The ICC Men's T20 World Cup 2024 kicked off in the Caribbean and the USA with three warm-up matches on Monday, May 27. Canada, Oman and Namibia secured a win in their respective first warm-up matches in the T20 World Cup. Canada kicked it off with an all-round performance against Nepal in Dallas. Nicholas Kirtan and Ravinderpal Singh with crucial contributions helped Canada get to a strong score of 183 runs and then defended it brilliantly by skittling out their opponent for just 120.
Dilon Heyliger was the star of the show with the ball for Canada as he registered figures of 4/20. Kushal Malla's 37 was the highest score by a Nepal batter as the Rohit Paudel-led side suffered a middle-order collapse to go from 59/2 to 120 all out.
In the first game at the Brian Lara Academy in Tarouba, Oman huffed and puffed their way to a 3-wicket win against Papua New Guinea. After a good show with the ball to restrict PNG to just 137, Oman kept losing wickets at regular intervals before Mohammad Nadeem's unbeaten 11-ball 22 took his side home. Zeeshan Maqsood's 45 off 42 helped Oman stem the flow of wickets from one end before Nadeem's cameo finished it off for them.
In the day's final game, Namibia proved too strong for Uganda at the same venue in Tarouba. Namibia first restricted Uganda to a chasable score of 134/8. Even though Namibia too lost a couple of batters for low scores, including skipper Gerhard Erasmus, but a rapid 34-ball fifty from Nikolaas Davin was enough for the African nation to get rid of any nerves in the chase.
Eventually, Namibia chased down the target in 18.5 overs and will be in action once against a depleted Australian team in the second warm-up game. In the other two games on Wednesday, May 28, Sri Lanka play the Netherlands in Florida while the USA play Bangladesh in Dallas.
