Chris Jordan took a hat-trick as England cruised into the T20 World Cup semi-finals with a 10-wicket thrashing of the United States in Barbados.
Jordan finished with four for 10 from 2.5 overs and in the process became the first man to take a hat-trick for England in a T20 international.
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His last five balls resulted in four wickets as the US collapsed from 115 for five to 115 all out.
It left England requiring 116 from 18.4 overs to ensure their net run-rate surpassed that of South Africa and guaranteed a last-four spot.
They got there much quicker, requiring 9.4 overs with captain Jos Buttler blasting a brilliant 83 not out from just 38 balls to guide his side home.
Fellow opener Phil Salt contributed a steady 25 from 21 balls as the States failed to make a breakthrough and exited the tournament.
The complete performance. England win by 🔟 wickets! 🥰
WELL PLAYED, LADS! 🏴#ENGLANDCRICKET | #ENGVUSA PIC.TWITTER.COM/LTPOJ2OXH2
— England Cricket (@englandcricket) JUNE 23, 2024
Buttler admitted afterwards that getting to their target as quickly as possible was the aim in the hope it’ll be good enough to finish top of Super Eight Group Two and potentially avoid India in the semis.
He said: “Yeah, it was, absolutely.
“You’ve got to earn the right to start with, to try and get in, and then once we got through a few overs, we were really trying to target the [short] side with the wind.
“We paid the USA a lot of respect but, when we came here, we talked a lot about our intensity. If we could bring that on the field, we thought we’d be too good.”
Buttler reserved special praise for history-maker Jordan, adding: “We wanted to bring CJ back in to add a little bit of depth to the batting line-up as well, with his all-round capabilities, and we know what he’s capable of with the ball.
“He executed fantastically well, and a World Cup hat-trick is a great effort.”
