England skipper and opener Jos Buttler came out with all blazing guns to help the defending champions seal the semifinal spot with a convincing 10-wicket win over the co-hosts USA in the T20 World Cup 2024 Super 8 match at the Kensington Oval in Bridgetown, Barbados on Sunday, June 24.
With a target of 116, England chased it down with 62 balls to spare. Buttler played a scintialling captain innings of 83 off 38 balls, including 7 sixes and 6 fours and batted at an impressive strike rate of 218.42. He also formed 117-run unbeaten partnership with Phil Salt, who scored 25 off 21 balls. Salt was playing as second fiddle as Buttler was unleashing his assault on the USA's bowling attack.
When England needed 37 off 71 balls to win, Buttler took on Harmeet Singh and smashed him for 31 runs in the 9th over of the second innings. England skipper brought up his fifty with a six before hitting a hat-trick of sixes. On the sixth ball, Harmeet conceded a wide before he was hit for a six again by Jos Buttler. England's equation went down to 6 off 66 balls to win.
Apart from Jos Buttler's carnage with the bat, England's bowling was exceptional with pacer Chris Jordan recording a hat-trick and finished with figures 4/10 with an economy rate of 3.50. Apart from Jordan, Adil Rashid (2/13) and Sam Curran (2/23) picked two wickets each, while Reece Topley (1/29) and Liam Livingstone (1/24) took a scalp each.
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For the USA, Nitish Kumar was the top-scorer with an innings of 30 off 24 balls, while the middle-order batter Corey Anderson and Harmeet Singh scored 29 and 21, respectively. In bowling, Harmeet Singh conceded the most runs, giving away 36 runs without taking a wicket in his two overs spell.
'We give USA a lot of respect': Jos Buttler
England skipper Jos Buttler said that his team has a lot of respect for the USA given their decent campaign in their World Cup debut. He lauded his bowlers' efforts, especially Chris Jordan for his hat-trick of wickets in the first innings.
"We give USA a lot of respect and we talked about if, if we brought our intensity, we would be too good. Once we got in a few overs, we tried to target this side with the wind. Adil was fantastic and Livi bowled brilliantly in tandem, it's difficult when you are not bowling in one game and then suddenly you bowl 4 overs, credit to him for being ready." Buttler said at the post-match presentation.
"We have great options, today we wanted to bring in CJ to bring depth to our batting and a World Cup hat-trick is a great effort." he added.
England are likely to face India or Australia in the first semifinal of the T20 World Cup 2024.
