UNITED STRIKES OF AMERICA

How Aaron Jones, Ali Khan and Abraham Lincoln have set the T20 World Cup alight for the co-hosts USA

- SWAROOP SWAMINATHAN

ON Thursday, Ali Khan won one of the game's many minibattles. Up against Fakhar Zaman, a natural stroke-maker and someone who hits most bowling types, Khan knew this was a battle he started second favourite in. But he nipped him out, the southpaw's paddle failing to clear the man at fine-leg.

US had the opening and they drove a car through it.

How Khan got to this stagedeciding games for his adopted country in one of the sport's biggest stages is the story of a fair few others who came and tried before him. In the sparsely populated town of Centerville, Ohio, some 14 years ago, Khan, still a teen then, had just moved from Pakistan. The tape ball expert, according to the Guardian, sent down a few spicy deliveries. Word of Khan's expertise spread throughout the midwest.

He played pick-up games whenever his day job, mobile phone sales representative, gave him the time. "He," the guardian noted, "was spotted by Courtney Walsh in 2015 and won a spot with the Guyana Amazon Warriors in the Caribbean Premier League." From there, he did the hard yards. He was even picked by Kolkata in the IPL thus becoming the first American international to be picked in the league.

On Thursday, the yorker specialist had a new career highlight. Khan moved with his parents. Others moved for studies.

Some came for the money. All of them came together to live a dream they first thought of in the country of their birth.

In the US, they fused together their impossible dream.

The cricketing community continues to be divided on both the short and long-term effects of the proliferation of T20 cricket.

It has not only expanded the calendar but it has also shrinked international cricket. The relevance of the 50-over game, outside the World Cup, is up in the air and a fair few players have been forced to pick one or the other.

However, the proliferation of the game's shortest format has done US cricket a world of good.