Jos Buttler’s 83* and Chris Jordan’s hat-trick take England into the semi-finals, beating the USA by 10 wickets

England captain Jos Buttler scored an impressive 83* from 38 balls to secure a convincing 10-wicket win over the USA in the Super Eight match that secured a place in the semi-finals of the 2024 T20 World Cup on Sunday (June 23).

Chasing a modest target of 116, Buttler and Phil Salt needed two overs to understand the conditions before unleashing their true potential.

Just before his half-century, Buttler stepped up a gear and hit five consecutive sixes against Harmeet Singh in the ninth over, taking England to the 100-run mark.

Buttler hit a boundary off Shadley van Schalkwyk’s second over to take the defending champions over the finish line in just 9.4 overs, remaining unbeaten on 83*, peppered with seven sixes and six fours, while Salt scored 25.

Earlier, Chris Jordan took a hat-trick to defeat the USA by 115. Jordan, who replaced Mark Wood in the starting XI, became the first England player to take a hat-trick in a T20 World Cup match. He became the second bowler after Pat Cummins to take a hat-trick in the ongoing tournament. Cummins took two consecutive hat-tricks for Australia in this edition of the T20 World Cup.

The USA were asked to bat first and made a brilliant start to the innings. Reece Topley was able to establish a lead in the first over by taking out the dangerous Andries Gous (8).

Steven Taylor and Nitish Kumar tried to make the most of the powerplay, putting on 34 runs for the second wicket before Sam Curran gave USA their second breakthrough in the sixth over. Taylor left the game after scoring 12 runs off 13 balls. USA were 48/2 after the end of the powerplay.

Nitish too fell victim to Adil Rashid in the 11th over and left the field after scoring 30 runs. Cory Anderson’s retention in the middle gave the team some breathing room as he put on two crucial partnerships of 21 and 27 in the middle overs with Milind Kumar (4) and Harmeet Singh (21) respectively.

However, Liam Livingstone broke the partnership with a scalp of Milind in the 14th over. With the wicket of Harmeet in the 17th over, Curran broke the partnership at the sixth wicket, destroying the USA batting.

For England, Jordan took four wickets, while Curran and Rashid each took two scalps.

Brief results: England 117/0 in 9.4 overs (Jos Buttler 83*, Phil Salt 25*; Nosthush Kejige 0-19) defeated USA 115/10 in 18.5 overs (Nitish Kumar 30, Corey Anderson 29; Chris Jordan 4-10, Adil Rashid 2-13) by 10 wickets.