USA youngsters show promise

There is an old cricket adage, which goes, "It is not whether you win or lose, it is how you play the game". If this standard is applied to the performance of the USA team in its debut performance in the Under-19 World Cup in Sri Lanka, they could justifiably clam to respect have performed to par. They did not win any of their Group B matches, but performed well enough to earn the respect of their opponents--and raise their hopes for the future.

In their match against the West Indies, USA's nemesis came in the form of W. J. Perkins, himself a US resident who had played in the 2004 US U-19 Nationals but who opted to play for the West Indies for the World Cup. Perkins, who had played several memorable innings for the USA in the past two years, turned the tables on his former team-mates with a dazzling century, which turned out to be the difference in the match. If his innings were subtracted from the WI total of 302, USA's performance (201 runs, and 7 wickets) would have been on a par with that of their opponents. As it was, USA went down fighting, defeated but by no means disgraced.

Against their other Group B opponents, USA also performed rather better than any one had the right to expect. They had South Africa on the ropes at 53 for 4, before a stand by South Africa's middle order took them out of harm's way and past a modest USA total. Australia's victory over the USA also proved to be quite a struggle, with Australia winning over a tenacious US attack by a fairly slim margin. The tally in the win-loss column for the USA might read 0-3, but that does less than justice to the spirit with which they performed in the World Cup.

The single biggest failure of the USA team was that of its top-order batsmen who had been the mainstay of their performances from Canada to Hyderabad. The USA openers had provided a substantial batting cushion in Canada - the team never needed to bat through a complete innings in their 4-0 triumph in the Americas Qualifiers. The story had been the same in Hyderabad. In Sri Lanka, however, they found themselves down by two or three wickets almost as soon as they had started batting, leaving it to their middle and late-order batsmen to make up the deficit - something they never had to do before, and with very little match experience to back them up. Had the openers performed half as well as they done before Sri Lanka, USA could have scored more runs and might even have won a match or two in their Group. As it was, their batting had to be defensive, and that is no way to win cricket matches.

Even so, the numbers look respectable. Their overall performance was the best of any first-time team in an U-19 World Cup. They played three of the strongest sides in the tournament--Bangladesh, West Indies and Australia--certainly a "baptism by fire", as Brian Murgatroyd of ICC described it.

The altered schedule for the 2006 World Cup - where the Plate championships go straight into the quarter-finals instead of a Super League - gives USA less opportunity to display their skills than pervious first-timers might have had. If they lose against Namibia, that would be the end of their epic journey. But it has been a useful trip so far, and there is nothing for USA to be ashamed of.