The United States pulled off one of the biggest upsets in cricket, ousting cricket powerhouse Pakistan in the T20 World Cup yesterday — a feat that remains unbelievable for a country where most people probably do not know how cricket is played.
In their first game, they had hammered and romped Canada comprehensively, a seven-wicket defeat on a ground that proved quite friendly to the batsmen. Aaron Jones, the tall left-handed batsman who plundered 40 balls unbeaten 94 against Canada, once again came into the limelight for the tournament co-host when he again took the side into the super over with yet another good knock of 36 not out in 26 balls.
Hitting the sixth off Haris Rauf and then managing a single, Nitish Kumar sealed the deal with a boundary off the last ball, levelling the score to 159 all out at the end of the game, but Pakistan’s experienced fast bowler proved costly in the last six balls.
US captain Monank Patel, who is also an Indian American, “It’s a big achievement, beating Pakistan while playing for the first time (against them)”
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From the pitch to the memes
Notably, five cricketers in the USA’s top 11 are Indian-born, two are Pakistani, and three are British. Harmeet Singh and Nisarg Patel are some of the names. And with that, the social media dwellers took no time to churn out hilarious H-1b visas and IT memes.
“A software engineer at Oracle has defeated Pakistan at the T20 World Cup,” one user posted on X (formerly Twitter)
“Almost half of the USA Squad are Indians….Americans came to know that they have a Cricket team after the Indians driven team beat Pakistan. All thanks to H1B XD,” another commented.
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One user chimed in, commenting, “This USA World Cup team has Indians, Pakistanis, Sri Lankans and even a Nepali. Never in my wildest imaginations did I think I’d see a USA team that represents Akhand Bharat.”
“It’s USA baby,its country of immigrants,” another X user wrote.
“An immigrant engineer in Silicon Valley playing in the Cricket World Cup in his spare time,” one user piped in, alluding Indian American fast bowler Saurabh Netravalkar.
Pakistan captain Babar Azam said after the match, “All credit to the USA who did well in all the three departments and that’s why they won. We couldn’t capitalize during the first six overs. We took the momentum, but back-to-back wickets hurt us.”