DAL­LAS – For­mer Bar­ba­dos Pride bats­man Aaron Jones launched the ninth edi­tion of the ICC Twen­ty20 World Cup in style in the Unit­ed States on Sat­ur­day with a scin­til­lat­ing half-cen­tu­ry as the Unit­ed States pro­duced a dar­ing run chase to beat Cana­da by sev­en wick­ets.

Asked to chase a chal­leng­ing 195 in the tour­na­ment open­er at Grand Prairie Sta­di­um, the home side com­fort­ably over­hauled their tar­get with 14 balls to spare, with the 29-year-old Jones blast­ing an un­beat­en 94 off a mere 40 de­liv­er­ies.

He struck four fours and 10 six­es, mas­ter­mind­ing a 131-run third wick­et stand with An­dries Gous (65) which pulled Unit­ed States around from a nervy po­si­tion of 42 for two in the sev­enth over.

Gous, 30, whose ca­reer was based al­most en­tire­ly in his na­tive South Africa, belt­ed sev­en fours and three six­es in a 46-ball knock.

Man-of-the-Match Jones reached his sec­ond T20 In­ter­na­tion­al fifth off 22 balls in the 13th over, and fit­ting­ly fin­ished the game by clear­ing the ropes at mid-wick­et with off-spin­ner Nikhil Dut­ta.

“I think right now the team is in a good place. We just want to keep win­ning as much as pos­si­ble,” Jones said af­ter­wards.

“Of course we can’t win every sin­gle game for the rest of our lives but we want to win as many games as pos­si­ble, and we want to beat as many teams as pos­si­ble, and re­al­ly show the world that USA re­al­ly have great crick­eters here in the coun­try.”

Sent in, Cana­da got a top score of 61 off 44 balls from open­er Navneet Dhali­w­al while Bar­ba­di­an Nicholas Kir­ton, who played the last of his four first class match­es for Pride as re­cent­ly as last sea­son, chipped in with a maid­en half-cen­tu­ry of 51 off 31 de­liv­er­ies.

Dhali­w­al, who struck half-dozen fours and three six­es, put on 43 for the first wick­et with Aaron John­son (23) be­fore adding a fur­ther 62 for the third wick­et with Kir­ton who count­ed three fours and two six­es.

CMC

SCORES:

Cana­da 194 for 5 (Navneet Dhali­w­al 61, Nicholas Kir­ton 51, Harmeet Singh 1-27) vs USA 197 for 3 (Aaron Jones 94 not out, An­dries Gous 65, Dilon Heyliger 1-19). USA won by sev­en wick­ets.

Play­er of the Match: Aaron Jones