USA Cricket, the Olympics and St. Louis Champions

By Mark Jurgena, Advocate Sports Staff

Well in light of last week’s column about the IFAF (American football Under-20 World championship) debacle for the United States team, I was made aware of the monumental upset by a United States team on the international stage earlier this past June.

We upset Pakistan in cricket! Like in the world championships!

Wooo!

Okay, I know as little about cricket as the rest of the United States. 

But I do know Pakistan is really good at cricket…I think.

Well, a quick Google search shows the Pakistanis have won one world championship, finished runner-ups twice (including in 2022) and have three other appearances in the semifinals.

And the USA knocked them off…by five runs…in the Super Over?

No idea! 

I think we won in extra innings and the score was tied at 159-159 at the end of well whatever it is called in cricket to send the game to…some type of tiebreaker. 

Anyway USA! USA!

Actually we won two of our group stage matches to advance to the second round. In addition to beating Pakistan, we also beat Canada. 

In our other first-round matchup, we got drilled by seven wickets (?) by eventual world champion India.