Dhaliwal, Buttar keep Canada unbeaten before semis

Captain Navneet Dhaliwal's ballistic knock of 68 off 41 deliveries helped Canada brush aside arch rivals USA by 14 runs. Dhaliwal stayed vigilant during the PowerPlay but later unleashed a flurry of sixes against the inexperienced USA spinners. While Dhaliwal's heroics, along with timely fireworks from Shreyas Movva and Harsh Thaker, helped them get their post a competitive total of 184, it was the Canada pacers', especially Jaskaran Singh Buttar's, uncanny ability to extract reverse swing right from the 12th over that put brakes on USA's charge towards the finish line.

Dhaliwal and Samra ace PowerPlay

Canada came out with the right intent with Ali Nadeem wasting no time to launch Saurabh Netravalkar over his head for a maximum off the fourth ball of the innings. Dhaliwal imposed himself on the young Ali Sheikh by carting him around for a couple of boundaries through the leg side in the second over. Sheikh shrugged off that little setback in the next over with a sensational direct hit from point at the non-striker's end to catch Nadeem short of his ground. Yuvraj Samra lit up the PowerPlay with three boundaries in sixth over off Netravalkar as Canada took the honours in the first-six with a score of 54 for 1.

Dhaliwal makes spinners pay

Akhilesh Bodugum got the first taste of Dhaliwal's fury after being deposited deep over cow corner in the seventh over. Yasir Mohammad won the battle of the match-ups after having Samra hole out at long-off in the next over. Movva needed no sighters as he expertly used his feet to drill Sheikh for two sixes over long-off. Yasir found himself at the receiving end of the Dhaliwal storm with a couple of boundaries. However the young leg-spinner bounced back to have USA see the back off Movva after the wicketkeeper-batter chipped one straight to point off an attempted reverse sweep.

Harsh Thaker came out all guns blazing with a sequence of 6, 4, 6 against Yasir. He had the last laugh as Thaker skied one to deep-midwicket off the next ball but not before Thaker had surged Canada in the middle overs. Dhaliwal kept cruising in fifth gear with a couple of more gigantic sixes off Bodugum. Dhaliwal mistimed one off Jessy Singh to fall two runs short off his highest T20I score. Jessy and Netravalkar bowled miserly at the death to leak mere 28 runs between overs 16-20 and deny Canada the final flourish.

USA openers rage along

Kaleem Sana was made to pay a heavy price by Sai Teja Mukkamalla for spraying short and wide in his first over. Mukkamalla was quick to unfurl his offside to play for back-to-back boundaries off the first-two balls of the innings. Buttar endured an ominous start to the innings after Shayan Jahangir plundered 17 off his first over. Jahangir stayed on the charge to clatter Sana for back-to-back boundaries in the next over to have USA rampaging at 37/0 in 2.2 overs. Harsh Thaker arrested USA's momentum with two wickets in two overs. Mukkamalla skied one to mid-on whereas Jahangir holed out at deep midwicket trying to force the issue in the final over of the PowerPlay.

Reverse swing for the win

After notching close to 200 runs in the competition, Monank Patel failed to recreate his heroics against Canada. The USA skipper was at the receiving end of an ugly mix up with Milind Kumar the first ball after the powerplay. The asking rate climbed as Milind and Aaron Jones nudged only seven singles off the next 15 deliveries. Jones broke the shackles by dancing down the track and clobbering Saad Bin Zafar over long-on. Milind Kumar tried to cut loose in similar fashion to slog-sweep Sukhjinder over the cow corner fence.

After an expensive first over that went for 17 runs, Canada re-introduced Buttar in the 12th over who surprisingly started extracting copious amounts of reverse swing. His strategy to keep hurling reverse swing into the batters paid instant dividends as he struck Jones in front. Akhil Kumar employed similar tactics and got fortunate to edge off Milind down the leg side. Sanjay Krishnamurthy tried to keep USA in the hunt of the steep chase. Krishnamurthy impressed with an 18-ball 24 but eventually fell trying to clear the far leg side of the ground off Sana. USA run chase lost steam and hope after Krishnamurthy's fall. Buttar ended with final figures of 2 for 34 after a horrid start.