Gritty knocks by Calum Haggett and Grant Stewart followed by Imran Qayyum’s career-best List-A wicket-haul helped Kent survive a low-scoring win against the USA in Cricket West Indies Super50 regional tournament, played at Sir Vivian Richards Stadium in Antigua.
Elmore Hutchinson (2/33) and Saurabh Netravalkar (2/43) started all the trouble for Kent, when they started their innings as things went horribly wrong for them. And after Nosthush Kenjige (2/20) and Roy Silva (2/31) also picked up wickets in a flurry, Kent were staring down the barrel with the scorecard reading 51/6 in the 20th over.
That is where Haggett and Stewart’s gritty stand of 87 runs for the 7th wicket started the recovery period for Kent with Haggett (42 off 73) and Stewart (44 off 86) missing out on individual half-centuries eventually; however, crucial runs down the order from James Tredwell (18) and Adam Riley (13 n.o) took Kent to their eventual total of 172/9 in their 50 overs.
Sunny Sohal and Jaskaran Malhotra started cautiously for USA but Jaskaran failed to continue his good form from the previous game as he got out for only 12 runs. Xavier Marshall and Ibrahim Khaleel followed shortly without adding much to the score with USA down to 34/3 in the 13th over.
Sohal (29 off 75) and Roy Silva (50 off 57) managed to post a crucial stand for 59 runs for the 4th wicket before Imran Qayyum picked up Sohal as one of his four scalps. Qayyum continued his good bowling form by getting the wickets of Nisarg Patel and Timil Patel to finish with 4/33 in his quota of 10 overs.
When Silva got out to Haggett in the 35th over with score reading 125/6, the remaining batting line-up did not manage to soak up the pressure and make the required 48 runs for their 2nd victory in the group stage. Haggett (2/25) and Stewart (2/20) followed up on their match saving innings with wickets in their spells to win the match for Kent rather convincingly by a margin of 30 runs as USA got bowled out for 142 in 42 overs.
USA were left ruing their missed opportunity to secure their 2nd victory in the Super50 competition but the bowlers have been performing admirably throughout the competition to give the team a fighting chance to win matches.
