June 19, 18:19 (IST)
USA vs South Africa live score – Aaron Jones vows USA will continue to play ‘fearless’ cricket
USA batsman Aaron Jones has vowed that the co-hosts will continue to play “fearless” cricket in the Super Eights.
Playing in Group A with India, Pakistan and Ireland, the USA were one of the least likely teams to advance to the next stage, but the newcomers beat Canada and pulled off a stunning upset against Pakistan before qualifying for the next round after a rain-out against Ireland.
“The players are happy, they’re excited to play against the best team in the world. That’s what we wanted to do (go into the match with good spirits). We’ve been talking about it for the last two years and now here we are, we’re just going to enjoy our cricket and like I said (before the first match), we’re always going to play fearless cricket,” Jones told the ICC.
“I think it starts with the belief that we can beat anyone,” Jones said of the team’s mentality.
Ahead of the T20 World Cup, the USA established themselves as a formidable team by defeating Bangladesh 2-1 in the three-match T20I series.
“We played them a few times before the World Cup and everyone knows we beat Bangladesh who are a really strong team to be honest. Even before the World Cup we always believed we could beat bigger teams and better teams and we proved that against Pakistan,” Jones said.
“We’ll go into the Super Eights with the same mindset. We want to play hard cricket and if we win then great, but if we don’t then we’ll learn from it,” Jones said.