NEWS
Follow UsUnited States’ clash against South Africa was considered a write-off at the halfway point after the Proteas plundered 194 runs with the bat, but, as it turned out, the associate side ended up pushing South Africa to their absolute limit. USA were reeling at 76/5 in the 12th over, but a stunning fight back saw the co-hosts of the 2024 T20 World Cup take the game all the way to the very final over, eventually falling short by just 18 runs.
The defeat made it two gut-wrenching losses for the side in as many games, the first one being the loss against India, but after the South Africa clash, the team’s head coach Stuart Law was full of praise for the USA players.
Law said that nerves and inexperience slightly got the better of his side on the day, and insisted that this young group is ‘learning and growing’ even when it is losing.
“Yeah, look, we can sit down and dissect it, but sitting here, again, a proud coach of what we've achieved. To get to the Super 8’s was a phenomenal effort, but to then push South Africa, you can see they got nervous towards the back end of their innings,” Law said after the South Africa game.
“We just lost Harmeet Singh just at the wrong moment there - That was a shame, but there's lots of things we areas we can improve on. We've you can tell the inexperience that we do have particularly against the bigger teams and that's okay.
“You only get experience by playing and it's nice that the performance warranted the South African coach coming over to me and saying ‘we'd love to set up a reciprocal series’. So, it's another great day. We didn't get the result, but we showed that we can compete against some of the best players in the world.”
On the day, South Africa pretty much killed the contest inside the first 10 overs, racing to 101/1 at the halfway point. Quinton de Kock, who had a very poor run in the group stages, wreaked havoc with a 40-ball 74.
The USA head coach admitted that the shoddy showing with the ball in the first 10 overs cost his side the game, but insisted that the group will learn from their mistakes and will look to do their best in their next clash, which is against West Indies on June 21 (Friday).
“The pressure of knowing if you miss, the South African boys hit it a mile. So that all added up together is pretty tough. Sometimes the emotion or the situation gets to players who haven't dealt with it enough,” Law said.
“But I keep saying if we're not losing, we're learning. So, if we learn and get better, South Africa, the way they manipulated the ball to be hit to the biggest side into the wind, we just couldn't quite do that enough.
“After the 10-over mark, we started doing it better. But that first six to 10 overs, we weren't as good as what we could have been. And that's OK. That's all right. We'll learn from it. We'll point this out to the players before our next match. We take on West Indies in Barbados and we'll stand up again and we'll give our best effort against the other host nation.”
Incumbent skipper Monank Patel sat out the India clash due to a shoulder problem, and he also missed the crucial Super 8s clash against the Proteas on June 19 (Wednesday). Law said that the captain is recovering well, but admitted that he is not sure if Patel will be able to get fit in time to face West Indies in Barbados.
“We've got a tight turnaround here. We've got a flight booked pretty soon. We were going to have nets out the back, but we'll have to see how he goes against bowlers tomorrow. But he's definitely improved out of sight which is great news for us,” Law said of Patel.
“I haven't spoken to the medical team we haven't seen him face fast bowlers yet so once we do that, we'll be able to get a more clear picture of where he's at.”
Whether it be Aaron Jones, Saurabh Netravalkar, Harmeet Singh or Andries Gous, this T20WC 2024 has already seen plenty of USA players thrust themselves into the limelight.
Law believes all the aforementioned players are well and truly on their way to becoming ‘rockstars’.
“We've unearthed some, well, they're going to be rockstars, the way that Sourav Netravalkar is being treated at the moment. Aaron Jones and Harmeet Singh will probably join that crew as well. Andres Gous, what a great effort against a team of his birth.
“You get emotional because you see what they do and you understand what they had to put up with to get here. To put on performances like this is just unbelievably great,” the USA head coach said.
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