England are through to the Semis!

Rejoice sports fan, just rejoice! England are still in the race to retain their T20 World Championship!

England played cohosts USA Yesterday afternoon and it was another ‘Must win’ game. As I feel I’ve said before in regards to England, it would also help if we won well, to take the dark Spector of Net Run Rate out of the equation. If we could beat USA by a large enough margin then England were through. If we beat the Bald Eagles by a small margin, or heaven forbid lose, then we would be relying on other results……..never good for the nerves.

Lining up at the Kensington Oval Barbados, England won the toss and put the USA in to bat first. The English plan was clear, blow the Yanks away and burn Washington to the ground! Sorry, that was for my blog on the 7 years war.

Things started fairly steadily for the USA. Their all time leading scorer Steven Taylor looked to be getting himself going nicely before getting caught out for 12. Andries Gous, another big hitter for the USA failed to fire at this battle, managing just 8.

There was some fight in the Bald Eagles though, former NZ international Corrie Anderson managed a stubborn 29. The story of the republic was ended early on this occasion with a sensational 4 wickets from 5 balls, including a hat trick from Chris Jordan, leaving USA all out for just 115.

England, who play their very best cricket when under pressure to win, did not mess about. Knowing they needed to go about their work quickly in order to guarantee their own progression, England had the job done in 9.3 overs. Phill Salt enjoying a lively knock of 25 and England Skipper Jos Buttler smashing 83 from 38 balls. Well done England, it was never in doubt?!

Englands quick victory yesterday afternoon meant that West Indies needed a similarly significant win over South Africa in order to over turn SA’s net run rate and qualify. In what was, yet another rain affected game in Antigua, West Indies batted first and posted a low total, made even lower by DLS. South Africa knocked off the 124 needed to take victory with an over to spare and continued their unbeaten run in this World Cup!

So with that, both the host nations have been knocked out, South Africa and England both secure qualification and the Caribbean rain is still mixing things up!

This afternoon India and taking on Australia with the Aussies needing a win to help secure a place in the semis (come on India!!) The night shift tomorrow morning see’s Afghanistan try and clinch qualification from Australia by beating Bangladesh. This tournament is winding up to an exciting conclusion. Incredible scenes!!

Until tomorrow, all the best.

Nick