A battling Canadian side may have lost the second game of the latest CWC League 2 tri-series against old rivals USA, but they came close to pulling off a quite remarkable comeback at Voorburg today.
Canadian captain Nicholas Kirton won the toss and asked his opponents to bat first. Openers Steven Taylor and Smit Patel added 75 before Taylor was out for 27 with Smit Patel and captain Monank Patel adding another 58 before the former was bowled by Pargat Singh for 63.
Aaron Jones and Milind Kumar came and went in quick succession before Monank Patel and Shayan Jahangir added an unbroken 143 for the fifth wicket to take the USA total to 304-4. Patel finished on 121 - his third ODI century - with Jahangir hitting 57 from 47 balls, only 20 of which game in boundaries.
Canada's openers of Aaron Johnson and Aaditya Varadarajan opened with a 51 run partnership to which the latter contributed just four. Johnson reached 55 from 41 balls before he was the second man out, with Pargat Singh scoring 42 before losing his wicket as part of a spell where Canada went from 126-3 to 140-7.
Shadley van Schalkwyk bowling (KNCB)
Looking dead and buried at that stage, Harsh Thaker and Dilon Heyliger began to attempt a remarkable comeback. In 20 overs they added 125 for the eighth wicket - there have only been two higher eighth wicket partnerships in the entire history of ODI cricket - before Heyliger, who had previously scored 35 runs in total in his six previous innings, was dismissed for 56.
Number 10 Kaleem Saker came in and hit the first ball he saw for six and he and Thaker got themselves into a position where they needed 23 from the final over, which was to be bowled by ODI debutant Shadley van Schalkwyk who at that point had bowled eight overs for 71 runs.
However Thaker was dismissed from the first ball of that final over having scored 77 at exactly a run per ball, and USA could only score eight from it, finishing on 290-9 and losing by 14 runs.
It was a much improved performance by Canada after a rather insipid display against hosts Netherlands on Sunday. They next play on Saturday against the Dutch, with USA playing the next match of this tri-series on Thursday, also against the Netherlands.
