T20 World Cup: Barbados-born Aaron Jones’ batting pyrotechnics gives USA perfect start
Aaron Jones doesn’t have the immense build of the archetypal power-hitter. His compact shoulders are not muscled as some of them are; he doesn’t possess the pyrotechnics of new-age T20 batsmen. None of these mattered for Jones to smear 10 sixes, several of them landed outside the arena, and four fours to reel out 94 runs off 40 balls and pinch a seven-wicket win for the USA over bitter rivals Canada in the opening game of World Cup.
What he has are ambition, explosive power and self-belief, a useful combination when his burning desire is to take American cricket to further heights, en route to providing the critics in his home country Barbados wrong, perhaps catch the attention of an IPL scout, and in the process become the figurehead of American cricket.
After wrapping up the win, a chase of 195 achieved with 14 balls to spare, he oozed the unreproducible cool of a cricketer from the Caribbean Islands, he calmly put what the victory meant to him. “Hope it opens the eyes of some people around the world that I am good enough to play T20 cricket,” he said. “I believe in myself, I work hard and I just use [criticism] as motivation,” he added.
He didn’t specify the intended target of his words, but he strode onto bat with the daring of a man who wanted to prove the critics wrong. For much of his career, the 29-year-old dreamt of playing for the West Indies. He is from the proudest cricketing tradition among all the islands, did the hard yards along with the likes of Jason Holder and Shai Hope, made his first-class debut in 2017, yet he, in an interview with Barbados Today in 2019, “says he never got a decent run” in the domestic side. “I wanted to stay here and fight for my place here. But I know that is a lost battle,” he said. So he made use of his American passport and switched to his country of birth the same year.
The facilities were not the same. Initially, he played in parks and on astro-turfs. He took up part-time coaching to meet ends. But the dream of playing international cricket fuelled him. A few months after relocating, he made his T20I debut for USA against UAE. In no time’s he became an indispensable furniture of the team, soon becoming the highest run-getter for his USA in ODIs and the second on the list of his team’s T20I charts. His lone international hundred, against Namibia, helped his team acquire ODI status, but his most famous knock yet was born in Dallas. A breakthrough moment for himself and USA cricket.
He strode in with his team in strife, having lost captain Monank Patel with the total score on 42, chasing a steep 195 for victory. He explained his mindset in the press conference: “When I went out to bat tonight, I just saw it as another game to fight for me and bring my team as close as possible to the line, and if we get as close as possible to the line and over the line, it’s great for the team.”
Seven tentative balls — he nearly nicked behind first ball, off a vicious Dilon Heyliger away-swinger — and heaved the eighth into the second tier of the stadium. A torrent of sixes would flow—most of them slog sweeps (five of his ten sixes). Off the 22nd ball, he had completed his half-century, with his sixth six. He was most severe on Gujranwala-born left-arm spinner Saad bin Zafar, who he hefted for three sixes an over. His leg-side preference was well evident — all ten sixes were hit in this direction.
Post 50, he slowed down, relatively that is, to enable Andries Gous some fun en route to chopping 65 off 46 balls. The 131-run-stand was pure T20 entertainment, and effectively nailed the win, even though Gous departed with the score on 173. Fittingly, with a slog-swept six, Jones completed a win that could be more than a win for his adopted country. A statement win; a start perhaps to a more fulfilling tournament.
Brief Scores: Canada: 194/5 in 20 overs (Navneet Dhaliwal 61, Nicholas Kirton 51) lost to USA 197/3 in 17.4 overs (Aaron Jones 94 not out, Andries Gous 65) by seven wickets.
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