Monank Patel spells out USA's vision ahead of Pakistan clash

The United States of America (USA) started the T20 World Cup with a comprehensive victory over their neighbours Canada in the first match of the tournament. It was an excellent run-chase by USA that saw them attain the target with ease, thanks to fifties from Aaron Jones and Andries Gous. 

Ahead of the second game against Pakistan in Dallas, USA captain Monank Patel says that his team is aiming to make the Super Eights and is looking forward to taking each game as it comes.

"Before we started the World Cup you know we had a vision to qualify in the Super Eights and we want to focus one game at a time and we had a great start against Canada and we would like to continue it and playing against top 10 teams in the world gives us a chance to showcase our talent and make sure we play our best against Pakistan," Monank said ahead of the clash.

Monank also hopes his side can carry the momentum from their first game into this one. The US have been in excellent form of late, having beaten Canada and Bangladesh in a bilateral T20 International (T20I) series ahead of the marquee event.

"The first game definitely helped us. We got good momentum. We will make sure that we carry forward that momentum in the next game. Pakistan is a good side, is a well-experienced side, and we will make sure that we play the cricket we have been playing," Monank said. 

"Pakistan have good experienced bowlers. We will focus on Mohammad Amir, who is an experienced Pakistani bowler, we will try to tackle him well."

Other than focussing on Amir, the US skipper believes his counterpart Babar Azam's scalp will also be an important scalp. "Babar is a great batsman in all the formats. He is the main player and he is the captain. If he plays long inning, we have seen in the past also. So yeah, his wicket will be really important for us and we all know his stats. He's been very consistent in T20s," he said.

After the Pakistan game, US will take on India in New York on June 12 (Thursday), while Pakistan will take on their arch-rivals India June 9 (Sunday).

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