handled themselves against India. Despite an underwhelming batting effort which saw them post 110 for eight, USA came back strongly with the ball, courtesy of in-form pacer Saurabh Netravalkar who struck in his first two overs to remove Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma. Ali Khan castled Rishabh Pant to leave India three down for 39 in the eighth over but an unbeaten 72-run stand between Suryakumar Yadav (50 off 49) and Shivam Dube (31 off 35) guided India to victory.

USA were also at a disadvantage when they became the first side to be penalised five runs under the new stop-clock rules.

A team is penalised if after two warnings they still take more than a minute between overs.

On Wednesday, the US were penalised at the start of the 16th over and instead of needing 35 runs off 30 balls to reach their 111-run target, India's task became 30 off 30 deliveries instead.

"We had a few warnings in earlier games, and it's something we do talk about to get through faster between the overs," USA coach Stuart Law said.
Despite the penalty, Law said the five-run sanction would not have impacted the outcome of the Group A clash.

"Five runs wasn't going to affect the outcome of the game," added Law.

"The players know the rule, but it's something that if you haven't played with it for a long time, it's very difficult to have it embedded in your brain."