One of the traffic signals around New York's
World Trade Centre
(WTC) reportedly 'dropped out' when
T20 World Cup
co-hosts USA were on the verge of scripting cricket history on Thursday.
The Group A game in Dallas needed a four from the home team to take the match to a 'Super Over' tie-breaker. At New York City's WTC, the game was being aired live on a giant screen.
And just before Pakistan's Haris Rauf ran in to deliver the final ball to USA's Nitish Kumar, the traffic signal at the WTC reportedly paused for a few seconds.
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Then followed the 'Super Over' drama.
After Kumar's boundary to tie the game at 159-runs each, another India-origin player in the US team, engineer-cum-fast-bowler Saurabh Netravalkar, turned into an American hero when he restricted Pakistan to 13 runs in the 'Super Over' in reply to USA's 18 to spark off historic celebrations in the US camp.
Besides the celebratory scenes on the field at the Grand Prairie Stadium in Dallas, US fans on the streets in New York jumped in joy watching it on the big screen.
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USA, who had defeated neighbours Canada in the opening game of the tournament, now sit on top of Group A with two wins.
It is the second Test-playing nation that the US team has defeated in a T20I in under a month, after beating Bangladesh to win the T20I series ahead of the ongoing World Cup. Also, this is Pakistan's first defeat in T20Is against a non-full-ICC-member team.
The 2009 champions now stare at the possibility of being virtually knocked out if they lose to archrivals India in their next match on June 9 in New York.
English (US) ·