The Pakistani cricket fans were in a great shock as their team lost the league match to the USA team which has made their debut in the T20 World Cup this time. This was the first time that USA and Pakistan faced each other and the former did the unthinkable by defeating Pakistan in the super over.
While Pakistan is getting slammed for their poor performance, a former South African cricketer Juan Theron who is also known as Rusty Theron has leveled huge allegations against the Pak team as he said that the Pakistani cricketers were scratching the ball on a regular basis in order to get reverse swing from a freshly changed ball.
He claimed that Harris Rauf was seen running his thumbnail over the ball. He tweeted, “@ICC are we just going to pretend Pakistan aren’t scratching the hell out of this freshly changed ball? Reversing the ball that’s just been changed 2 overs ago? You can literally see Harris Rauf running his thumb nail over the ball at the top of his mark. @usacricket #PakvsUSA”
https://x.com/RustyTheron/status/1798792616596681174
Rusty Theron played 4 ODIs and 9 T20Is for South Africa before shifting to USA and till now, he has played 18 ODIs and the same number of T20Is in his international career and has taken 55 wickets till now.
Rusty Theron has played in the IPL also and has represented Deccan Chargers (now defunct), Kings XI Punjab and Rajasthan Royals.
As far as the match between Pakistan and USA is concerned, it was played yesterday at Grand Prairie Stadium, Texas. The toss was won by the hosts and they decided to bowl first.
Batting first, Pakistan kept losing wickets regularly but with the help of useful knocks of Babar Azam (44 runs, 43 balls, 3 fours & 2 sixes) and Shadab Khan (40 runs, 25 balls, 1 four and 3 sixes), it managed to put up a total of 159/7 in their stipulated 20 overs.
In response, USA batted pretty well as skipper Monak Patel scored a fifty (38 balls, 7 fours & 1 six) and he was well supported by Andries Gous who scored 35 runs (26 balls, 5 fours & 1 six). The vice-captain Aaron Jones also played a brilliant knock of 36 runs (26 balls, 2 fours & 2 sixes) but the match got tied and went into super over. USA gave a target of 19 runs to Pakistan but Babar Azam-led team could manage only 13 runs and lost the match by 5 runs.
This is big win for USA and they will cherish it for a long time but the important question is whether the allegations of Rusty Theron should be investigated or not.
